Can the police stop violent crime?

The mayor & city manager of Cincinnati have demanded the city police chief come up with a plan to stop street violence in the next 4 days. This comes after they discussed the chief's resignation.
But what can the police do to prevent crime? They are a reactive entity that arrests & investigates. After that it goes to the County courts & jails, etc.
If they fail to prosecute and rehabilitate, then the police just re-arrest & e-arrest.
People not cooperating with police for fear of reprisal need protections but, again, I think that falls into the realm of the county - maybe the prosecutor's office.
In a recent murder, the victim had been arrested at least once a year on not horrendous charges and in most cases the County courts dismissed charges, dropped charges and acquitted the guy. What lesson did he learn? There is no law.
WKRC & city councilman Chris Smitherman report that a man was telling people at the crime scene, after the man was gunned down, to not cooperate with the police. No idea if Smitherman photographed the man or identified him to the police.
WKRC also reported that a lot of the violence is in a particular area & suggest turf wars.
Maybe if the county kept up it's end the violence might diminish, meanwhile Cincinnati's administration will just use the mayhem as a backdrop for it's political theater

More from WKRC

Sometimes the barrel of a gun is just the barrel of a gun

There's been a trend over the years that hasn't been proper;y identified. People calling it out as being a race issue are muddying the waters & undermining real solutions.
The big news was out of Ferguson, MO where a cop killed a guy who was acting in a belligerent manner. A cop in Cleveland killed a 12 year old without really assessing the situation. In Beavercreek, OH cops killed a guy in a Wal Mart who was fidgeting with a pellet gun while BSing with his girlfriend on the phone in the pet food aisle. In Atlanta a campus cop killed a student for basically walking around stoned. A few years ago a Cincinnati man was shot while being questioned by police when he threw a knife to the side.
Some of the police were white, some black. Some of the killed were white, some black.
People who know how to stir the race pot are fixating on white police killing black suspects while ignoring the unnecessary killings of white suspects, especially when killed by black cops. While some of the folks were resisting arrest, others were not. Some of the cases involved completely unreliable 911 calls & the police failing to properly assess the situation when they arrived on the scene. Cherry picking along racial lines & lumping the killings together misses the true police failings.
The problem is not racism. If the white police of America were really conspiring to wipe out black America, they would be done by now.
The problem is trigger happy cops who feel they can kill with impunity because they have a badge.
and, pr their indictments, that's pretty much the case.
The latest instance of the shoot first, ask questions later was the slaughter of a mountain lion in Paris, KY.
So, you see, it's not just relegated to killing people - it's pretty much anything that moves.
Fixating on the phony genocide issue does no good. Lumping real criminal activity with non criminal activity does no good. The armed vs unarmed crap makes no sense. The problem is issuing lethal weapons to twitchy people, not issuing non lethal alternative weapons to these people & not training these guys to be patient and to properly assess situation on scene.
And we need to focus on that and not on incidental coincidences.

A New Home for the Police Museum

Lost in the shuffle, as the Hamilton County GOP seeks to game the local elections & politicize the county law enforcement agencies, one of the entities moving the Mercy Hospital in Mt Airy is the Greater Cincinnati Police Museum.
These guys had lost their old location and with a budget of about $0, they had no place to go. With the donation of the facility to the county, the museum has been invited to set up shop with a larger facility with more parking.

oh, Come On, Gem City…Dayton is considering aerial surveillance cameras. Unfortunatly, nothing cool & futuristic - no rat-brained drones or anything, just some guy flying around over the city. I'd think that the clowns at Wright Pat would be offering all sorts of high-tech Homeland Security surplus gear to experiment on the domestics.
oh well….

The Model Police Force
As the specter of diminishing revenue spreads it's shadow over Cincinnati's safety departments we need to look at matters objectively and see how we got here in the first place.

In this chart you can see how police staffing has changed over the years in comparison to the city's population (measured in hundreds). While the population crested around 1950, the police force has only continued to grow with a few hiccups along the way. (Officers were laid off in 1977 due to a tax levy failure only to be hired back in 1979.) Through most of the city's history police levels were around 1 per 600 residents. That trend changed about the time the population began to decline giving us a ratio of more than 1 officer per 300 residents. Many people want even more police (but haven't proposed new taxes to pay for them).
So what's happened since the middle of the 20th century?

Actual calls for service have actually been in decline.
One change has been the rise of the automobile. Around 1940-50, car ownership per household moved over the 50% mark. Besides creating a whole new class of criminal, the auto has created a whole new set of safety issues previously unknown to man. The modern automobile with it's luxurious confines also puts passengers in a steel and glass bubble that isolates them from the communities they are in (when they are not on isolated special roadways). Add to that, the sensationalistic, distorted, fear mongering pumped through car radios to their isolated audiences and you can see some serious attitudinal adjusting.

Television came onto the scene around that time, too. People could get entertainment at home that they had previously had to go to public places to enjoy. Couple this new bit of isolation with TV news that has increasingly been geared towards entertainment & sensationalism and perception of reality just gets more distorted and fantastic.
Then, of course, there's the decline in population itself. One looks around and doesn't see the familiar faces. The familiar businesses close down. Landmarks are demolished. Cincinnati has also seen it's neighborhoods split and blighted by highways further alienating remaining residents from their environment.
There's also the "bulge" of baby boomers who re aging & dying. Where once a powerful bloc in society, their influence is beginning to wane. An aging white population is slowly being replaced with a younger black population exacerbating the "generation gap" with a "culture gap" as well.
Could it be that the "need" for so many police is really just a reaction to fear borne of isolation, insecurity, alienation and a world view distorted by a sensationalistic fear mongering media?

A lot of the info here was found at The Greater Cincinnati Police Historical Society Museum site.

Magic Mushrooms

From the beginning, the shooting of David "Bones" Hebert
circumstances have been sketchy. This call is what got police involved. While Hebert was extremely intoxicated at the time, a person's drunken behavior, while different from his sober behavior, is usually pretty consistent. As he had no reputation for violence the idea of him attacking a police officer is kinda suspect. With a .33 BAC, his staggering or stumbling makes perfect sense. The wildcard was that he was reportedly on "Magic Mushrooms" too. What one usually finds around here is Psilocybe cubensis - Psilocybin mushrooms. It's a hallucinogenic that is really just kinda like pot on steroids. But there's another kind of mushroom, Amanita muscaria, which is a little more intense and can cause "bouts of marked agitation with confusion, hallucinations, and irritability followed by periods of central nervous system depression".
After almost 3 months autopsy toxicology reports verify Bones had "Psychedelic Mushrooms" in his system - but what kind? That'd be too much to ask our local media.
Unless the mushrooms in question were the Amanita muscaria type, it sounds like the incident was likely the result of an over zealous police officer misinterpreting a highly intoxicated person's erratic movements.
Bonesfest will continue tonight at Bogart's and tomorrow, 7/10, in Hoffner Park

Fishwrap story here

WLWT story here

Remembering Riots
About 10 years ago Cincinnati was semi-rocked by rioting. While the cause cited is a young black guy getting shot while playing hide-n-seek with the police, the inability of the police to notify his next of kin, his mother, seems to have been the real catalyst.
Why had the police failed to inform his mom? She went by a number of names & aliases and her acquaintances were reluctant to help police find her. She blamed police.
Why was the guy shot? He had accumulated a string of arrests & warrants in just 19 years that most people don't achieve in lifetimes 3 times as long. When he fled from a policeman who recognized him & asked him to talk, a chase was on and the other officers joining in did not know the extent of his crimes. With just the number of offenses they assumed they were looking at trouble. When he & an officer surprised one another in the dark maze of alleys Thomas was using for his game of cat & mouse, shots were fired. Most of Thomas' offenses were related to driving & his not facing up to his legal obligations. A tragic waste.
A big issue brought up was the number of Blacks who had been killed by police officers in Cincinnati over the years. All the casualties racked up by the police had been black. Of 15 only a couple were questionable. Frequently the police were just returning fire. This was routinely glossed over. Article
I remember my white co-workers in Over the Rhine being almost terrified to come to work. The night shift workers needed letters citing their good reason for being out and about after the curfew. One guy was almost crying about how he couldn't risk his life there because he had a wife and children. Meanwhile I went out and stood at the bus stop looking down Findlay at an armed police line a block away. When the bus arrived it had a cracked window. The black woman sitting behind it looked tense but confident. Race relations on the bus were fine. Later, at the grocery, the mood was pretty upbeat. The clientele being about half black / half white generally had the attitude of people planning for a snowstorm or a Superbowl. People were preparing for the curfew buying soda, beer, chips, pizza, junk / comfort food, etc. The lines at the check out were long and chatty. That evening I sat on the front porch and enjoyed the quiet. My middle aged ass kinda liked this curfew thing.
Images of the riots & protests were interesting. The black people under 30 including teens & preteens seemed to look like what wealthy white college students would call a spring break. Unorganized vandalism & looting... The Over the Rhine Credit Union, established to fill the void left by traditional banks and to offer financial help to the neighborhood residents, was trashed. Meanwhile the black folks over 30 tended to march in an organized way protesting fairly specific issues. People traveling to Cincinnati to participate in something they knew nothing about? Priceless.
In the aftermath, the Collaborative Agreement was hatched. Mayors and ex-mayors from Boston & San Francisco offered to give Mayor Charlie Luken advice as they had dealt with similar issues in the past. They had claimed that dealing with socio-economic issues along racial lines would be a failure & that socio-economic issues need to be addressed as socio-economic issues (!). Luken, in typical Cincinnati form, said he would deal with it himself - as a race issue. The Collaborative Agreement was so called because it dealt with a number of Black advocacy groups that debatably even represented anybody and had various agendas. Too many chiefs? yup. Within a few years, Luken tried to end the whole thing because egos & interests of the Black citizens groups had led to their disolution, lack of cohesiveness & coherence.
A police monitoring system was established to find out if police were engaged in racial profiling. The surveying method was ill-conceived and when results were analyzed by the pros at UC, they claimed they couldn't really draw any conclusions since the surveys didn't ask the right questions.
A citizens complaint panel was established that finds 99.9% of complaints against police unwarranted.
To assume that all the police reforms of the last 10 years are the direct result of the Collaborative Agreement would be naive. Police policies were already changing in 2001 and continually evolve.
The biggest impact was probably the police slowdown in Over the Rhine. This allowed criminal activity to flourish in the area and provide a base to grow throughout the entire city. When Sheriff's deputies showed up, the area immediately changed for the better. We are still cleaning up.
A number of Black advocacy groups have engaged in establishing expensive & business crushing rules & quotas on various government projects. Liberal white apologists see this as a positive thing. The advocacy groups engaging their constituents & helping them better their lot as conservatives would prefer isn't happening much, but when groups like COA T, with their anti-government agenda can count on groups like the NAACP to help them antagonize government, it's unlikely to hear them speak up.
Another result was the "Boycott of Cincinnati". Among other things, black performers, after contracting to do shows, reneged & cancelled their contracts. In the case of Whoopi Goldberg, this unprofessional conduct mainly hurt local non-profit organizations.
What's changed? The biggest change in police work since 2001 has been a policy to "work smarter", video recording of stops & the use of tasers, non-lethal when used on relatively healthy people. The "black community" seems to be a little more cooperative with police in recent years. That's seems to be about it. The riots did reinforce the stereotype of the uncontrollably violent negro in the minds of many predisposed Whites.
Most people aren't exactly "where they want to be". They can blame others for their lot in life. They can blame classes defined by race, sex, religion, region.....
It's normal.
When others enable them to believe their prejudice a snowball effect ensues. Some people say we need to chat & dwell on past slights. It won't work. I cannot hate the Italians who tormented my ancestors. I cannot hate the crimes and oppression of Africans, English, Catholics, Swedes.... - that's about as far back as I can go - on my ancestors. Sorry. At some point you have to move on.

Does Size Matter ?
These numbers aren't terribly accurate, they are rounded off, too, but they are close enough to get some kinda point across.
Back when Cincinnati began it was just a few square miles along the river. Around 1810 there were about 2,000 people and policing was pretty much a volunteer night watch thing. A police force didn't happen till 1828 which resulted in a force of about 7 men. The population in 1830 was about 25,000.
In 1850 the city annexed the rest of "the basin" boosting the city's area to about 6 square miles. The population was about 115,000. A police chief system was established in 1852.
Throughout the 1800s police got around on foot or on horseback. In the later decades they added horse drawn wagons to the mix.
Cincinnati began annexing nearby villages. Cumminsville was added in 1873. At the time of the courthouse riots of 1884, Cincinnati had a police force of 300. By 1900 the city had a population of about 325,000 & covered about 50 square miles. This would have given the city about 6 officers per square mile that they would traverse by foot or on horseback.
The police established a telegraph network as early as 1866 with "call boxes" & updated it to telephony by 1880. Prior to that the patrolling officer was pretty much out on his own. Cincinnati's was actually the first police department to adopt the telephone.
In 1904 the first motorized
police wagon" was introduced. In 1911 the police force adopted motorcycles and in 1912 patrol cars were introduced giving the officers a greater range & faster response times. Theoretically. Tires of that era were of notoriously poor quality & flats were commonplace.
The city ceased it's annexation campaign around 1914 when it had grown to just under 80 square miles.
By the 1950s Cincinnati's population peaked at over 500,000. Police cars had become specialty vehicles with powerful engines and advanced suspensions. Later, the call boxes were replaced with radio communications. If you were around in the 1960s you probably remember seeing the old call boxes. Through better communications & transportation the police were well equipped to handle the area and population.
By 2011 the population of Cincinnati has shrunk to just under 300,000. It has not grown it's area for almost 100 years. The police officers are aided with computer networks in addition to their better radios & an array of weaponry, the latest additions primarily being non-lethal.
The police force, at around 1,000 officers added another 100 around 2006. This gives Cincinnati approximately 13 officers, with damn near Batman-like technology, per square mile. This is more than twice the police per square mile of 120 years ago when we had roughly the same size population, only a slightly smaller footprint & police were running around on foot & communicating with stationary phones. Do all the high tech advances count for nothing? Seems like we should need fewer police, not more.

WHA ??
People lying around on the grass in a park in the middle of the summer?
AMAZING !!
I remember, a long time ago in a park far far away, a cop driving across freshly seeded grass to tell me & my mates we were too close to the freshly seeded grass & to move our asses on. We stood there on the old grass looking at this guy with his 2 tons of steel parked on the new grass & said, "ummm, ok ossifer...".
He only slipped a little as he pulled away.
dumbass

In an effort to crack down on terrorism, the London Police Dept has launched a campaign promoting citizen vigilance. Sounds ok, we oughtta know our neighbors for a number of reasons, but would we do this in Cincinnati ?
Most of us miss the fun of spying on the neighbors via examining their trash because we drive by at 25 mph, listening to obnoxious djs screaming and cackling about boobies and poopie. If you ride the bus or walk to work, trash day can be a ton-o-fun.
But now it's serious.

Your neighbor could be planning on blowing up local landmarks like the Cinti. Metal Blast building or Art Damage Lodge. International terrorists will be sure to leave their evidence out on the sidewalk on trash day and only you can report this to the police who refuse to get out of their cars.
I can't help but think the London police will set up "tip stations" like the ones used in the movie Fahrenheit 451. I also can't help but think the police will get inundated with reports from cranky old neighborhood gossips.
While I doubt any evidence found locally will lead to any international terrorists, it might lead to catching vandals like these goombahs from Amelia & New Richmond.