When will the killings end?

When I call 911, I don't want a f***ing social worker...I want a Police Officer! As a citizen I don't like the idea of my police officers playing "hug-a-thug" and handing out teddy bears. There are very simple rules to being stopped by a Police Officer, if you're not doing anything wrong, then you've got nothing to worry about! If you are doing something wrong, be polite, handle the situation like an adult and you won't have any problems from the officers.

You have a depatment that lacks support from it's upper command staff and a community that has lost faith in it's PD and is just now starting to really doubt the Chief. To compound the problem, your department is VERY understaffed and all the guys with experience that should be teaching the old ways to the rookies are all leaving to retire. This really scares me.

I wish that I knew an idea to get the community behind it's police, but I don't. The public is the key to turning this around. Officers, please remember that many of us out here still support you. I can tell you that I do look forward to the day that my city's police department decides to allow the police to be police again.

First if people allow themselves to be victims than they will be one, yes call the police and help them. but if some one comes to do harm to you do not lay down and die! there are folks posting "hey officers there are some of us that support you" well if they don't see it , than perception is truth and we as officers are not seeing it. where are you and your support, get on tv get on radio and say it. go out and vote for leaders that fight crime and support poice, get out and call a duck a duck and do not ignore criminals or what they do and screw being scared of them. help us get the pay we should get, where i don't have to work off duty and be wore out when i get to work, come out and tell the dept and "activist" enough that officer didn't do anything but what you hired him to do or say i saw what happened and it was not wrong! it is easier to lead sheep to slaughter than to fight someone that will stand up.

"Government must defend us against INVASION by others"

-U.S. Constitution, Article IV, Section 4.

"It is a sad day in America when the law-makers side with the law-breakers against the law-abiding." Ezola Foster - (VP candidate - 2000)

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing."

-Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

"In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a brave and scarce man, hated and scorned. When the cause succeeds, however, the timid join him...for then it costs nothing to be a patriot."

-Mark Twain

"While we slept, the United States was stolen."

- author unknown

"We can transform bleak and desolate valleys into sunlit paths of joy, and bring new light into the dark caverns of pessimism."

- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Our incompetent Command Staff have caused the transferred or encouraged the retirement of the experienced street crimes detectives and disbanded all of the units that would ordinarily be trying to prevent these crimes. Uniformed patrol can't do it all and neither can the district Detectives, who are mostly just glorified patrolmen not wearing a uniform right now. The few experienced Detectives we now have are burned out and mostly worried about their next off-duty job or marking days off the calendar until they retire. This Department is no longer a professional law enforcement organization thanks to the people in charge screwing it up every chance they get. I'm embarassed to tell people that I work here and so should you if you have any pride at all. RCW is turning this City into a sewer just like his hometown Marion Barry-ville, DC

Added White: "If we can't convince those individuals that are committing violence to stop, at the very least, we need to convince them to commit violence in a community other than ours."-------Taken from an article on WLKY 32. Absolutely Brilliant is it not? I cannot control crime on my watch/on my beat so I will try convince them to take their killin' to Lexington! Absolutely brilliant Chief!

Lifted from an e-mail conversation I've been having with friends in Columbus PD and San Diego SO.

> How many homicides in Columbus this year? We just

> clocked number 46 for the year. 3 in one day,

> yesterday - on National Night Out. Sheesh!

Yikes! How many peeps in Looooieville??

Sandy Eggo hit 23 homicides as of June 31st. Last year the annual total

was 62.

We have 1.22 million folks in the city.

Problem is, who do I call? A tipline where my information goes into a big hopper to eventually get sorted out among all the divisions and detective units? Why doesn't EACH DIVISION and unit have a contact number and eddress posted, for example, so I can send information to people. I've tried to call 911 at night will an emergency situation, only to be put off and told that because I can't give enough specifics, my information is useless. Unlike many of my neighbors, I have no problem with officers coming to my door, but if I see or hear shots, for example, in the middle of the night, and don't see the shooter, do you really want me to call? I doubt it, since most "shots fired" calls are resolved on the radio as an "unfounded." That mans, by the way, without foundation, which means that I lied. So why would I call in information like that?

The problem is the public often tries to help but is prevented from doing so by a select few in your department. First of all, when you call dispatch (especially the Suburban side) you sometimes have to perform a song and dance to get past the calltaker to get an officer dispatched. The substations are closed at night and on weekends so there goes trying to talk with an officer in person when dispatch won't help.

Now the command staff sets up a telephone reporting unit which is fine for misdemeanor offenses like CM, TBUT under or harassment, but I tried to transfer a call from my agency today on a ROBBERY 1 of an individual, and was told that since it occured last night and the victim didn't have much information that it would be taken over the phone by a civilian. OK, so the civilians are up on all the elements of crimes? What if this robbery is taken over the phone and this person with no acadmey training classifies it as a TBUT? It will probably then never get to a detective for followup. What about TBUT auto and theft of motor veh reg plate? If the telephone unit is off duty then victims are told to call back the following morning when they are working( I know because this happened to a good friend of mine who, by the way, is a former JCPD officer). What happened to, if the victim wants to see an officer, one is dispatched? Not to mention this is a serious officer safety issue since stolen cars and tags are being delayed in being reported and entered NCIC, often by days. The system is ripe for fraud since no one is verifying the victim information in person to make sure he/she is the actual owner not someone making a false report.

Crimestoppers used to be a part of the JCPD, but since merger Chief White kicked them out and now has to form their own tips unit. What was wrong with what existed before? Crimestoppers still gets many more tips than 574-LMPD by 2-1 from what I hear. A well established name with the community like Crimestoppers, should mean a lot more than any petty disagreements there may be.

These are my personal observations only and I know are not the fault of the officers. I just wanted to let you know that it is getting harder and harder to even get information to an officer. After a while people just give up trying.

Oh, I fully agree - what I was talking about was the assumption in the Louisville ordinances that it was, somehow, okay to park that way in the parks. Actually, it is NOT permissible to park in that area, either on or off the street, because that isn't strictly a park road, but best I can tell, no one there has ever been ticketed for it. No one seems to take any responsibility for it, but that is nothing new in Louisville. Parks tells me it is up to LMPD to enforce, LMPD, despite numerous complaints, has apparently never written these folks a ticket. It is pretty much the same vehicles, and I'm making the assumption that if they got a ticket, they may actually quit doing it. Since they park there every day, I assume that no one there has gotten a ticket.

I enjoyed the debate one day on the radio between two Louisville officers who couldn't decide if it was illegal to park on the sidewalk - I was really tempted to pick up the mike and give them the number for it.

It also drives me nuts that the city ENCOURAGES people to park halfway on the sidewalk on 26th Street, as well. Looks downright tacky and would never be considered an option anywhere else. It is tearing up the curbs. I know the street is tight there, but it isn't like there hasn't been traffic on that street for years. And now they are talking about two-waying Bank and Portland? The street simply isn't wide enough for it, if you are going to allow parking on both sides, and I don't see that changing.

Here's the Louisville ordinance:

72.049 PARKING IN PARKS.

It shall be a parking violation for any person to park any motor vehicle in or on any section of any public park, playground, play lot, or tot lot within the Metro Government not designed as a parking area or designed and regularly maintained as a roadway. However, nothing contained in this section shall be construed as prohibiting the parking of a motor vehicle parallel to a designated and regularly maintained roadway in any such park or playground where at least two wheels of the motor vehicle are resting on such roadway.

But I'd argue that the road in question isn't a "park road" but a regular highway - and in this case, they are fully off the roadway on park property. (Couldn't park 2 on/2 off on that stretch anyway, the roadway isn't wide enough.) The ordinance is goofy, anyway, but it wouldn't be the first time a law contradicted itself. Usually, they don't manage to do it in the same paragraph, though.

Well said. Jerry Abramson lays off Metro Employees. Tells the unions he has no money for raises and then turns around and spends it on a ring park around the entire county. People are dying in the streets and he is more concerned with a walking path.

SAME STUFF SHOULDA COULDA WOULDA, BUT HEY I LIKE THE VIDEO GAMES ON THIS WEBSITE

Wow! Talk about a wuote Jerry Abramson could have easily made himself.

It seems that the common theme here is not enough Police on the street and those that we do have are ********** about many things that have been done wrong to them by this administration.

Jerry has been spending our tax dollars on everything BUT public safety.

Why has nobody questioned some of the ridiculous spending by the Abramson administration? Hopefully it will make for some juicy political mud in next years election.

Hey Chad Carlton! I know you read this, so can you tell me just exactly how much the new parking meters cost? Almost $900 apiece isn't it? AND The City is not getting the majority of the revenue it is going to yet another private company recommended by Jerry!

One answer would be for the administration to make it plain ans simple for the people committing crimes that they will be dealt with harshly. If you complain because the officer wasn't polite while he was arresting your stupid but on drug and weapon charges then the complaint will be put in file 13.

Why is it ok for criminals to treat the police like crap and not ok for the police to act in kind? We are not talking about cussing out grandma on a traffic violation, we're talking about Officers afraid to cut loose and get aggressive because they won't be backed up by the front office.

We are talking about stupid and obvious false complaints being taken and time wasted investigating them.

Why should I put myself in a situation where I may have to use deadly force and then be tried and convicted by the administration before it even goes to trial. Why should I do anything for an ungrateful mayor that treats us like crap?

Instead of hiring a few Detroit cops, we should lease the whole department. Just have the entire Detroit Police Department come down with all of their vehicles and start patrolling. We should then lease some "hang-em-all" judges and prosecutors from Texas and hire Sheriff Joe from Arizona to set up some prison work camps. Make all of our Officers, judges, and prosecutors go on vacation for a month and when they come back our streets will be crime-free and all of the criminals will be doing hard labor. Yes, this may seem insane on the surface, but not any more than disbanding all of the Detective units and turning your Police Department into a bunch of rent-a-cops. I honestly can't believe how monumentally incompetent this Administration is at controlling crime and how little our elected leaders in the City Council are doing to address the problem.

That's the 100K question. I don't have the answer, but as a suggestion, re-assess everything in the department. Nothing should be sacred, no idea too strange to consider.

As a start:

Assess who is being "selected" for certain assignments? Why are experienced cops being overlooked for assignment to flex/detective positions and officers with only a couple of years on being selected instead?

Why are command staff being moved around, AGAIN!

Why are so many officers assigned to non-street positions? (And again, nothing should be sacred, how many people are assigned to training right now, for example? How many are in "community" positions?)

Why does it take SO LONG to hire and train officers, especially laterals? How many good laterals, especially, does LMPD lose because it takes so long and because the hiring process is so confusing?

Why are beat officers bounced around, and off their assigned beats, so often? I thought the whole idea of assigned beat was just that, to get experience on a specific beat?

Why are LMPD officers assigned to positions that aren't the responsibility of LMPD? The whole school resource officer issue really fires me up, JCPS has the authority to have their own officers, if it is so important, and I don't deny that it might be, they should be providing the service. I still find it hysterically funny that JCPS doesn't let their own officers be armed, but they gladly open their doors to officers from other agencies who are carrying? How schizo is that? Here's my question - if a LMPD officers gets involved in a shooting inside a school - who is going to be liable for it? Guys, who is going to defend you? Is that covered in the paperwork anywhere? (I worry about that for off-duty work as well, if you are involved in a shooting at an off-duty job, WILL LMPD defend you?

I don't know if this has been posted before or not, but I think I have a really good idea: instead of the police risking their lives to stop criminals in the more violent, homicide-ridden areas, why don't the police just withdraw and make Coleman and the other so-called "rights activists" happy and just give guns to the criminals and let them kill each other off? I mean, in 2004 the police accounted for two fatal shootings: Newby and Hammonds; the street thugs accounted for more than 70! Instead of wasting tax-payaers money and police resources, why not just let them kill each other off?