Car vs Foot Patrol

There's a good discussion I've been contributing to in the comments section from a post in marginal revolution.

Demand More Foot Patrol

More foot patrol is always possible. Back in the days, all patrol was foot patrol. Our almost complete dedication to cars responding to dispatched calls is a choice we make... or maybe a choice made for us. But if we really wanted and demanded more foot patrol, we could have it. Police departments need to defend car patrol with something better than tradition and response time. Here's an op-ed I wrote a few years back for the cause.

One of my favorite pictures shows how it was done in 1911 New York City, at least in theory. Maybe today cops shouldn't stand in the middle of intersections like bowling pins, but the idea is better than any patrol done today.
(If anybody knows the source of this picture, let me know. I got it from an old Yale Alumni Magazine. They could only tell me they thought it was public domain.)

Cameras in cop cars

Steve Lopez of the L.A. Times has a good take on cameras in police cars.

I [heart] foot patrol

The smart folks at Marginal Revolution mentioned my book again. There's nothing I like talking about more than foot patrol.

The following are taken mostly from a comment I wrote to this post.

The Kansas City Preventative Patrol experiment is the most amazingly ignored police study ever. For police and crime prevention, it’s one of the few scientific studies ever (meaning there was actually a control group). It showed that a post with no “randomly patrolling” cars has no more crime than a post with twice as many cars. Cars don’t matter. Cops only need to be in cars to backup other police officers. Almost everything else could be done by foot and bike.

And yet the Kansas City study changed nothing. It’s ignored because police officers like cars and the police department is tied to radio dispatch. Culturally, it’s almost impossible to get police out of cars. Policing on foot is hard work. It’s usually punishment. So even cops who liked foot patrol, like me, didn’t want to do it.

In cars you can stay dry and warm (or cool) and listen to the radio. You can also more easily avoid crazy and stinky people that want to talk to you. Why do you think police hang out in cars in the back of remote parking lots?

People don’t feel safer with more police cars driving around (or sitting in parking lots) Putting more cops on foot *does* make people safer. See the Newark Foot Patrol Experiment (Police Foundation 1981) and common sense. It’s very debatable if foot patrol reduces crime. I think it does. But I may be wrong. But if people want more foot patrol (and they do), why not give it to them?

When patrol cars first hit the street, cars were supposed to save money (and oh yeah, eliminate crime). That didn’t happen. More foot patrol is not a matter of needing resources; it’s a matter of priorities and will. It’s not the citizens or the politicians who want car patrol, it’s the police.

My idea to get police officers out of cars is to give patrol officers, if they patrol on foot, the gas money they saved. Police model Crown Vics go through about 3/4 of a gas tank per shift. Cops don’t want to walk the beat, but $30 per shift could change that.

Fixing Broken Windows in Chicago

Chicago Police Superintendent Jody Weiss says he plans more foot and bike patrol and an emphasis on "broken windows" policing. This is great news for Chicago... if it actually happens. It's tough to get cops out of cars. But Weiss is certainly saying the right things. This is reported in the Sun Times.

The point of getting tough on the little things isn't just to get tough on the little things for no reason. It's either because the little things are bad (like people pissing on your front door) or because the little things are part of a greater problem (like subway turnstile jumping was in New York City).

Broken Windows is not Zero Tolerance. Broken Windows is a strategy that respects police officers (by encouraging officer discretion) and the community (by listening to the community). Broken Windows is about problem solving and reducing crime. Zero Tolerance is about enforcing rules to increase police "stats."

You can read the original 1982 Broken Windows article here. It's a classic.

Missing. . . . not!

New Jersey Governor Corzine signed “Patricia’s Law” mandating that police must accept—without delay—any report of a missing person. I would assert that no law named after a person has ever been good. This one sure isn’t.

The Record reports:

Under Patricia's Law, police cannot refuse to take on the case of a missing person — whether child or adult — on any basis, including if circumstances do not indicate foul play or if it appears the person disappeared voluntarily.

Police must then take down more than two dozen pieces of information, from the person's name to the address of his or her dentist. If the person remains missing after 30 days, police must attempt to gather DNA samples as well.

People worry about their loved ones. But the last thing you want is police hunting down dental records because a bus is late and a cell phone is out of juice.

The vast majority of “missing” persons aren’t missing. Missing persons come home. Traffic was a bitch. Or they had to work late. Or they’re having an affair. This is not police work. Mandating police to waste hours on useless cases is no way to help find real missing persons. And the strain on resources will hurt us all. Any law that assumes that police have unlimited resources is a bad law.

One probable outcome is that police response time to a call for missing person will increase in to the hours. That’s what I would do. Because 99 times out of 100, that person will appear before then. And for the 1 time out of 100, it’s not like broadcasting a report one hour faster will help anyway.

Wild gun fight. Police shoot bad guy. Officers shot.

This one, if the Sun is to be believed, sounds wild. Though if the Sun is to be believed, this happened in East Baltimore (you know, where bad things happen). Best I can tell it started in the Central and ended in the Northern.

Officer Anthony Jobst, 47, was in his patrol car in the first block of E. Lafayette Ave. about 2:30 a.m. when he heard gunshots and saw a white Audi speeding away. Jobst, who was joined by four other uniformed officers, drove after the Audi and followed it for about a mile to an alley in the 400 block of E. Lorraine Ave. in the Harwood neighborhood.

The Audi crashed in the alley, and the driver ran out and hid behind a brick wall. When officers approached him, the man opened fire, shooting Jobst in the foot and grazing the left leg of 27-year-old Officer Hadyn Gross, Bealefeld said.

Officers returned fire, striking the man several times in the upper torso, but the gunfight was "protracted" because he was wearing body armor enhanced with steel inserts.
...
Back at Lafayette Avenue, where shots were first fired, police found Rico Alston, 27, with two bullet wounds to the chest. Alston was taken to an area hospital.

He was in serious but stable condition yesterday, police said.

[March 19 update: 88 rounds were fired. The bad guy died Monday night. The Sun reports, "At one point, the man signaled to police that he was surrendering - but police said he used the lull in gunfire to reload the Smith & Wesson."]

The fire-bombing of 324 car

About a year after I left the B.P.D., this happened. 324 car got firebombed. Some locals didn't like the officer driving it because he could outrun and catch anybody in the district who tried to run from him. Somebody led him on a foot chase while his friends torched the car. It was our best car, too. The only one with a computer.

It got torched.


And burnt-out shell.

The yo-boys celebrating their victory. What can you say about a group of mostly kids, all in white T-shirt and jeans, celebrating their victory? It's 1AM, do you know where your child is?
[originally posted 9/07]

Officer shot

Something strange is going on here. There are important details not reported.

No matter, I'm glad the officer is alive. The rah-rah part of these stories bothers me. If the bullet was anything but a graze, odds are this officer will never patrol again.

City officer shot by gunman who was hiding in bushes

By Ruma Kumar

12:06 PM EST, March 8, 2008

A rookie Baltimore police officer is recovering and in good condition at Maryland Shock Trauma Center this morning after he was shot in the leg around 1 a.m. in Southwest Baltimore, police said.

Officer Pedro Perez, 24, who graduated from the police academy in July, was injured during a patrol stop in the 100 block of Palormo Ave., Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III said at a press conference today. Perez and his partner had stopped to talk to two men loitering in an area where criminal activity is rampant when a gunman jumped from behind some bushes and shot at the officers.

At least three shots were fired, Bealefeld said, and one hit Perez above his right knee. Bealefeld said police are following a number of "good leads" and do not believe there is a link between the unidentified gunman and the two men the officers were talking to at the time of the shooting. The two have been held for questioning, but are considered "more witnesses than suspects at this point," Bealefeld said.

"This definitely reinforces the dangerous nature of the work these police officers do, and (shows) that more work needs to be done," Bealefeld said today.

Saying Perez is with his family, Bealefeld added, "this man is in excellent spirits...he's eager to get back."

Police did not release a description of the gunman.

Copyright © 2008, The Baltimore Sun

911 Is a Joke

Rapid response doesn't work for police. I've published an article in Law Enforcement Executive Forum saying as much. It's also a chapter in my book. I was reminded of the futility of 911 yesterday when I came across an old man who had fallen down and cracked his head open here where I'm visiting my parents in Santa Monica, California.

I really don't remember my medical first responder training from 8 years ago. But I still figure I'm better in such situations than most people. At least I can stay calm and not do anything incredibly stupid. Luckily, for the both me and the bleeding man, an off-duty firefighter was there who actually knew what he was doing (apply pressure to stop the bleeding and give the guy some basic tests to make sure he was with it).

I fished the man's wallet from his pocket to look for any medical warnings and check for ID (that's the cop in me). Then there wasn't much for me to do except watch the scene and wait for a cop or paramedic to turn the wallet over to (it would have been a little difficult for me to put the wallet back in his pocket and I didn't want to bother the guy examining him... no, I didn't take anything, but I couldn't help but notice that his wallet was a lot thicker than mine).

One woman made us aware of her presence by deciding that the bleeding man's problem was the head wound, but the firefighter helping him. She yelled: "You way too much up in his face and need to step back and let the man breath! He can't get no air! Step back!" She meant it, too, and seemed about ready to set things straight.

Now that I'm a professor and not a cop, I'm so rarely reminded of complete, honest, and destructive stupidity! I was reminded how quickly a scene in the ghetto could get ugly with someone like her provoking a crowd. Luckily, this was a crowd on Santa Monica's 3rd St. Promenade. It isn't by a long stretch the hood. A few other people in the crowd kind of cut her off and blocked her out.

Meanwhile others were trying to call 911 from their cells phones and nobody could get through. The entire L.A. County system was either overloaded or down. Luckily, some public security person (I think their main job is to harass the homeless) could radio directly for paramedics. The guy had bled some, but he was going to be OK.

What surprised me wasn't that people couldn't get through to 911. I was surprised that they were surprised they couldn't get through. We've been sold on the wonders and necessity of rapid response. But anybody who needs it knows the truth: 911 is a joke, most of all for police.

A police perspective on cameras in squad cars

Today's Los Angeles Times Opinion Section has an excellent article by an L.A. police officer about cameras in squad cars.

I couldn't have said it better myself, so I won't. Here's his piece:

View from a squad car

Putting video cameras in black-and-whites won't clear up a distorted picture of the LAPD.
By Jack Dunphy
Los Angeles Times
February 17, 2008

The federal consent decree mandating reform of the Los Angeles Police Department was supposed to expire in 2006, five years after the city negotiated it with the U.S. Justice Department following the Rampart scandal. But in May 2006, the federal judge overseeing it ruled that the department was still not complying with several of its provisions and ordered that the court-appointed monitor keep watch over the department until June 2009.

According to the Police Protective League -- the police union -- the city has already spent more than $13 million for the monitor's fees and expenses and more than $30 million in complying with the decree's many provisions.

Now the Police Commission wants to spend more money to install digital video cameras in the LAPD's fleet of patrol cars. Its members believe that the cameras, along with a computer database of every officer's complete personnel information, will help satisfy the section of the consent decree that requires the department to "examine and identify officers demonstrating at-risk behavior," such as using excessive force or displaying racial bias.

Many police departments across the country have installed video cameras in their patrol cars. The images they capture have provided evidence in criminal cases and have helped prove or refute allegations of officer misconduct. The L.A. City Council is weighing several contract proposals for installing cameras in the LAPD's black-and-whites.

But many of us who work in the department are skeptical about how these video images will be used. And we have good reason to be. Consider: A recent internal audit of arrest reports concluded that a large number were unsatisfactory because they did not properly document whether Miranda warnings were given to suspects. On its surface, the finding suggested a dire problem. But a closer look at the audit revealed that there was hardly a problem at all. Department policy dictates that when a suspect under arrest has not been advised of his Miranda rights, the words "not admonished" must be written in a designated space on the arrest report. Some officers, however, used different words -- such as "not advised" and "not given" -- to report the same thing.

No matter, said the auditors. Because these officers didn't use the required language, they had to complete follow-up reports spelling out what any fool could have seen was clearly meant in their original reports.

Now imagine the effect on police officers if this kind of obsessive punctiliousness were applied to the images captured by the video cameras installed in their patrol cars. It wouldn't be long before officers reverted to the "drive-and-wave" mode of policing practiced during the tenure of former Police Chief Bernard C. Parks. Many officers regarded Parks as a heavy-handed disciplinarian, and rather than risk censure or punishment for breaking his rules, they backed off proactive policing. Total arrests declined 33% during his time as chief, and homicides jumped 41%.

The LAPD manual is hundreds of pages long and contains thousands upon thousands of individual regulations governing every conceivable aspect of police operations. In addition, special orders, training bulletins and all manner of directives are annually issued about such activities as how to park police cars in a traffic stop and how to answer a telephone.

If some auditor were to watch a video of me on any given day in the field, it wouldn't take long before he would see me violate at least one of the orders. Police officers sometimes cut corners, not because they are corrupt or dishonest or lazy but because no set of rules and regulations, no matter how voluminous, can possibly address every situation they may confront on the streets. If you show me an officer who does things strictly by the book all day every day, I'll show you one who doesn't have much of an effect on crime.

Compliance with the consent decree may be a worthy goal, but it should not come at the expense of fighting crime. If officers believe that their recorded actions in the field would be as rigorously scrutinized as were the arrest reports, they might be less inclined to risk their careers by being proactive.

What's disheartening to L.A. cops is that the need for reform seems the longest-running and most familiar narrative about their department. I've lived through many LAPD scandals during my career, including on-duty cops committing burglaries in Hollywood in 1981, the beating of Rodney King in 1991 and Rampart. These stories were exhaustively covered in this newspaper and in other media.

But how many people will recognize the names of Steven Gajda, Filberto Cuesta and Brian Brown? These police officers were murdered doing their duty during the time former officer Rafael Perez and other cops were committing the crimes that led to the Rampart scandal and the consent decree.

Randy Simmons, the SWAT officer killed Feb. 7 in a shootout in Winnetka, was laid to rest Friday. He has been justly praised in this newspaper and elsewhere not only for his on-duty valor but for his off-duty outreach to disadvantaged youngsters. But in a few days or weeks, he will likely be forgotten by all but those who knew him.

But the word "Rampart" will live on and continue to evoke images of a police department gone bad. Sadly, putting cameras in patrol cars to record "at-risk behavior" by cops is unlikely to lift the stigma of scandal that wrongly plagues the LAPD.


Jack Dunphy is the pseudonym of a Los Angeles police officer who writes a column for National Review Online.

The article can be found on the LA Times website. They hold all copyrights.

Candid Camera and Why Waiters Make Good Cops

There's a story in the Baltimore Sun about a police officer that got suspended over his conduct as shown on a YouTube video.

You can’t skate in the Inner Harbor (why, I’m not sure). You can’t bike either (I got busted once for biking through an empty Inner Harbor at 6:45AM on my way to the police academy). These kids were skateboarding and the cop goes off on one of the kids. Really, you shouldn’t call a police officer, “dude.” But on the video, the cop is being, well... a dick. I showed it to my class and my students think, well, the same.

The reporter, Annie Linskey, called me and asked for my thoughts on the video. I told her my first reaction. But I also said I couldn't be sure. At least not sure enough to go on record in the Baltimore Sun criticizing a Baltimore City police officer.

We don't know what happened before the video starts. Is it a school day? (probably not) Did the cop already tell the kids three times to stop skateboarding in the Inner Harbor? Did the kid flip off the cop right before the video starts? I think there are lots of possible situations that could justify the cop's behavior. As a former cop, my first instinct is to give a cop the benefit of the doubt. Patrolling the Inner Harbor is a plum assignment and the officer had no previous complaints. So he’s probable a good officer.

The truth is that cops, including myself, are all too willing to excuse other officers as to how they do they job. Though I would tell a cop in private how I think he or she could do better, I don’t think everything a cop does should be second guessed by people who don’t understand the nature of the job and the specific situation. In legal jargon, the totality of the circumstances.

Different cops handle different situations differently. Some cops are better at being aggressive. Some are better at talking to people. Sometimes cops should be courteous. Sometimes cops shouldn't be polite. Cops have to make quick decisions. Sometimes they’re right. Sometimes they’re wrong. Sometimes they’re just having a bad day.

Now let's say, for the sake of argument, that the video shows the whole story. If that’s the case, then the officer handled the situation horribly. If your goal is to get three kids to stop skateboarding, there are much better ways to do it.

To put it bluntly, how do you get cops to stop being dicks? It’s a serious question. And I’ve thought about it lots. I still don’t have a good answer. I think cops are rude simply because they can be. If you deal with the public at your job and you could be rude, would you? Nobody starts a job wanting to be rude. But if you’re dealing with a random selection of the public (or worse), it often ends up that way. Every wanted to really tell somebody off? Well, cops can. And some do.

I often half-seriously propose that the six months of the police academy could be better spend waiting table is a fine-dining restaurant. I’ve waited a lot of tables in my life. And one thing you learn in a fancy restaurant working for tips is an important lesson for police (and everybody). In stressful situations where people are rude to you, good waiters learn how to be polite to people they hate.

[Other skills from waiting useful for police: how to multitask, prioritize situations, stay calm under pressure, deal with idiots, work without sitting down, eat quickly, and bathroom breaks, and wash your hands a lot.]

Still, sometimes a person does need a lesson. Sometimes an arrest isn’t appropriate. Or legal. So as good police, you’ve got to put on an act: yell, threaten, cajole, lecture. All these are part of the job. But it’s important to have an objective when you deal with a situation. Then you have to figure out the best method to achieve your goals. Yelling for the sake of yelling isn’t good policing. I rarely felt I had anything to prove as a police. I had a job to do.

Cops tend to be scared of video cameras. Precisely because of videos such as this. How would you like it if you were suspended because of an incident at work seven months ago you may not even remember? But in the long run I think cameras will help police more than hurt police. It would be nice to have videos of criminals misbehaving. It would be nice to have videos backing up cops’ version of stories. It would be nice to see cops handling situations well.

It’s good to police assuming you’re being watched. These days, you probably are. If videos make cops less rude, all the better. My problem with asshole cops isn’t so much that they’re being an asshole, it’s that being an asshole is usually bad policing. It escalates. It has no ultimate goal. And it’s dangerous. I don’t want to backup a cop who provoked a fight because he and some kid got all macho with each other. I don’t want my work defusing a domestic ruined because some cop shows up and feels (sometimes incorrectly) like he’s being dissed by some idiot.

A police friend of mine saw the video and wrote this:

I saw part of the video and I know the cop. He is your typical Italian to say the least. He is a pretty nice guy but I guess by the looks of it he had a bad day. You know that I always give the cop a very heavy benefit of the doubt, but the kid was skateboarding. I mean shit, find a drunk or something. Shit, I felt bad just watching the tape. Granted the kid smoked or huffed way to much earlier but still they were riding skateboards. To top it all off, it was at the Inner Harbor in daylight for god sakes!!! I will stop ranting now.

So will I.

How not to get my ass kicked by the police

Last night I was stopped by police. It was about 1AM on the coldest night of the year and I was biking back from work. I needed some groceries and passed an unfamiliar grocery store. I went up on the sidewalk to look inside, trying to decide if it was worth my while to buy some stuff or wait till I got back to a store with a familiar layout.

I was stopped in front of the store, figuring this out, when po-po pulls up next to me. The passenger side window rolls down and a man asks, “Do you have ID?” “Sure,” I say almost happily. Given my cop background and professional interests, I actually kind of like being harassed by police. I’m good at talking to cops. Don’t play dumb. Don’t lie. Don't act pissed off (even if you are). Don’t say, “don’t you have anything better to do?!”

Does he think I’m looking for drugs in the projects across the street? Does he think my balaclava means I’m going to rob the store? Or is he just going to bust me for being on the sidewalk or not having a bell? I give him my work ID.

He looks at my ID for a moment and says, “We stopped you for riding on the sidewalk. You know that’s not allowed?” It was 20 degrees out. At 1AM. In Queens. But I put on my sheepish face. “Yeah, I know it’s not allowed. But I just wanted to look in this store and figured you wouldn’t care because it’s ten below out. I’m sorry.” My tone was nice, conversational, even respectful. We actually exchanged some pleasantries and then they left. I continued to break bike laws all the way home.

He's dead... cuff him

The New York Times has an article by Al Baker, "Handcuffing the Wounded: Tactic Hits a Nerve."

I read that article with interest. Police don't have the option to not handcuff a suspect. I always thought that officers should have some (limited) discretion to not handcuff suspects. For instance, you're patrolling, minding your own business, and a person comes up to you and says “I'm wanted, I'm here to turn myself in.” OK. You run his info and indeed, he’s 10-30 (In Baltimore, that means wanted or in custody).

Let's also say this person is wanted for a failure to appear in court for a non-violent crime. Why handcuff this guy in public? He’s turning himself in. It only serves to discourage others from doing the same.

The part of the article that made the sense to me was the idea that after a shooting, there's a lot to deal with, and you don't even want to think about having a debate about whether or not to handcuff a suspect. Just do it and move on.

I think the rules will change only if some doctors can show that handcuffing a suspect could threaten the life of a wounded suspect.

There was one suspect I didn’t want to handcuff. I was just out of field training and Green, working the Artscape fair in Baltimore on three hours sleep. A young black man was playing the buckets. Buckets are easy to play poorly. But this guy was good. Loud and good.

Some of the Artscape people complained. The paying vendors didn’t want the noise and were maybe jealous that he drew more people than they were. He wasn’t allowed to play in this area. People paid good money to set up shop.

Two mounted cops said they weren't going to tell him shit. My friend and partner wasn’t going to play bad cop either. The drummer had attracted a big crowd, who were enjoying his performance.

I made the mistake of asking the sergeant what to do, hoping he would say leave him be. But he said to get him out of Artscape boundaries, so I had to do it. After his set, I approached him and, to the loud boos of the crowd, told him to pack up and leave the Artscape property. He couldn’t play in the area. I told him where to move and told him he didn’t have a choice. He agreed, I left.

A few hours later I was with the same sergeant and the guy was playing again. Sarge said he was 10-30. "There's the right way and the wrong way to handle these things," he said. He didn't put cuffs on him there, which was a smart move. Rather, buckets in hand, he was lead back to the police truck. I had to do the paperwork and write him a citation. I told him he was a good drummer. He was friendly and a little slow. Perhaps mildly retarded. He told me he was blessed. Maybe he was.

He said made over $500 the day before. He could bang those buckets good.

He was so compliant, even sweet, that I didn't think to cuff him until one of the people in the truck said, “Is he 10-30? Then why isn't he in h-a-n-d-c-u-f-f-s.” Oh yeah. It was a fair question. I was violating departmental regulation. I know there's no guarantee that a sweet and compliant young man can’t turn violent. But I just didn’t think this guy needed to be cuffed. And though I still thought it unnecessary, I cuffed him.

Things got worse. I couldn’t write him a citation because he had no ID. You can’t write a ticket if you don’t know how they are. So now he’s under arrest (technically detained to verify identity, but it’s the same thing). I thought he was 20, but it turned out he was only 17. So now there’s there extra hassle of juvenile paperwork.

I had to count his money for inventory. He had about $170 on him. It was quite a sight later. Laid on the table, you’d think he was a big time drug dealer, except they were all one-dollar bills.

I should have just let him go. It’s the only arrest I’ve ever regretted.