I Hope this was Just the First Meeting and Not the Last, but .....
Posted in Greensboro City Council
Dec. 12, 2007 at 11:22
by BrendaBee
As is usual Joe GuarinoGuarino has given the best analysis of the meeting the City Council held on crime with the GPD. I have only a few things to add. (You didn't expect otherwise from me did you?!?)I was happy MathenyMatheny speak up and suggest an outside observer look at the efficiency in the police department, and Chief Bellamy was not happy. I also noticed how the proposal just lay there until someone quietly and quickly kicked it under the table. I am sorry to say that I bMathenyMatheny is the type of person who won’t make that kind of mistake again. The “old gang” set him straight on its goal to keep hands off the police department now that it is in the hands of the criminals and incompetents.
Again Mike Barber called for some sanity in 1) having the City Manager identify where he was going to get $500,000 when the city has been crying poor mouth and tight budget, and 2) have the police department identify exactly what they would do with the money if they got it. So I was sorry to see the funding voted for and approved right now on the spot. Robbie Perkins in his insistence on this seems to be right at the top of his form and in conformance with what I have read about him. Spend the money and to Hell with the tax payers.
It was a good BEGINNING meeting on the issue of crime and I hope the council treats it as a beginning only. I somehow think however that there are too many who feel the money has been passed out so now let’s get on with the rape of the rest of Greensboro.
There were several questions that were not asked and I had hoped they would be as I consider them vital to the question of crime and crime prevention in our city. Perhaps this is only the first meeting and they will be asked later. The pertinent questions in my opinion had to do with use of available personnel in the prevention of crime.
It is pretty evident that if we had a police officer on every corner 24/7 then we wouldn't have the crime that we have. But we don't have anywhere near the number of police we need for a city of this size. Wray said in 2003 that 200 more police officers were needed than the city had or that it appeared the city was going to provide the funding to hire, and therefore he was forced to implement programs that would make the best use of the police officers and resources available. That was the primary reason he felt he had to set up the rotating shift program that was so unpopular. A program I feel very important to the overall efficiency and ability to fight crime in the city. Because the rotation shifts scheduling forces the older more experienced police officers to take their turn working evenings and nights when the crimes are likely to happen.
Cara Michele disagrees with me and my outcome on my previous blog post when she pointed out some pertinent facts on her blog. I agreed with her and realize the federal government was involved in Greensboro in 2004, at Wray's request I might add, and that might have had something to do with the very dramatic drop in homicides (15). However I believe even without the feds there would have been a significant drop due to better use of the personnel available. I mean the feds were here but not out on the streets and the drop was from an average yearly rate of 30+ to just 15 in one year. That is a huge jump down to give credit to just one small factor like an FBI office in town investigating drugs and nothing else.
The reason for the big drop in crime in 2003 was the experienced officers on the streets when crimes are more likely to take place. And I still maintain that only the rookies are assigned evening and night shifts and that is when the experienced older officers are needed on the streets. I was hoping someone on the city council would bring this up today and ask for a roll of those who were on duty when the crimes took place and their time in service. But no one mentioned this.
Wray went in as Chief of Police in the summer of 2003 and started new programs to better use the personnel including rotating shifts; 2004 saw a drop in crime and a dramatic drop in homicides up to the fall of 2005 when the most homicides for that year took place and at a time when Wray was being harassed and undermined from the Black police officers union as well as Mitch Johnson at every turn and every move he made.
I quite agree that steady shifts are much preferable working conditions for people, but as hospitals have proven they can only get good experienced people to work the later shifts by enforcing the rotation system. I sincerely hope someone on our council does a comparison of just who worked with how much experience during these times when people were shooting each other down in our streets these past two week ends.
It is not my idea to make life hard for policemen because Lord knows they need every break they can get, it is just that since the GPD is undermanned it is necessary to make the best possible use of personnel and I don't think this is being done and it shows up in the crime rate rising. This is what I believe Matheny was alluding too and wanted to look into, but the council is just so set in gulping what they are told as gospel. Mike Barber also tried to put the brakes on and get a few more specific answers from both the city manager and the police chief but again the city council mowed him down.
I can only hope some of the more sane council members Rakestraw. Wade and Matheny, possibly Anderson-Groat and Barber) get together before a meeting and get set in their heads what they as a group want to accomplish before they get mowed down by Perkins and the PAC again. I don't think tax payers are going to be happy about this meeting and the outcome. As it turned out to be just another, "well let's throw money at it" deal.
The officers who spoke yesterday mentioned many different programs and initiatives they were using to fight crime. A significant number of these programs were started by David Wray. Several stated "were begun in 2004" so I went back and looked them up. And if they were not initiated by Wray then he expanded the programs.
Capt. Hastings was no help at all with his, 'well you know we can't really do a whole lot about crime.' I wonder why this man is in law enforcement in the first place , and now holds such a high position on the GPD. This is probably what you get when you have to scrap the bottom, but even then it is scary to have a high ranking police officer admit the police are helpless. Makes one wonder how pervasive this attitude is in the department.
(I apologize I made a mistake here: it is not Cuthbertson but Capt. John Wolfe who spoke on gangs and several of you have corrected me. Cuthbertson does have much to do with gangs and I had forgotten that he is black so this could not possibly be Cuthbertson. I was rather angry at the end of the video when I was writing this.)
Capt. John Wolfe was the most knowledgeable speaker I felt. He points out that many gangs are migrating to North Carolina and to Greensboro in particular because we are one of the states which doesn’t have strong gang laws.
Bellamy-Small as usual brought up racial profiling. And wanted to know just what is being done not to profile minorities. Tho it is admitted that 90% of gang membership are minorities. Wolfe, a White officer pointed out that the main thrust is gang membership prevention or intervention so it shouldn't matter what race they are. It was Chief Bellamy a Black man who pointed out that the facts are 90% of gang members are minorities and the sooner the community accepts that fact the sooner something can be done to help these minority kids. But as long as we refuse to see the issue clearly then we were not going to make progress and any minority kids arrested for gang activity is going to bring out the cries of "racial profiling".
Chief Bellamy also made clear that juvenile laws in North Carolina need worked on: Juveniles are not held. Regional Juvenile Detection Center has only 48 beds. They are caught and released back to their family. Police are therefore stymied in what they can do about juvenile crime; gang crime is mostly juvenile crime. The fact is 90% of gang members are minorities but Chief Bellamy claims that when the police arrest them the community claims it is racial profiling. Mike Barber wants to know who is saying this and how we can let them know that it is not racial profiling, but we have an obligation to get the juvenile criminals out of the schools and off of the streets.
As I said, I hope sincerely this is just a beginning and not an end but am not holding my breath. BB
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Dec. 12, 2007 - Untitled Comment
"I can only hope some of the more sane council members (Wade, Rakestraw, Barber, perhaps Anderson-Groat and Matheny) get together outside of a meeting and get set in their heads what they as a group want to accomplish before they get mowed down by Perkins and the PAC. "Someone can correct me, but I think that would be a violation of the open meeting law.
Posted by Anonymous
Dec. 12, 2007 - Untitled Comment
Yes, it would be , but that certainly hasn't stopped it from happening in the past nor will it stop it in the future. I don't suggest they decided policy, but just generally try to understand just where the others stand on a few things. For instance, I don't think some on the council understood what Matheny was suggesting when he suggested perhaps a fourth party could come in a look at the police department ans see places for improvements that those on top of the situation are over looking. This is something that companies do all the time to improve efficiency. And of course it simply died. Matheny then backed off rather than explain himself further or insist on this. It is in my opinion needed. In fact, all the city departments could use a fourth party look see and evaluation IMO. BBPosted by BrendaFayBowers
Dec. 12, 2007 - Untitled Comment
Cuthbertson is African American.Ryan
Posted by Anonymous
