Indianapolis IN July 10 2013 On Monday morning, city leaders unveiled a three-tiered plan to maintain police patrols over the coming years.
Then afternoon gun violence left another resident dead. For critics of the city’s commitment to law enforcement staffing, the body of the 16-year-old was more evidence that not enough is being done.
![Indianapolis Director of Public Safety Troy Riggs along with Mayor Ballard and IMPD Chief Rick Hite talk about the city's plan to put more police officers on the streets.]()
The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department will reassign 116 officers within the next few weeks to beat patrols; hire two classes of at least 50 cadets each in the next three years; and employ 45 civilians to assume some duties that do not require police training, freeing up officers for street duty.
Mayor Greg Ballard said the efforts will keep the streets safe in a year that has seen a steep increase in homicides.
“This plan will help lower crime in our neighborhoods,” Ballard said. “It will put more police where we need them ... and does so in a fiscally responsible way, meaning we already know how to pay for it.”
Department of Public Safety Director Troy Riggs cautioned, though, that the strategies are not a cure-all for the department’s officer shortage but rather a means to keep up with retirements and other officers leaving the force.
“Let me be clear: This does not increase the number of police officers,” Riggs said. “It keeps it stable for three years out.”
The number of officers cruising a beat and responding to 911 calls will increase by 116 in a few weeks and by 156 by the end of next year through reassignments. Officers to be reassigned include a captain, lieutenants, sergeants and patrol officers. They will focus on the most dangerous pockets in neighborhoods.
Some officers will be pulled off desk jobs, but many already are working out in the community. Ninety-one are neighborhood resource officers who are on the streets working special projects, such as domestic violence prevention.
That provoked skepticism among some community leaders, City-County Council members and the police officers union on a day when a 16-year-old boy was fatally shot at Hawthorne Place Apartments near East 32nd Street and North Emerson Avenue in the middle of the afternoon. Marion County this year already has seen the most homicides since 2006.
“The mayor’s solution is a shell game that fails to add needed officers and actually takes away an important resource: the neighborhood resource officer,” Democratic council President Maggie Lewis said in a prepared statement. “NROs are important partners to neighborhoods who have collaborated and relied on them for improved public safety.”
Rachel Cooper, president of the Southeast Community Organization, said such a move would make her neighborhood less safe.
“They took out all the preventive policing and have told those officers they will just go from run to run to run,” Cooper, 64, said. “The NROS are the ones we worked with to close drug houses and get gang-bangers out of the neighborhood. I have never felt so insecure in my neighborhood as I do now.”
Republican Councilman Robert Lutz said the impending shortage should have been addressed sooner.
“It is like we are driving 90 miles an hour toward a cliff we saw coming and now we are surprised we’re almost there,” Lutz said.
“This has now come down to matter of safety, not only for citizens but for guys and gals on the department. They better hurry up with some recruit classes or we will be down to 500 officers soon.”
A Department of Public Safety task force charged with reviewing how police personnel are allocated noted in an earlier report that IMPD has 1.7 officers per 1,000 people while the national average is 2.5. The task force said that IMPD would need to hire 685 officers to reach the national average of other departments for officers per population.
“We are quickly approaching a looming cliff regarding our staffing shortages,” said William Owensby, president of the FOP. “We have consistently demonstrated by all measures and various formulas the IMPD is short at least 450 police officers, even by conservative calculations, and others acknowledge we are closer to 700 officers short.”
“There has been no proactive plan to turn these numbers around by actually increasing the total number of police officers on the department,” he said. “Instead, our ranks have been left to dwindle through ongoing attrition.”
Although IMPD’s officer-population ratio has been lower than that of other cities for years, policing experts warn against putting too much meaning into ratios. Cities have different manpower needs based on geography, demographics and other complex factors.
Ballard said the problem of hiring the desired number of officers “is decades old” in Indianapolis. He said the problem now is worsened by a a sour economy and “you have to adjust to the budget.”
When asked if the city had the number of officers it needs, Ballard replied, “We have the number we can afford.”
The mayor noted that 92 percent of the city budget goes to the Department of Public Safety, which includes police and fire.
“That is a huge number, and it shows our commitment,” Ballard said.
While redeployment of the officers had been expected for months, the announcement of recruiting classes was unexpected.
One reason was that Ballard recently vetoed an ordinance drafted by Democrats to use $6 million in street repair funds to pay for a recruitment class of 60 officers. At Monday night’s council meeting, an override vote failed.
It garnered 16 votes, but 20 are needed on the 29-member council to overturn a veto. Nine members voted no, and four were absent. The yes votes were divided between 12 Democrats and four of Ballard’s fellow Republicans.
Last month, the proposal had passed the Democratic-majority council 15-10.
Ballard opposes the council plan because it would use a one-time sum to fund an ongoing expense.
Rather, he stressed the approach unveiled Monday.
“This is the way to do it,” Ballard said.
In addition to the job reassignments, the Department of Public Safety will fund two classes of recruits in the next three years. Each class will be at least 50 officers and will cost an estimated $5.3 million, DPS Deputy Director Valerie Washington said.
Furthermore, DPS plans to hire 45 civilians by the end of 2014 to free up officers for street duty, Washington said. The civilian jobs will be as accident investigators, evidence technicians and other tasks that do not require police training.
Ten civilians will be hired by the end of this year, and 35 will be hired next year.
The cost of hiring the civilians is estimated at $2.7 million.
The new hires would be paid by DPS through savings accumulated by officers leaving.
Riggs said hiring civilians to do some police chores is a low-cost way to get the most out of the officers.
The price tag to hire one officer is $119,000. It costs $62,000 to hire a civilian.
Source- IndyStar.com
Then afternoon gun violence left another resident dead. For critics of the city’s commitment to law enforcement staffing, the body of the 16-year-old was more evidence that not enough is being done.
Mayor Greg Ballard said the efforts will keep the streets safe in a year that has seen a steep increase in homicides.
“This plan will help lower crime in our neighborhoods,” Ballard said. “It will put more police where we need them ... and does so in a fiscally responsible way, meaning we already know how to pay for it.”
Department of Public Safety Director Troy Riggs cautioned, though, that the strategies are not a cure-all for the department’s officer shortage but rather a means to keep up with retirements and other officers leaving the force.
“Let me be clear: This does not increase the number of police officers,” Riggs said. “It keeps it stable for three years out.”
The number of officers cruising a beat and responding to 911 calls will increase by 116 in a few weeks and by 156 by the end of next year through reassignments. Officers to be reassigned include a captain, lieutenants, sergeants and patrol officers. They will focus on the most dangerous pockets in neighborhoods.
Some officers will be pulled off desk jobs, but many already are working out in the community. Ninety-one are neighborhood resource officers who are on the streets working special projects, such as domestic violence prevention.
That provoked skepticism among some community leaders, City-County Council members and the police officers union on a day when a 16-year-old boy was fatally shot at Hawthorne Place Apartments near East 32nd Street and North Emerson Avenue in the middle of the afternoon. Marion County this year already has seen the most homicides since 2006.
“The mayor’s solution is a shell game that fails to add needed officers and actually takes away an important resource: the neighborhood resource officer,” Democratic council President Maggie Lewis said in a prepared statement. “NROs are important partners to neighborhoods who have collaborated and relied on them for improved public safety.”
Rachel Cooper, president of the Southeast Community Organization, said such a move would make her neighborhood less safe.
“They took out all the preventive policing and have told those officers they will just go from run to run to run,” Cooper, 64, said. “The NROS are the ones we worked with to close drug houses and get gang-bangers out of the neighborhood. I have never felt so insecure in my neighborhood as I do now.”
Republican Councilman Robert Lutz said the impending shortage should have been addressed sooner.
“It is like we are driving 90 miles an hour toward a cliff we saw coming and now we are surprised we’re almost there,” Lutz said.
“This has now come down to matter of safety, not only for citizens but for guys and gals on the department. They better hurry up with some recruit classes or we will be down to 500 officers soon.”
A Department of Public Safety task force charged with reviewing how police personnel are allocated noted in an earlier report that IMPD has 1.7 officers per 1,000 people while the national average is 2.5. The task force said that IMPD would need to hire 685 officers to reach the national average of other departments for officers per population.
“We are quickly approaching a looming cliff regarding our staffing shortages,” said William Owensby, president of the FOP. “We have consistently demonstrated by all measures and various formulas the IMPD is short at least 450 police officers, even by conservative calculations, and others acknowledge we are closer to 700 officers short.”
“There has been no proactive plan to turn these numbers around by actually increasing the total number of police officers on the department,” he said. “Instead, our ranks have been left to dwindle through ongoing attrition.”
Although IMPD’s officer-population ratio has been lower than that of other cities for years, policing experts warn against putting too much meaning into ratios. Cities have different manpower needs based on geography, demographics and other complex factors.
Ballard said the problem of hiring the desired number of officers “is decades old” in Indianapolis. He said the problem now is worsened by a a sour economy and “you have to adjust to the budget.”
When asked if the city had the number of officers it needs, Ballard replied, “We have the number we can afford.”
The mayor noted that 92 percent of the city budget goes to the Department of Public Safety, which includes police and fire.
“That is a huge number, and it shows our commitment,” Ballard said.
While redeployment of the officers had been expected for months, the announcement of recruiting classes was unexpected.
One reason was that Ballard recently vetoed an ordinance drafted by Democrats to use $6 million in street repair funds to pay for a recruitment class of 60 officers. At Monday night’s council meeting, an override vote failed.
It garnered 16 votes, but 20 are needed on the 29-member council to overturn a veto. Nine members voted no, and four were absent. The yes votes were divided between 12 Democrats and four of Ballard’s fellow Republicans.
Last month, the proposal had passed the Democratic-majority council 15-10.
Ballard opposes the council plan because it would use a one-time sum to fund an ongoing expense.
Rather, he stressed the approach unveiled Monday.
“This is the way to do it,” Ballard said.
In addition to the job reassignments, the Department of Public Safety will fund two classes of recruits in the next three years. Each class will be at least 50 officers and will cost an estimated $5.3 million, DPS Deputy Director Valerie Washington said.
Furthermore, DPS plans to hire 45 civilians by the end of 2014 to free up officers for street duty, Washington said. The civilian jobs will be as accident investigators, evidence technicians and other tasks that do not require police training.
Ten civilians will be hired by the end of this year, and 35 will be hired next year.
The cost of hiring the civilians is estimated at $2.7 million.
The new hires would be paid by DPS through savings accumulated by officers leaving.
Riggs said hiring civilians to do some police chores is a low-cost way to get the most out of the officers.
The price tag to hire one officer is $119,000. It costs $62,000 to hire a civilian.
Source- IndyStar.com