Thursday, October 04, 2007

MAKE THAT TWO THIMBLES!

Daley told to add 100 police
Normally one of Daley's staunchest City Council supporters, Carothers is threatening to withhold his vote from Daley's request for a $108 million property tax increase unless the police hiring is doubled in response to a wave of shootings that have claimed the lives of Chicago Public Schools students.

"We've had a lot of marches, rallies and prayer vigils. But we haven't hired more police. The rubber band is stretched too far. Hiring 50 police is like taking a thimbleful of water out of Lake Michigan," he said.


Do you think any of us believe that the addition of 100 new police slots will have any more of an impact then 50 new slots? Its ridiculous to even think that the addition of 2 police officers to a district, let alone 4, is going to alleviate this manpower crunch. I do not subscribe to the popular theory that there are only 9800 sworn members of the department. So where is everyone? Well one place would be TRU. TRU is comprised of 4 companies and that equals 320 patrolmen, 33 sergeants, 4 Lts and 1 Commander. I can think of at least 5 districts that do not need manpower like other more desperate districts. So imagine if the patrol division had an infusion of 320 PO's and 33 sgt's. The 33 sergeants could be spread out to the districts that have less then 28 sergeants and bring all the districts up acceptable supervisory levels. Now imagine 320 PO's infused into the roughly 20 districts that are hurting for blue shirts. On average the 20 districts could each receive 16 desperately needed coppers. I personally think that the districts are better suited to handle their problems over an outside unit coming in to lock up the nonsense MCC violation of the week.If the department continues at this pace the districts will have only one function, answering calls for service. It is already getting to that point with the lack of rapids and 99 units. Word has it TRU will be adding another company in the future. Goodbye to another 80 coppers, 8 sergeants and 1 lt.
So Ike, your demand for 100 new police officers is admirable but it hardly scratches the surface.

27 comments:

Anonymous said...

does anyone have the manpower numbers with the Detective Division

Anonymous said...

Was budgeted at 1350 just for detectives, youth was a seperate line item. Now down around 750-800 including the former youth officers.

Anonymous said...

Greedy cops, its your fault we pay high property taxes for substandard service. Now you guys don't even come out for burglary reports in 016 anymore. And you want more money?

Anonymous said...

why not close a few districts,that would free up commanders,capt.lt,sgt. and hundreds of po's also ekiminate alot of inside jobs review,secretary,caps etc.
we don't need to waste money on new pos we need to cut the fat from the budget the city has known this since they hired booze and allen and that's what they recommended 20yrs ago

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
Greedy cops, its your fault we pay high property taxes for substandard service. Now you guys don't even come out for burglary reports in 016 anymore. And you want more money?

Fri Oct 05, 01:13:00 PM

Get a clue dickhead!

Anonymous said...

thanks for the numbers in the D-unit

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
Anonymous said...
Greedy cops, its your fault we pay high property taxes for substandard service. Now you guys don't even come out for burglary reports in 016 anymore. And you want more money?

Fri Oct 05, 01:13:00 PM

Get a clue is right. In the early 90's this department had in excess of 13,000 sworn police officers. CAPS was being instituted and there needed to be an influx of officers to man the three man car rotation. Now 15 years later CAPS is a waning idea and the number of sworn officers on the street has been allowed to diminish through attrition. The reason you can't get a car to come to a burglary report is not because we don't want to come and take one for you, it is because the districts are stretched beyond the breaking point. Even a slow district like 016 is taxed for manpower. Busier districts strip manpower from slower districts in the form of details where Tact, Gang and Sector cars are redeployed. They are taken from slower districts and sent to busier districts to assist them. So the property taxpayers is 016 lose service while the taxpayers who pay liquor and cigarette tax in the ghetto get the bulk of service. We have no say where when go or how we respond at our level. We are merely foot soldiers. If you want better police service, my advice to you is go to your alderman or woman, whomever it may be, and tell them your concerns and then if they don't act on your concerns vote their tail out. Until the righteous taxpayers of this city start to take a stand nothing is going to change and it is only going to get worse. By the way, where do you think those 100 new officers are going to end up working...I can guarantee it isn't going to be in the 016th district.

Anonymous said...

Heard that the asked for nominations for new Lt's. Why are they using a list that is over 5 years old. We just had a new test. What is the hold up? Are you there federal monitor?...

Anonymous said...

why not close a few districts,that would free up commanders,capt.lt,sgt. and hundreds of po's
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Sure, why should people who pay a lot of the taxes in this city have police that can actually patrol proactively and respond to their calls in a timely fashion. Lets punish them for living like human beings and decrease their security. Move out of the hood and you will be singing a different tune.

Anonymous said...

Greedy cops, its your fault we pay high property taxes for substandard service.

Ok, why don't you go "service yourself" ...tool !

Anonymous said...

It's official!

The Administrative Fax requesting nominees for merit Lieutenant is out. All district commanders are required to submit one pick from the 2002 Assessment Eligible List.

They'll probably make a class of around 20.

It is unprecedented that an interim superintendent would be allowed to promote to the rank of lieutenant. My guess is that the new test is so screwed up that they had no choice but to do so, as neither the results nor the new superintendent are going to be announced anytime soon.

Don't be suprised if the whole exam gets scrapped and they start promoting lieutanants the same way they currently do captains.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
why not close a few districts,that would free up commanders,capt.lt,sgt. and hundreds of po's also ekiminate alot of inside jobs review,secretary,caps etc.
we don't need to waste money on new pos we need to cut the fat from the budget the city has known this since they hired booze and allen and that's what they recommended 20yrs ago

Fri Oct 05, 11:16:00 PM

I have brought this up before, how does closing districts free up more officers?

The only officers you would free up are the ones who work inside. If they re protected now with an inside job they will have one in the future. YOu will free up a commander a few capts, lts, and sgts, but no officers. If you close a district you still need to patrol that area and you are not freeing up any new officers!!

HIRE MORE PO'S

Anonymous said...

They are not creating a fifth company at TRU, they are re-structuring them into platoons
instead of Companies at Starks requests, they will be in groups of 50 instead of 80 so they can deploy them to more areas, thus watering down their effectiveness, when you factor in furlough, comp time, medical and IOD, you will deploy only about 25 or so to a DOC on any given day, he wants the DOCS smaller as well. This will backfire, TRU was always as it's most effective when they come to the DOC enmass. This was tried once before not long after they started, again at Starks request, it didn't work as well then, it won't now, but he wants it.

Anonymous said...

Sorry but ending TRU isn't the answer, 320 officers sent back to 25 districts equals 12.8 officers per district, or 4 per watch, wow! that's even if then went to all 025 districts, which they certainly wouldn't, they also would never see days.

Almost all came from busy districts, and would return to them if it did end. What's the difference, they are deployed to the ghetto every night anyway.
There are 33 Sgt spots but only 28 there, that barely one a district.
Ending the unit wont solve anything, here's some ideas that might:
1) hire more people
2) get the more than 600 that are on the medical on any given day back to work, off light duty etc.
3) get the dogs of all the watches to start handling their share, we all know that 10-15% of the people do 90% of the work, it's undeniable.
4) Stop this nonsense event number policing, it's ridiculous already, let the police be the police, not profession event number recorders.

Just a few ideas to start, I have more but i'm only a lowly Sgt. so most above our rank aren't interested in what we think.

Anonymous said...

You, my friend, are right about it not being the closing of a district that would save all that much manpower (save inside jobs).

To tie two or three different comments together, the whole allocation of districts and beats in the city is way outdated and unfair to taxpayers and those who are well-behaved.

007 and 011 are far smaller than 016 (to use the extremes of bad and good). Every beat in 007 and 011 is also far smaller than any beat in 016, and has a far smaller population than any beat in 016 (I'm pretty sure). Plus, 007 and 011 each have 15 beats, whereas 016 has, what, 9 (maybe 12, sorry, I'm a southsider with a foggy memory).

Oh, and 007 and 011 also have far more response units etc., at least when there was such a thing.

So now you have multiple factors showing how much better manned 007 and 011 are compared to 016.

You want stark numbers? How about by population versus field personnel on a fully manned 3rd watch.

007: 30 officers on beats, 3 sergeants, 1 lieutenant, 28 officers on rapid response cars, plus 1 tact team of, say, 6 officers and 1 sergeant. Total of 69 officers.

016: 18 officers on beats, 3 sergeants, 1 lieutenant, maybe 16 officers on rapid response cars, plus the same tact team of, say 6 officers and 1 sergeant. Total of 45 officers.

Kickers:

One, 016 has far, far more people than either of 007 or 011.

Two, even the numbers allocated on paper for a perfect day are skewed. Not even are specialized units sent en masse to the 011s and 007s of the city, but even field units from 016 are sent out of the district to the 011s and 007s.

So there you have it. 007 and 011 have smaller districts, smaller beats, far more police on paper, and even more than that in reality.

So the city can point to the pretty paper and tell the aldermen and citizens how many police are in the district, but thats only on paper. Reality is that even the paper and statistics cannot be trusted.

Anonymous said...

Get rid of all those goofy units. gun / Anet / Sat / Tru / SOS.


send them all back to the districts

Anonymous said...

There was NEVER 1350 6165s ever budgeted for. Was always around 800. Now that 9167s and 9163s are all 9165s its up in the 1300s

Anonymous said...

Yea, those cops in 025 all sneak our early, they go down on reports in the station an hour before check off, and "puff" out the back door they go.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
Greedy cops, its your fault we pay high property taxes for substandard service. Now you guys don't even come out for burglary reports in 016 anymore. And you want more money?

Fri Oct 05, 01:13:00 PM


No the truth of the matter is the bosses just don't care. The bosses and their staffs aren't like us. They feed off meeting,after meeting,spouting numbers that mean absolutely nothing to the average citizen or us. You are not a victim, you are just a statistic to them. If only the citizens knew just how many healthy officers and supervisors have inside positions doing menial tasks,working days, weekends off. Years ago you'd have maybe 2 or three,now,the numbers would make up a watch itself. "Accountability" is only applied to Sgt's on down. They have drained the patrol division of so much manpower it's ridiculous. What the taxpayer forgets or is unaware of is they've paid for a budgeted amount of officers in their districts. They didn't pay for those officers to be put in an inside post or put in another district. They paid for that officer to carry a weapon and display a star in their neighborhood(s).

Anonymous said...

So when can we do reports on line? Does the city have a website for us to do burglary reports at?

Anonymous said...

you will deploy only about 25 or so to a DOC on any given day, he wants the DOCS smaller as well.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

The DOCS are not all that big to begin with. 12 cars to a 3/4 square mile area is still a lot of presence when they dont have to answer any calls. In an 8 hour day, 2 hour lunches along with the hour to get to and an hour to get from the DOC area seems like a big waste of resources. We are always playing catch up. A shooting occur, lets change the DOC and send the units. Something needs to change. Maybe disbanding TRU as a citywide unit and creating district DOC units or restructure and beef up the saturation units would be more effective. At the very least, one has to go back to the watches, SOS or TRU (SOS would seem the logical choice given the bad press associated with them). Since THE answer would be to hire more police to properly staff the watches (and we know that isnt happening any time soon), the next best thing is to send people back to the districts. Some districts are almost 50/50 with PO's and PPO's, so every little bit of manpower relief helps.

Anonymous said...

true event on zone9 today.

"the complainant states there is a green helicopter circling above". The zone,by no choice of theirs, had to send a car. The beat car appropriately responded,"ok squad I'lll just shoot it down" great stuff...shootings,killings,robberies, and were sending a car to look up at a helicopter.

Anonymous said...

The DOCS are not all that big to begin with. 12 cars to a 3/4 square mile area is still a lot of presence when they dont have to answer any calls. In an 8 hour day, 2 hour lunches along with the hour to get to and an hour to get from the DOC area seems like a big waste of resources. We are always playing catch up. A shooting occur, lets change the DOC and send the units. Something needs to change. Maybe disbanding TRU as a citywide unit and creating district DOC units or restructure and beef up the saturation units would be more effective. At the very least, one has to go back to the watches, SOS or TRU (SOS would seem the logical choice given the bad press associated with them). Since THE answer would be to hire more police to properly staff the watches (and we know that isnt happening any time soon), the next best thing is to send people back to the districts. Some districts are almost 50/50 with PO's and PPO's, so every little bit of manpower relief helps.

So disbanding one unit to create new ones is the answer? I doubt it, sorry but nobody is taking 2 hr. lunches, yes it takes time to get the DOC, it's always on the extreme south side of the city! the ryan is tore up, oh well, it is what it is. Starks wants to change it because he wants TRU deployed in all the south side docs and a couple on the west side to appease the revs, so it will be.

Anonymous said...

As I said before,the department knows exactly where all the inside clout baby supervisors and officers are. They play with their titles in units to mask that the boss is keeping them inside. Downtown is no different,but they don't have to hide who is where,because obviously,they answer to no one.
When was the last time,if ever,an inspector walked into a district front office,or a unit at HQ and inspected the office help and asked what their function was? Or go into a front office and see them all in jeans, wearing headphones and playing on the internet. This is why job after job is held because no one is available. In our unit alone,we have 8 full duty,healthy officers and supervisors,in the front office,this in addition to the civilians. This doesn't include the review officers or CAPS people. I'm sure most districts have similiar rosters. How many full duty healthy officers and supervisors at HQ are secretaries,clerks,etc?
The mismanagement of manpower resources in this department as well as the medical abuse is one of the major reasons we have a dysfunctional department and citizens waiting for help.

Here is a prime example:
Why...with all the inside people working at a district do they send a beat car in to do the case management run to the area?

Why are some people allowed to take years off on the medical. I think if my 15+ years on the job,I can recall maybe 10 days on the medical. Some have yearsss and they know it.


Sad to say, this will never change.

Anonymous said...

Oh yeah, got to love the medical program if you are female. Have a baby, have doctor write how difficult your pregnancy was, and you get a year off. Ask any female who had a baby about this scam.

Anonymous said...

yep...all the doctor has to say is,"you shouldn't be on your feet" and poof, you're off. How many times have we seen this. When I tell this to females in private industry, they can't believe it.

What a system

Anonymous said...

One of the desk cows in 025 did the baby scam, not once, but twice!

Please keep in mind that this is an open blog
that can and is read by people other than Chicago Police Officers.