From Parade Magazine March 23, 2008
“Intelligence Report
Violent Crime On the Rise
Despite murders last year hitting lows not seen since the 1960s in our nation’s three largest cities—New York, Los Angeles and Chicago—the number of murders is rising in much of the United States. “The homicide rate is going up, and gun violence is spiking,” says Ron Ruecker, head of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. The increase primarily is occurring in some large cities, including Atlanta, Miami, New Orleans, Cleveland and Baltimore.
So what are our biggest cities doing right? There are some strategies that seem to be working, explains Chuck Wexler, head of the Police Executive Research Forum. “Cops matter,” he says. “Cities that are able to quickly deploy officers to hot spots can cut back on crime.”
Interesting report in Parade Magazine this week. Crime is going down in the three largest cities and up in most others. Greensboro unfortunately is one of those smaller cities with a high crime rate that is showing a different pattern in that there is now more gang violence and the crime is spreading to areas in the city that have known little crime. Now note what the larger cities are doing to cut the rate of violent crime: “Cities that are able to quickly deploy officers to hot spots can cut back on crime”
Our elected City Council and hired City Manager have spent several years destroying the Greensboro Police Department with “Mitchmanagment” and at the same time cutting back on hiring new police officers. Adding also to the drain of police officers is normal retirements and police officers finding jobs elsewhere. This is the primary cause of the increasing violence in our city.
We recently dropped $500 thousand dollars on the GPD to pay “overtime” to the officers we do have. Wasting money on overtime pay instead of hiring sufficient personnel to do the job really makes sense. David Wray was promised 200 new officers in 2005. To date there have been 30 of these officers hired.
The Gang Crime Unit had to be started from scratch after David Wray was forced out and with him his already in place Gang Unit. The entire command staff, except the now Police Chief Bellamy, left or was forced out with David Wray thus destroying much of the set up of the department.. As a result the gang crime rate soared and several young people have been gunned down on our streets. Those left of Wray’s gang unit needed the past two years to train a new group of police officers for the Gang Unit.
Recently there was a report that the Gang Unit is finally becoming effective in controlling gangs because the gangs are leaving Greensboro. With the current ineffectiveness of our police department I somehow doubt it is because the gangs are running from the police. It is more likely that a stronger gang is taking over territory formerly “owned” by another gang that has now been pushed out of town. Drug peddling is the primary activity of gangs and they are not the disorganized group of teen-aged boys that many think them to be. They are well organized criminal organizations using teen-aged boys to do their dirty work. This dirty work besides being the hauling and peddling of drugs includes the murders that force out rival drug operations.
Bottom line the City of Greensboro is failing miserably to do it’s primary job which is protecting the residents. It is failing because of what has and has not been done for the GPD! And yet our City Council and City Manager seem to find dollars for any other cause.
The City Manager has in at least two cases that we know of found money to give as “gifts” to contractors who bid a job in at a low price and then come back for more money. The contractors seem to be paid what they ask despite not being able to document their expenses and the reasons for asking for more money. Mitch then claimed the payments were to continue to have “a good working relationship with local contractors”. Wouldn’t it be nice if he felt a good relationship with the tax payers was as vital.
The City Council can find money for all kinds of goodies for special groups. Let’s see: 1) they can and do give money to multi-million dollar businesses in the hope that these businesses will hire more workers or come to Greensboro. So far the ones I have been able to find reports on have not managed to live up to the job creation they promised when they extorted funds from the tax payers via our fiscally irresponsible City Council.
2) the City Council can find several millions dollars yearly to truck our household wastes to another county at enormous costs after they stopped taking the household wastes to the city owned landfill. They did this because a group of people living near the landfill charged “environmental racism”. The only problem with that is the landfill was opened in 1940 and the homes came later so residents knew the landfill was already there. Councilman Mike Barber recently suggested this issue be reconsidered and again the neighbors of the landfill are coming up in arms. The fact is the White Street Landfill should never have been closed to household waste as it is estimated to be able to serve the city’s needs for another 40 or more years. Further more, it should not be the burden of the other residents of the city to pay for the folly of those who bought homes in an undesirable area.
3) The City Council is planning an initial outlay of a large sum of tax dollars to build a “Greenway park” downtown that at best will service a limited number of people, while all tax payers will pay to build and continue to pay for the upkeep of this “greenway” forever. It seems not to be enough that the privately owned Center City Park is already costing tax payers $3 million a year to maintain as the City Council agreed to do before the park was built. And why does the park remain a privately owned piece of property? Why so the owners can sell alcoholic beverages at a huge profit when there are events held in the park!
I could continue enumerating the fiscal irresponsibility of our City Council but see no need as you all live in or near the city and read the newspapers I assume. The point is that money is being spent for everything but the primary and most important function of any government, and that is the protection of it’s citizens. First the City Council allows and enables the City Manager to force an excellent Police Chief to resign by lying about this man’s management of the police department, then they continue to let the already crippled and scandal ridden department continue to deteriorate with the lack of enough police officers to cover the city.
Folks the rule is quite simple really: when police officers are not on the city streets the vacuum is filled with criminals. BB
