Can't We All Just Get Along?
Patrick is extremely passionate about the Samuel McClain mob beating story. I don't want to steal any of his thunder, so I'll be watching his blog as the story develops. There is something that I'd like to say about police responsibility, though. I don't think I'll be talking over Patrick by expressing my thoughts on this.
The police department in Milwaukee does not impress me in the least. The MPD does not generally respond well to non-emergency calls. While I can't fault them for prioritizing, it doesn't build confidence within the community. When police are proactively cruising the streets, crimes like this are less common. We need the police to be able to respond to non-emergency calls as much as we need them when bad things happen. People need to feel that they are truly being served by the police department, or they won't cooperate with officers.
Let's give the MPD the benefit of a doubt (or turn their default excuse back around on them), and assume that they're overburdened. So what? I grew up in the suburbs, and I know that there are plenty of police resources in the region that could probably lend a hand. Why do the borders between police precincts need to be so rigid? Of course, the reason police don't cross boundaries is purely political: who commands who, and who pays who. Is that efficient?
To borrow a page from the mayor's handbook, Milwaukee is a metropolitan region. Wouldn't it be nice if I could expect a similar level of service at work, where I spend at least 23.8% of my time, as I do in my own home? Obviously, when we spend our tax dollars on police we expect them to be available in their home precinct. Does that mean we want them sitting around until something happens? I'm imagining that there could be some type of regional arrangement, where patrols cross over into neighboring districts. They could be the preventive presence that's needed on the streets. This frees up resources for the home precinct to deal with citizen's calls.
Ok, so I'm sounding a little like a liberal on this one and there are plenty of bureaucratic hurdles to overcome. But, it makes sense doesn't it? Maybe it would sound more conservative if I proposed a regional, privatized police force. We all resent the abundant traffic duty in the suburbs, and the residents in the city don't feel protected. The current paradigm seems highly ineffective. Can't we all just get along?
The police department in Milwaukee does not impress me in the least. The MPD does not generally respond well to non-emergency calls. While I can't fault them for prioritizing, it doesn't build confidence within the community. When police are proactively cruising the streets, crimes like this are less common. We need the police to be able to respond to non-emergency calls as much as we need them when bad things happen. People need to feel that they are truly being served by the police department, or they won't cooperate with officers.
Let's give the MPD the benefit of a doubt (or turn their default excuse back around on them), and assume that they're overburdened. So what? I grew up in the suburbs, and I know that there are plenty of police resources in the region that could probably lend a hand. Why do the borders between police precincts need to be so rigid? Of course, the reason police don't cross boundaries is purely political: who commands who, and who pays who. Is that efficient?
To borrow a page from the mayor's handbook, Milwaukee is a metropolitan region. Wouldn't it be nice if I could expect a similar level of service at work, where I spend at least 23.8% of my time, as I do in my own home? Obviously, when we spend our tax dollars on police we expect them to be available in their home precinct. Does that mean we want them sitting around until something happens? I'm imagining that there could be some type of regional arrangement, where patrols cross over into neighboring districts. They could be the preventive presence that's needed on the streets. This frees up resources for the home precinct to deal with citizen's calls.
Ok, so I'm sounding a little like a liberal on this one and there are plenty of bureaucratic hurdles to overcome. But, it makes sense doesn't it? Maybe it would sound more conservative if I proposed a regional, privatized police force. We all resent the abundant traffic duty in the suburbs, and the residents in the city don't feel protected. The current paradigm seems highly ineffective. Can't we all just get along?
2 Amendments:
Yeah, I am passionate about this, I live here. I grew up blocks from where this and several other high profile murders have taken place in recent months, I work all through that area every day. I live just west of this area now, but drive through there every day. About a week ago, just days before this incident, I stopped at the KFC on 38 & Hampton, two blocks from the beating. I don't want my neighborhood to be like this!
I think you are to hard on the police, I am not going to say they are perfect, but when people in the neighborhood admit to the paper that they never considered calling police as the beating was going on, and many are still refusing to cooperate, you can't blame police for not doing their job. Without support from the citizens that live there, police can only do so much.
You said:
I grew up in the suburbs, and I know that there are plenty of police resources in the region that could probably lend a hand. Why do the borders between police precincts need to be so rigid? Of course, the reason police don't cross boundaries is purely political: who commands who, and who pays who. Is that efficient?
I think there are several reasons why suburban departments don't come into Milwaukee, first, there aren't many suburban departments close enough to help. Also, suburbs don't have the detailed knowledge of the streets, alleys etc. They are also on a deferent radio frequency, so communications would be a mess. I would imagine there would be a liability concern too, most cities are self insured.
I do admit that there are turf battles that go on. You can see how this happened when Sheriff Clarke started assigning deputies to patrol the streets.
Police within the city do cross district lines regularly, but when less active districts are shorthanded because officers are saturating high crime areas, those in the less active districts raise holy hell. Can you imagine the cry that would come the suburbs if their cops were patrolling Milwaukee streets? You folks in the suburbs would scream bloody murder if your tax dollars were spent "on a Milwaukee problem".
In a perfect world, the police would be moved to where they are needed most, but the fact is, Milwaukee doesn't have enough police, many start here then move to the suburbs where they don't have to deal with what Milwaukee police do. It is an often thankless, dangerous job that few of us would want to do.
I said it would be difficult. You listed all the reasons I was thinking of. I think it's partly by design that some of these barriers exist.
One thing I had in mind as I wrote the blog: I've been told of cops that get overtime, and don't have to spend it working. It makes sense that the OT cop has nothing do do. Everyone they need should already be scheduled. This is wasting tax money unless something blows up.
We could make cops work for their OT pay (like normal people), by sending them to fill in at overburdened precincts. At least this would cut down on the number of officers abusing OT.
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