Staffing Levels Defended

[Gladiator]

http://www.sptimes.com/2006/06/25/Perspective/Police_staffing_level.shtml


It didn't take long for Mayor Baker and Chief Harmon to throw out a line of BS to defend last weeks article on police staffing. Pretty interesting. Last week Chief Harmon insisted that we shouldn't be compared to other agencies. In there response that's all they do. Of course it has their own spin as usual. We have plenty of officers they say. We have more officers now than in our history....WOW!. Here's a news flash Einstein: their not on the street responding to 911 calls.

Sure the response times are down...that's the only thing you got correct. The're down because the officers responding to the calls are going without back-ups, leaving calls to go to others of a higher priority and going without meal breaks. The only thing you have right in the entire article is that:

"St. Petersburg has an outstanding Police Department staffed with professionals who are working hard and focused on the public safety issues important to our citizens. "

That doesn't include the staff who is clueless to the reality of the danger that exists on the street due to inaddequate staffing each and every day. Dayshift squads check on 3-5 officers, evening shift squads check on 6-8 officers and midnight squads (who work alone) check on 6-8 officers. We are loosing five more officers within a week...exactly where do you think they will come from...Patrol.

The two of you are complete idiots who have no care in the world other than your personal agendas. Nice job justifying your stance.....I sure as he!! hope you don't have to do it again at an officers funeral!

The risk is real and your too dam blind to see it coming!

[Lawman]

We have nobody to blame for ourselves. We bust our ass running from call to call instead of doing things the safe way. I don't know how many times I have said this to new guys, but they never listen:

1. Do not got to a call without backup--you can get hurt, if something goes wrong the staff will burn you for not waiting for backup, and it only gives the staff justification for the reduced staffing.

2. Do not pull off of one call to go to another. Let that just occurred armed robbery wait. It'll already be over by the time you get there anyway, and truth be told, do you really want to catch the bad guys at the scene and get in a firefight over $50.00? And lord forbid you forget to do something on the prior call, you will be written up for inefficiency.

3. Unless your fellow officer is getting his ass beat, or about to get his ass beat (or her ass beat, whatever the case may be), do not run 10-18. Running 10-18 is an excellent way to get hurt and written up at the same time. If you get involved in an accident, you will be disciplined unless there are VERY good reasons for you to be doing so. That robbery alarm just isn't one of them.

Cutting corners to clear calls and reduce response time is against your interests. Take your time and be safe, it that means a few minutes delay, so be it. To my knowledge, no one has ever been commended for getting to the scene faster, but I can point to plenty of people who got written up for doing something that "seemed" right in order to clear a call and go to the next. It just is not worth it.

How many times have you heard the dispatchers say " Units code 14, I'm holding a just occurred domestic battery at such and such an address"? Then you hear an officer say I can be 10-8 and 51.

Let the dam dispatchers hold the call until your done with the call your on. If you want more help on the street don't be in such a rush to get that priority call off the dispatchers screen. It only helps them as they have to dispatch the calls in a certain amount of time.

Do you think the dispatcher cares about the staffing on the street? They will when their supervisor is calling the Sgt's and Lt's complaining about priority calls being held too long.

Let the thankless people wait for a police response and complain to the Slant Pete Times. :evil:

[Picasso]

....Is the promise of an Extreme Big Gulp and a Super Sized Chipotle.

It doesn't matter that Nationwide the crime rate trend IS down, but calls for service up.
Nor that the Net flow of non-resident commuters IS MORE then 2439.
Nor that recent annexations of the city now exceeds a total of 61 square miles. Not to mention the influx of apartment complexs and condos .
Nor that figures of authorized strength are thrown out left & right into the wind ~ Never speaking of WHAT ARE THE ACTUAL NUMBER OF 911 RESPONDERS on the streets?
Nor that even though we have fully staffed our patrol division ~ Patrol is operating DAILY at MINIMUN staffing levels !!
Priority 1 calls, response time drops ( by massaging the figures) BUT what are the lower prioity response times doing?? UNITS I'M HOLDING...

http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f375/picassooo1/smokenmirrors.jpg

Smoke and mirrors
Chipotles & Big Gulps
It's cold in here ~ the public's been SNOWED !!!!!

The CHECK-ON Sheets are public record. Pull a month's worth and see how many of them have "NO MORE OFF" or are pulling from another district or having a CPO fill in for someone. If we are up to staffing levels then we would not need to mark these check-on sheets as such.

What a twist of words and numbers. That's one of the best yet.

Throwing in "other factors" like the influx of commuters is ludicrous. How about you just look at the per capita numbers for the citizens who live in the city. We have the lowest number of officers in the state. Now lets look at the additional number of commuters that brings that number up during the day. Seems like it would further increase the need for more officers. Of course I also wonder where in the world you pulled those numbers from. 144,051 people commute to work in Tampa and 2,439 people cummute to work in St. Pete. Where do you even start to find those numbers. I guess thats why the Dome Industrial Park has no industry. Nobody wants to work in St. Pete either.

Then you have the geographic argument. Tampa is bigger so they need more officers...true. Lets look at something:

Tampa's population is 303,447 with 112.07 square miles, thats 2,707 people per square mile

St. Petes population is 248,232 with about 59 square miles. Thats 4,163 people per square mile.

Dont take a rocket scientist to see that we pack about 1500 people per square mile more into our city. Glad they all live happily together as on big happy family. Tampa is twice as big with only 50,000 more people. Heck at least their land is safe.

Nice argument and explanation of our percent of officers on the street as it relates to autorized number of officers. Great argument except the number of authorized officers is what we're complaining about and that ratio is much lower now than it was in October 2005 (the date that was used for the response in June 2006)...What is your percentage as of this week?

Wow another revelation. Tampa and Miami has seen their crime rates drop to a level comparable with St. Pete. Not that we would compare ourselves with another city, but good for them...I guess its because they have nearly twice as many officers as we do.

Now to the response times. In addition to the previous posted arguments let me tell you why our response times are down. Two officers get dispatched to a priority. At least one is usually a greater distance then the other officer. When the first officer gets in the area and parks a block away to wait for their back-up the computer shows him/her in the area and stops the clock. It could be several minutes more before the back-up officer gets there and they actually go to the call. Nice way to work the numbers there. I bet our numbers are really at or above the national average. Funny thing is they said we have the quickest response times in the city's histrory. More like we have the fastest computers in the city's history. Secondly, com center has gone in and re-prioritized calls to a lower level which also alters the response times. Want an example: an officer gets shot at and calls a x24. everyone responds as is expected. The call in the computer...which is now a priority 1 was changed to a priority 3 after the fact. Never did hear an explanation of that one when I asked. I'm glad an officer getting shot at is at least important enough to be a priority 3.

and the revolving door keeps spinning.....why is that??

There is no way that only 2400 people cummuting into the city to work. I bet there are that many commuting to carrillon to work at Raymond James, Franklin Templeton and Brighthouse.

[El Guapo]

so when does the response time clock start ticking? It can't be from when the calls are received because how many times have you heard, "units we're holding calls."

Or when you get dispatched to a call and they tell you it's been holding for 1 1/2 hours. Even if it takes 10 minutes to get there, the ACTUAL response time is 1hr 40 minutes.

[Picasso]

Amigo !
Here you go comparing response times to other Cities !

You can't do that! Here in St Petersburg people are more relaxed and can wait longer for PoPo to respond then in other urban enviornments.

Joda la Administracion !
Viva el árbol de la sombra que custodia !!!

[Lawman]

and who cares how many people commute here? Generally people are on their best behavior at work, the problems start when they get home and start drinking and beating the wife.

[Lawman]

oops, please excuse my insensitivity, I should have said "significant other" instead of "wife." St. Pete is a gay pride friendly city.

You have approximately 15 minutes to get to a call. Take 14.5. :lol:

[El Guapo]

bueno, if it falls during my siesta time

[Chief Gelding]

Some of you malcontents don't understand how my watch works. Let me clear this up. When Mickey's big hand is on the 1, it's a priority one call. It goes "3" when a poe-lease car arrives, even down the street, If your down the street, you can't get into BIA trouble. If you're parked outside Sweetbay in midtown, that's fine, too. If you park outside my favorite pizza place, you're in trouble. Unless you bring in more tokens for me. Uncle Go only gives me ten game tokens each time he lets me get pizza. He says it builds my character.

Chief Gelding - Shootin' Blanks and Takin' Names

Tampa has Macdill AFB, Busch Gardens, USF, Adventure Island, the 7th largest port in the country, A major internatinal airport, Convention center, a nation football and hockey team, ETC.


St. Pete has a vision for the cariban village, run by the Uhurus and the Devil Rays, who did not any want to have St. Pete in thier name.

Its hard to really compare the two side by side.

[Gladiator]

Per Capita, square miles, population, response times, commuters, etc......through some warped thinking and number !@#king the Chief and Mayor have insisted that the SPPD is a well oiled properly staffed machine taking care of all the worldy problems and making St. Pete the safest place in their minds.

But wait....there were some numbers published in yesterday's Times that indicate Tampa is doing a far better job. Imagine that the crime rate is down accross the state. Lets look at what they said about the Tampay Bay area:

"St. Petersburg saw its serious crime rate drop from 8,428 per 100,000 residents to 7,979 in 2005. Tampa's rate fell from 9,272.9 per 100,000 to 7,649."

What does that really mean? St. Pete was able to drop its serious crime rate by 449 per 100,000, or about 1123 for the entire city. Tampa dropped its serious crime rate 1,630 per 100,000 or 4,890 for the city.

Wow....less population, less area, less commuters and less police and you are far more likely to be the victim of a serious crime in St. Pete.

I guess in order to compete you need to kick out some people, give back some of the annexed land, close some businesses or hire more cops.