Homicides down 40% this month from same month in 2010: Great work DPD Special Ops

[Flintoid]

http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/dpp/news/local/detroit-police-special-ops-taking-back-the-streets-20111116-ms


Great work DPD. These aggressive strategies are controversial, but they are effective. Keep it up!

[canuck]

Let's hope this keeps up. Maybe a little discipline is needed in order to stave off violent crime.

[GoGrixdale]

Glad to see any safety progress. Overall, I agree with this comment:

Charlotte Coachman · Dearborn, MichiganI understand the need for this unit, but they the support of the regular officers. How are you providing protection to those in the community BEFORE a crime happens, ok, what happens after when the crime is being committed and the police response is excessive....Detroit needs to have a concrete plan and stop just going with a procedure that sounds good. Detroit received a million dollar grant to hire officers, but FOX 2 is reporting on the tactical unit, what about asking where those dollars are going and how does DPD handle applicants; I know two guys, who are both college graduates who started the process with DPD months ago, and there has been no follow. CRAZY! don't fool the people of the "D".

I think there should be quantification of what a solid Detroit "Police Force" should look and behave like.

[brizee]

Keep it up.

Grind a little sense into some of these knuckleheads.

Don't break anyone's civil rights.

Just lean on and stretch em a little bit.

[Lowell]

As much as I would like there to be one, there is no scientific statistical correlation between the alleged activities of that unit and the murder rate. Cops busting chops on petty 'broken window' crimes and the murder rate drops 40% over last year for one month? Puh-lease. Show me 40% year-to-year and I stop yawning.

This report is telling me what I want to hear but there is no basis for the association between the activities of 200 cops busting petty offenses and the murder rate dropping. And the report makes no attempt to establish one.

If anything one could argue that they are wasting time that should be spent on the more difficult work of investigating and serving warrants in the huge backload of unsolved murders.

Don't get me wrong. I think petty offenses need to be enforced when possible and I support the police in their efforts, but this is a triage situation and the most flagrant offenses need first attention.

[softailrider]

If this cuts down on the open air drug markets around the city then I'm a believer. Something is way better then nothing.

[canuck]

Maybe the presence of a tactical unit with à la Rambo color coordinated outfits made the lawless shy away from more serious crime for that period, but you are right Lowell, aint no scientific proof so far...

[Meddle]

Less people to kill results in reduced kill rates.

[Road_warrior]

The Broken Window policing model has been around since the 80's. The theory behind it does work. If the Police enforce the small public order crimes, the criminals know they risk investigation on minor stuff. This fear leads to criminals not carrying guns on the street, taking narcotics activity off the corners, less petty crimes because the homeless have been moved along.

What Detroit needs is to lock these folks up on the minor stuff also, but that would overwelm the few beds they have available.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory

[313WX]

I agree with a couple of other posters with regards to their suspicion of these numbers. Only those with an agenda would take it at face value, and there could be only one of two agendas in place. Either this will allow the overtly-optimistic pro-Detroit folks to continue wearing their rose-colored glasses without remorse or this will confirm other people's [[namely suburbanite's) claim that Detroiters are nothing but low-class animals that need to be treated as such [[a la STRESS).

I mean really, these numbers are probably about as accurate as the weekly jobless claims [[not at all), especially when you factor in that in 2010 we were measuring from a population with 200,000 more people versus this year.

So it's no surprise that only Fox 2 reported this story.

[Gannon]

If a 'broken windows' policing policy isn't coupled with a work program where these individuals are taught to FIX windows [[among other things) after cleaning up the mess that has been made...then it will not succeed.


Other broken windows successes were due a strong or strengthening economy so these wayward individuals could be brought back into productive society.


You cannot have one without the other...or at least the one will not be a true success unless we have EMPTY prisons [[excepting those truly bad eggs) and FULL manufacturing and construction and maintenance of the whole. Full employment, near-zero unemployment.


Cheers

[GoGrixdale]

I always like net positive effects [[always!) but, mini episodes of COPS show the tactical flavor of the year. If and when this conflicts with DPD's other, guard the flag play - "Protect Downtown", resources will shift again. Theres got to be a better way.

The new city charter changes the interpretation of "Police Commissioners". My concern is how citizens will interpret bona fide.

I've seen Warren Evans' face in the media lately, is he being media-vetted?

[Gannon]

Grixdale,

That may be near-sighted...statistics always tell the story of their interpreter, so numbers CAN lie. They can be distorted to hide the truth. OR, the data-gatherer may be too focused.

Like the promises made for the camera systems...they claim big reductions in gunshot crime...but it just moves to a non-surveilled area. There is no real reduction.

With THIS?

Well, I know one fellow whose son has learned to take the easy money route. The gas station on the corner is a place where he can make a minimum of fifty quick bucks per day, and nobody hassles him about his race or his choice of clothing. His customers are always glad to see him.

He's been busted three times now. I don't think they've ever actually gotten him on peddling nickel and dime bags...it has been for loitering. But when he goes before a judge, there is an unspoken understanding why he is there. He's gotten a good deal of what some may consider grace from the system.

He has tried to get legitimate employment. He is one of the many who are over-looked and/or abused. He sees his cousin, who has largely kept away from the street, get job after job in the construction business...where employers hire those of color ONLY to meet minimum hiring requirements...but these young men only get the shit jobs and are uncerimoniously fired immediately, once the mess is cleaned up and the lily-white tradesmen can come in from the suburbs and do the good-paying work that is boastable.

Breaking into a trade...electrician, plumber, pipe-fitter, rough and finish carpentry, and even drywall installation...is not easy for anyone living in the city wanting to improve themselves. There is an old-boy network that encourages nepotism, and if you're not family and devoid of interesting pigmentation...you're not easily getting into any of the big unions.


I am quite happy that I don't watch television, if I saw Warren Evans on it, I might projectile-vomit. Feelin' queasy just thinking about it. He is one of the trouble-makers...of that I have little doubt.


Sincerely,
John

[Dexlin]

Any uncommitted and/or halted murder is a good thing, but Lowell kind of hit this over the head. You can barely make trends year-to-year since homicide is so fluid, let alone have proof of anything from a single month unless a police department just totally shutsdown a city, one month, which doesn't appear to have happened. Not only that, but homicides are still up double-digits, year-to-date.

Truth be told, police too often get too much credit when crime is down, and too much blame when crime is up when the truth many more factors have greater impacts on crime. Law enforcement, by its very nature, is a reactive profession for a lot of crimes. Now, policing factors more into stats in a city that's already relatively safe, but Detroit's crime problem is so entrenched and the officer ranks so strained and so low, I highly doubt they have much of an effect on crime in the city. There are areas cops literally don't even go out to, anymore, unless you have a murder or serious injury, and even then it takes them tens-of-minutes to get to these wasteland areas.

Good on DPD for celebrating any kind of decline, but I think most folks know to take this with a grain of salt, and know that the cops are outmanned, outgunned, and pyschologically beaten down. Sort of young men en masse rejecting the allure of the drug trade [[something out of law enforcements hands, mostly), the only other fight on which they can fight is to keep the drugs out of the city to begin with. Not only is that not possible since you have a local law enforcement agency trying to fight and internal trade, but if you choke off the supply, you only make the drugs more dangerous and thus more valuable, and that's only going to cause even more extreme murders.

Sigh. This entire thing is an intractable problem, and one even a fully staffed DPD would have a hard time shutting down. The only real hope is a revival of the local, and I mean really local city economy that would act as competition against the drug trade, and there are so many global forces working against Detroit proper [[and sadly and ironically working for the drug trade), I'm not sure where the hope is.

[Gannon]

Kinda like how the city was back in the early seventies, before the oil embargo?

We were booming then.


Of course, the problem back then...thanks to the avenues opened up with our fake-ass war action in Vietnam...was heroin.


And the Tenth Precinct's narcotics division was completely corrupted and actually raided by the Feds?!


Or are we still trying to forget that event and time frame?


Legalize all drugs. Teach individuals what their tolerance levels are...treat those who cannot contain themselves. Let those who cannot learn the hard way, but give them more chances than merely shunning them and locking 'em up.

THAT is the solution to your 'intractable problem'.


Sincerely,
John

[Scottathew]

This is how it all starts, with small steps.

Crime is Detroit's number one problem, and it's nice to see some progress made on it.

[Occurrence]

I think the police should use their resources to bust medical pot users intend of wasting time solving murder cases.

[GoGrixdale]

Gannon,

Trust me I agree.

My comment was in awe of how the role of Police Commissioner has been, and may continue to be, useless as tits on a bull.

The adopted charter has made it very clear that "investigative experience" is a job requirement. Now I assume that requirement is enforceable for mayoral appointees only but if Warren's name is ever thrown into the ring we all know he's almost a shoe in. If not from a desperate mayor then from a voting public known to have made worse decisions.

In this and the 16 cop walkout thread my contribution is that a functional Police Force requires more than a competent mayor and chief of police. It requires more than equipment and union concessions. It requires a plan devised beyond the next headline. I dont think we get there without competent commissioners.

Without doubt there are areas that rarely see a squad car. The 12th precinct is about 1/4 mile from my front door and I see 1 DPD squad car to every 4 from HP, on woodward. I've seen a black tactical only twice in 3 years. True, I have more to do than watch for squad cars all day but I still find it odd that when I do see them, the're dark blue. In contrast, my Ex has a house in University and and I see a car on her block once a week.

I'll wait for your thread on "hiring people of color to satisfy city requirements" before I rant about how disheartening it is to see the lone black guy holding the SLOW/STOP sign on road projects.