I am fed up with police resources being stripped from my neighborhood, and other neighborhoods in the City to cover problem bars. I am fed up with the police coverage that is supposed to be assigned to my area being stripped to fill holes in other areas of the City.
Am I , as well as my neighbors, any less entitled to proper police coverage because other areas of the City don't know how to act properly.
Asylum Hill, my neighborhood, is pretty much a relatively quiet area crime wise. It does not happen just because of luck or good geographic's. It happens because we have the Asylum Hill walk beat as well as some good supervision in the area. The two Central District Lieutenants operate out of an office a half block away from me. They are accessible and approachable, not just for me but members of the community as well.
The major portion of the stability though is the tone set by the walk beat officer, who is actually on a bike. Loiterers know not to hang on the corners, Hartford High students know better than to loiter on Farmington Avenue when they are skipping class. And people going to the cell phone store to fence stolen items have learned that an officer on the bike is following their activity.
It is called quality of life enforcement, the things that destroy neighborhoods
My walk beat has not been on his walk beat all week. Monday he was pulled to fill a vacant cruiser, Car 30. Tuesday he was pulled to guard a prisoner at Hartford Hospital. Today he was pulled to fill in at Tele-serve, the front desk at HPD.
And trust me , the word spreads quick when he is not here, you can notice the difference. Should me and my neighbors have to deal with the instability caused because the City Councils commitment to us as residents seems not to be there. Lets start not filling the west end cruisers around the Council members home and see what the response is.
My walk beat officer also covers one of the City's latest hell holes of crime, South Marshall Street, home to one of our latest homicide victims who was stuffed in a bag and dumped in Suffield, numerous gun arrests including a sawed off shotgun, and a real hotbed for drug dealing.
Now I am being told our "Condition Units", which were sold to the neighborhoods as teams of Officers that would be focused on quality of life issues, are being permanently assigned to the Central Bar district every Thursday, Friday Saturday and Sunday night now. The North District Conditions Units are being assigned to North Main Street bars and clubs every Thursday Friday Saturday and Sunday now also.
I guess that means that quality of life issues in the rest of the neighborhoods are only important one day a week.
It is wrong, the nuisances and problem locations need to be forced to be a part of the solution, instead of draining resources from the rest of the City. Many areas, such as my neighborhood have worked hard to reduce crime and build relationships with our officers to have safe streets. To risk that by shuffling them around is wrong
And while I am at it, I am usually very supportive of our Police Officers. I am growing increasingly troubled by those officers that are more focused on the "PJ's" or private duty jobs. There are numerous officers in competition to see who will hit $150,000 first for the year rather than focusing on their primary commitment to Public Safety in Hartford.
I want to know that Officer's are focused on their job 100% when they are in my neighborhood. I want to know that Officers are paying attention and not missing dead bodies shot in some one's yard because they are too lazy to get out of their car on a shooting call because they have already worked 5 or 6 PJ's for the week already.
I am not sure anyone could give their full effort to any employer after standing in the sun and 90 degree temperatures several days a week at a road ,job, and the Linnmore Street homicide and not seeing a dead body laying in a side yard is the perfect example.
Start the comments rolling, but there is no way to defend any of this other than to properly staff and fund the PD. Hartford will never turn around with headlines like we have seen this week.
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14 comments:
Kevin it's going to get worse before it gets better. Even if a new class of officers started tomorrow they wouldn't be out of the academy and on their own until around may. What does the department, or better yet city hall, think its going to do with the mass of retirements coming down the pipes in the next 3-7 months. The pulling of resources has only just begun. Look at the schools. Seriously, one school resource officer for the entire south (north or central)? The city better brace itself or come up with some funding for new guys quick.
Hartford wont be "turning around" soon Kevin.Mayor Segarra while well intentioned,just does not have the skill set needed to be a leader.He also has no vision of where he wants to take the City, so we are left with a Mayor,who at best, only became Mayor due to the lack of credible candidates.
Due to the Caviar incident and others,he is too tarnished to be effective.
Chief Rovella has had a lot of answers to address gun violence / violent crime, and he has already shown what needs to be done, he did reduce gun violence dramatically. He's proved himself. You know this Kevin, you've seen first hand.
However city council destroyed his police budget preventing him from sustaining the crime reduction. No brain storming needed, he has the plan, he implemented it, and because of ken Kennedy and the city council, his plan was stripped and halted, and it's only gonna get worse.
We all need to demand action and accountability from these turds on city council.....especially Wooden and Kennedy!!!!!
Why aren't you spear heading a community action / protest at a city council meeting Kevin? These turds need to know their actions are unacceptable!!!!
Please help Kevin.....
Your neighborhood is no different. I never see any police coverage in the southwest.And of course, as I write this there is a drug deal going down right across the street in plain sight. One of several each day. And the illegal dirt bikes and quads go up and down a very busy street and down a one way the wrong way, doing wheelies no less. So tell me again why I should stay?
Enough is enough. Come on Mr. Mayor lead us out of this mess. Be strong and don't be afraid to piss people off, yes even the dysfunctional council.
As soon as possible, hold a press conference and command the police chief to do whatever it takes to bring this city under control.
And speaking of the council, what meaningful legislation have they passed in the last several years?
They are not doing the job, time for replacements. Most of them have sucked off the tit long enough.
Our new Slogan says it all
Hartford Has IT!!!!!!!!
Kevin are you aware that Ladder Co #3 has been moved out of its quarters at Main St and Belden st to Clark and Westland streets. This ladder company serves much of your neighborhood and now it takes twice the response time to get there. The reason for this is the apperatus floor has been deemed unstructurally sound to hold it. This fire house five years ago went under a million dollar renovation in wich this problem was to be fixed.Well the lowest bidder strikes again and botch the job. Of course no one wants to take the responsibility for it. So the HFD's solution was to uproot the ladder and move it. Why is it the city can pay outside lawyers,give severence pay to criminals,and pay double dipping employees crazy money but cant fix something that should of been fixed under a contract.
Kevin are you aware that Ladder Co #3 has been moved out of its quarters at Main St and Belden st to Clark and Westland streets. This ladder company serves much of your neighborhood and now it takes twice the response time to get there. The reason for this is the apperatus floor has been deemed unstructurally sound to hold it. This fire house five years ago went under a million dollar renovation in wich this problem was to be fixed.Well the lowest bidder strikes again and botch the job. Of course no one wants to take the responsibility for it. So the HFD's solution was to uproot the ladder and move it. Why is it the city can pay outside lawyers,give severence pay to criminals,and pay double dipping employees crazy money but cant fix something that should of been fixed under a contract.
Kevin:
We could start by filling cars on a reuglar basis. Unfilled cars mean no coverage in neighborhoods.
a fairer PJ system would be a big help. Some officers average 7-10 pjs a week! How is that possible?. They cannot possibly be alert and attentive to their patrol assignments (or Teleserve Shon).
Filling cars costs money, but the ral goal here is to come in UNDER BUDGET!! and where is the Chief with all this violence. He needs to be more public on what the council has done to coverage.
Taking a shot at Peter Shon is a cowardly thing to do.
Since police departments began there has been manpower shortages for all sorts of reasons.
Cars are N/F ed at the discretion of patrol commanders and while no area is more important than the next one the level of criminal activity, calls for service and immediate need for police presence are determining factors why cars and beats are not filled.
Back in the early 1980's when there were real police officers and not persons in costume doing road jobs there were 525 officers. Even with that # of officers cars and beats could not be always properly filled. Back then however there were 30 officers working 6-2 and 16 working narcotics on each of their 2 established shifts.
Back then we had idiot politicians to deal with as well but always got the job done. I could name them but the blog would collapse.
Stop complaining, support the Chief (that is James Rovella for those too tired from road jobs to know) and shut your yaps. You have the best job going and if you don't thing so do us all a favor and XRAY yourself.
shon is the perfect example of officers who are more interested in making money than being a police officer. As long as just making money is the primary goal of persons here than the problem will perpetuate
Nothing personal just a perfect example.
Hey Kevin I hope you took a look at that comment made about Ladder 3 on August the 16th. There are a lot of people, not including those on the job, that would love to get an answer for that situation.....which of course is just another typical city operation at its finest. The floor issue was in fact "corrected" in the renovation, which resulted in a series of steel I-beams, just like those found in skyscrapers, being erected to support the floor in the basement. However, since the city engineer found that his work was not followed precisely to his plans, he would not sign off on it...and lets not forget the Chief of the HFD that wont get off his ass to fix the problem either. How about getting a second opinion for that floor, since the renovation led to it being reconstructed like an aircraft carrier - you could park three ladder trucks in there without a problem.
If the current situation is such a high risk for a flor collapse, then why is it still ok to station a 25,000 lbs apparatus, as well as multiple personal vehicles on that floor that is supposedly not structurally sound......like I said, just a typical city operation!
Kevin, The Human Resource Dept needs to revise their requirements on the applications for HPD . The first question on the form should be ...Are you interested in being a "COP" or working for the Police Dept? There is a huge difference and someone needs to tell the existing roster that!!!
You shouldn't! Get out, don't look back... Why haven't you???
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