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City of Flint Dot Net |
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To: Flint City Council, Mayor Don Williamson, Flint Police Chief, Ombudsman From: Ted Jankowski Date: Monday, June 12, 2006 Subject: CRIME IN FLINT I’ve become thoroughly disgusted with the way this problem has been handled. First of all, it is being completely ignored. The Mayor in his 2006 State of the city address announced “IN 2005, WE SAW MAJOR CRIME REDUCED. THE RATE OF CRIME ALSO WAS REDUCED. AND WE SOLVED MORE CRIMES IN 2005.” According to the City Attorney’s office, the only statistics available, to draw any conclusions, as to whether crime is going up or down, have been posted on the City of Flint Website. Which according to the City’s numbers, crime went up 12 percent in 2005. This follows the only other major crime increase in ten years. That was the 17 percent increase in crime in 2004. I know I don’t speak for only myself, when I say. That isn’t leadership! Denying, or just flat out lying about the status of crime in Flint, is not integrity. If the Mayor doesn’t consider crime to be a problem, how could he even begin to solve, the problem? Then we have the City Council’s position. Create a group or “task force” to look into the problem, and present some solutions. So far? Response from this group has been severely lacking. However, It’s not like we are paying them to do it. What I do not understand is why the council, cannot do any of their own research, or ask questions? The problem seems crystal clear to me. Lack of leadership, Lack of accountability, and just plain lack of doing the bare minimum of police work. Then to hear council members speak out, at council meetings, about how the “police are doing a fine job”. What city are you living in? How can any council member living in Flint, remotely think that? I know that one council member, recently waited over an hour for police to show up. She was surprised, when they finally showed up, by their serious lack of concern. They didn’t even really want to get out of their car to make sure everything as alright. Yet, “police are doing a fine job?” From the models, from other cities, it is evident.. Until Flint Michigan, finally, takes the problem seriously enough to act. Which is to hold officers accountable for their actions. Until, Crime drops, close to, or lower, then the National Average. The Economy in Flint will grow. Jobs will return. Poverty and Unemployment will fall. But, there will be no real economic growth or development until this problem is solved. And so far. We have a long way to go. Just to get back down to the crime numbers of three years ago. Crime has increased 30 percent in the last two years. The first rise in crime in over ten years. What type of leadership is that called? I’ve been collecting information for months now in an attempt to look into this problem myself. The obvious conclusions I’m reaching are sad at best. I’ve heard all the excuses. High unemployment, High Poverty, Not enough officers, Officers do not have a contract, Don’t Snitch T-Shirts, Watching Scarface Movies, and attitude of unwillingness on the part of citizens, or even liquor stores. Not one of those excuses has any document able evidence to prove they even affect crime one way or another. Now the fact the city jail and county jail do not have enough room. Has lead to the release of criminals back on to the street to continue to commit other crimes. This at least has some validity. It is demoralizing and even depressing, for officers to arrest a criminal and the criminal be back out on the street before they even finish their paper work to arrest them. But, where is the leadership? Leadership provides for Moral and Discipline. It shouldn’t matter how many criminals are let back out on the street after police arrest them. It’s the leadership that provides the backbone that motivates people to do their jobs. The most frustrating thing I keep hearing from our elected leaders is that Flint needs more officers. Yet, you give no reasons as to why more officers are needed. Except to say, Crime is high. Do any of you actually know how much the average officer has to do in a day? I’ve not once heard anyone mention that police officers received more calls than they can handle. Only that Crime is high. I suspect this is an attempt to not have to lie about the facts. No one really wants to lie to people. So if we say we need more officers because crime is high. No one would argue that. No one, but those who actually want the problem identified and solved. I have pulled all the pertinent information available about the Flint Police Dept, along with other departments in the area. Through FOIA requests and interviews and news articles, I’ve been able to show some interesting statistics and draw some fascinating conclusions. Getting much of this information has been slow. It seems to be easier to pull teeth, than get straight answers, by just calling the people in charge downtown. Thus the reason I finally resorted to FOIA requests. I as a citizen of Flint, I should not have had to resort to such procedures, just to get answers to simple questions. One officer when I called told me this information was “top secret.” I could be a terrorist. I thought maybe he was just trying to be funny or even personable. Well, he wasn’t. I found it amazing I could call any other municipality in the state and receive simple and direct answers to the very same questions. There is a serious attitude problem in the Flint Police Department. That someone needs to address. LEADERSHIP! Let me first start with some basic facts. All of these are easily verifiable. Since, I received them, all from the City sources. Crime Statistics are available on the City’s Website. (There are no other statistics available in which could show a “major reduction” in crime in 2005) 2005 911 calls for police assistance. 124,428 (these are calls not incidents) 2005 Flint Police Departments Total incidents. 86,616 Budgeted Police Force: (actual numbers slightly higher) Police Officers 177 (Community Police 40), Police Sergeants 58, Police Lieutenants 10, Police Captains 2
Conclusions and Observations: 1. It would appear that the 40 Community policing officers work 15 Percent harder than the regularly budgeted police force. 2. The Average officer only has to be accountable for just less than 2 incidents per day worked. This is based on a 5 day 40 hour work week. 3. Management of the police department’s resources is coming up short. 4. If police officer only need be responsible for 2 incidents per day. Then do we really need more police officers? Simple questions to ask yourself? If your car dealership had 16 Mechanics. You were paying wages and benefits for all of them. And they only worked two cars a day. Did two oil changes then disappeared for the rest of the day. Would you downsize your mechanics manpower? How long would allow this waste of money and resources if it was costing you? If it was your business and your profit being used up by poor productivity? Is two incidents per day too much to ask? If that is all they have to be responsible for, why does it take so long to get an officer at your house when you call? Here are a few other interesting facts I’ve come across. 1. From Presidential commission reports from the 80’s Law enforcement has known. That most of the crime is conducted by a small few. The average drug addict commits 187 crimes a year. Of which. He may get caught twice. But, even getting caught doesn’t deter the criminal. Because of the small nature of the crime, in which he gets caught. Usually results in being let go. They aren’t usually arrested for their major crimes. As they rarely get caught. 2. Most municipalities in Genesee County spend more time investigating and fight crime, say when cars are broken into in the suburbs. The officer on the scene will make the effort to take fingerprints. Flint will not. 3. Flint averages 4.43 cars stolen in the city. It does nothing. ABSOLUTLY NOTHING! To attempt to catch these criminals. We do fine people for getting their cars stolen. (inflated towing charges for the city to make money off of, administration fees, impound fees) No other municipality does this. Usually it takes a violation of Laws or Ordinances to get fined. 4. Flint’s population is approximately 120,000. Yet 911 received 124,428 calls. That would mean that more people called for help from police than actually live in the city? Or multiple people had to make multiple calls. 5. From the City of Flint’s Crime Stats page 10868 crimes were reported. Either just under ten percent of the city is criminals, Or there are a small number committing most of the crimes. Taking into consideration that in 1986 it was reported that the average drug addict committed 187 crimes per year. I would have to believe that there are much fewer than ten percent of the residents committing these crimes. 6. The Flint police are not being used effectively. We found two officers not busy enough to arrest a paper carrier in City Hall. Then there were 6 to 8 officers at the last housing commission meeting. How is this taking criminals off the streets? 7. Most customers of Pawn shops are convicted felons. Much of the property pawned there is stolen. Flint doesn’t use any information from pawn shops in the investigation of crimes. Even when personal items are found in the Pawn shops by the victim. If you call the investigating officer to inform him you’ve found your property at a pawn shop. He becomes irate when informed about the victim finding their property. Many times even refusing to check out the information available on the Pawn ticket or aid in it’s return to the rightful owner. 8. Profiling science use of algorithms, finds that most criminals live in the neighborhoods they commit the crimes in. home invasion is usually a neighbor who knows the persons habits. They live just blocks away. Is Flint really using crime mapping? Or just filling in the information in the program? I’m hoping you can think of a few questions to ask yourselves, by looking at the facts. Don’t look at it in terms of how you feel, or how you want to feel about the problem. Look at it from the facts. There are some serious internal management and leadership problems both in City Hall and the Police Dept. This is the most pressing problem, the City of Flint has. These are the problems you’ve been elected to solve. Wasting more of my tax dollars, hiring more officers, so that they don’t even have to be held accountable for more than two incidents per day... Is not even in the ball park, when it comes to being a solution to Flint’s crime problem. It is more smoke and mirrors. Throwing more good money after bad. In order to blow more smoke up the citizens rears. In a feeble and seriously lacking solution to the problem. This solution increases the problem. Lackluster performance and poor leadership in the City of Flint’s Police Dept. What I’m talking about here is true accountability. You will all be held accountable next election. I’m giving you the benefit of this information before I have it printed. It won’t be long before it makes one of the areas local papers. I’ll be shouting this from every platform I can, before the next election. Mayoral and Council elections. You all know this stuff. Use it to fix Flint’s crime problem. Stop making excuses and stop blaming intangibles that sound good in a sound bite, but have no affect on the problem at hand. Hold the officers and sergeants and the lieutenants and captains accountable. Most of all! The Mayor and the City Council, need to come out of denial, and address this issue, honestly, logically and formulate a plan. With benchmark results expected and accomplished.
Thank you, Ted Jankowski | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||