Friday, October 19, 2012

Cops Shift Focus On 911 Calls

City's broke, the cops are short about 3,000 officers, and the murder rate and the gangs are out of control.   So there's going to be a change in how the cops respond to 911 calls, and you'll notice it if you're a crime victim:
“The effort is to put police officers on crimes — preferably crimes in progress or to prevent crimes — rather than tying them up with administrative duties,” [Gary Schenkel, executive director of the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications] told aldermen during City Council budget hearings.

“The intention is to shift those administrative duties as much as possible to officers on the phone who can take reports and provide a police report number for the individual calling,” Schenkel said. “That’s a very delicate balancing act because, when somebody calls the police, it’s not because they’re happy normally. They’re scared. Their thinking may or may not be real clear. So, we have to be very careful, very explicit and we have to ensure there is public as well as aldermanic buy-in.” [...]


“If you park your car on the street, somebody breaks in and your laptop you’ve left on the seat is gone, that’s a perfect example,” he said.

“You’re probably not gonna get that laptop back immediately. The offender is gone. There’s no imminent threat to life. And the individual may need a police report number to report to their insurance company.”

Thomas said the revolutionary change in dispatch policy “makes sense,” but it won’t be an easy sell.

“If someone broke in my house and, when I get home and it’s in disarray, I call the police. The robbers are long gone. [But], a lot of people, because of the police shows on TV, want the police to come out to take fingerprints [even though] generally by that time, all you’re doing is getting a report,” Thomas said.
The entire article is in the Sun-Times. What do you think?

8 comments:

  1. If this means when I call 911 to report that someone is actively trying to break into cars on my street, the cops actually show up, then I'm all for it.

    The problem I foresee is if someone reports a crime potential/about to happen, and there's no police response. We need to be focusing equally on preventing as well as apprehending.

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  2. This just gives robbers more time to do their job knowing police won't hurry to get there.

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  3. This might make the burglary profession an attractive field. If no one reports the crime in progress, the homeowner would only expect to get a police report over the phone. All the homeowner could then do is to file the report with their insurance company.

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  4. The Department's thousands of officers below full strength, and cops aren't getting any cheaper -- let's maximize the amount of time they're available for preventing and stopping crimes.

    Getting to hang up on the "my kids are fighting over the tv remote" calls is merely a nice side benefit.

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  5. This is one good reason to have your FOI card, firearm registration in order and a nice big firearm in your pocession to protect yourself and your family until the police can get around to come and help you.

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  6. "This just gives robbers more time to do their job knowing police won't hurry to get there."

    No, not really. If there is a robbery in progress, the police will still respond. Read the whole thing.

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  7. "This is one good reason to have your FOI [sic] card, firearm registration in order and a nice big firearm in your pocession to protect yourself and your family until the police can get around to come and help you."

    Not sure what this has to do with coming home after a burglary. What are you going to do? Shot some fingerprints?

    I agree with the new policy. (It actually is not new, but I digress....)

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  8. Nickey, you seem to believe that if all us tax paying citizens carried guns this city would have no crime? I believe in London the police only carry batons & they have very little violent crime.

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