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Monday, October 08, 2012
Interim IMPD Chief Claims Crime Is Down
You have to listen to it to believe it. Interim IMPD Chief Rick Hite would have Indianapolis residents believe that crime in the city is going down after spiking up at the beginning of the year, which he credits to zone policing. Under zone policing, the department deploys large numbers of police officers to areas experiencing the most crime, while leaving vast areas of the city with few or no cops at all working a regular beat. Some councilors and community activists complain that the response time it takes to get police to respond to reports of crime in their neighborhoods is too long. Hite defended a letter of recommendation that he wrote to a judge on behalf of an ex-sex offender, Byron Alston, for an alleged probation violation, and which drew fire from critics because of an apparent violation of department rules. Hite claimed that he was simply offering support to the work of Alston's organization, the Ten Point Coalition, and not to Alston personally. On that attack of a senior citizen last week on the Monon Trail, Hite wants you to know that it's the Department of Homeland Security's responsibility and not IMPD's responsibility to maintain those surveillance cameras on the Monon Trail that were found not to be operating. Click here to listen to Amos Brown's interview with Hite.
Crime down? -I dare refer people to the "Frank Straub Method" of crime stats: http://schoolcraftjustice.com/SchoolcraftAmended.pdf
ReplyDeleteThe "Zone Policing" is a step backward in time, back to the days where the County Sheriff was "The Law." He and his deputy stayed in the town of the county and would take a drive out to the other places after the crime occurred when a call had come in. Bottom line, it's been many years since the State of Indiana realized that urban areas need police and the "County Sheriff" or "Zone" system doesn't work in the urban areas. Urban areas need police who know the neighborhood and the dynamics of what goes on. A county sheriff simply cannot provide it...thus, cities were granted police forces. "Zone Policing" is a failure here and just does not work.
When a "police chief" writes a letter of recommendation for a habitual sex offender's probation violation, without any regard to the victims, there is a problem with that "police chief" vision and perspective so much so that continuation in the position of police chief is ineffective and demoralizing to the force and the community. -It's time to go. There is no rationalizing.
It may be the "Homeland Security" that monitors/maintains the cameras, but it was Frank Straub who didn't renew the maintenance contracts and left the budget in the red. Who allowed Frank Straub to do that, Mayor???