Safety in Lakewood

[Danielle Masters]

I could ask where was council at the McDonalds shooting? The mayor and Brian Corrigan were there. They were not there for face time, or to issue releases about what they achieved. Not one gave an interview all day. Neither one walked to the cameras for an update or a statement.

You are correct, the mayor was there which is good because WE pay him to lead this city. That is where he should have been, but council had no reason to be there. They probably would have just gotten in the way, I don't mean that to be insulting in anyway to our council people. The mayor is the safety director, he is not a part time employee. I feel that the majority on council do their jobs as they should. They answer their constituents letters, attend public meetings, work to get problems solved and pass ordinances. They are not however responsible for the day to day operations of the city. Our mayor, any mayor, is responsible for showing that he is a leader and it's time we have a mayor that shows up for the difficult meetings. If we have another meeting he needs to be there. I will excuse him last night, but I won't excuse his absence at the last meeting when he was out campaigning. It's time for a leader, one who recognizes that people are scared and is willing to tell us what he will do.

[Dave Sharosky]

Jim,

I respectfully have to disagree with you about whether the mayor should have been there. There's no doubt he should have shown face. It's a serious issue that has a lot of residents concerned, scared and looking for answers, whatever they may be. He may not be the actual person that conveys the answers to us or the person the makes every decision in the city. But he is the Mayor. The effective "leader." The one person that gets tied to the identity of the city he or she represents. The one person most residents know or know of and look to as the voice of the city. If anything, he should have shown face due to the fact it's an election year. The election will probably be "dogfight" this time around and he needs all the votes he can muster. To me it shows lack of respect and concern to myself and other residents. Correct me if I'm wrong but these past two meetings we're not regularly scheduled meetings. Were they not special meetings called in response to residents concerns?

[Brian Pedaci]

I'm sure that Mr. George is a skillful-enough politician to a) be able to defer to his CoP and Law Director if he's feeling like a lightning-rod for criticism and b) recognize the overwhelming response to his absence. This was a key opportunity to communicate with the voting public on what may be the central issue of the election.

If he was really afraid of getting bombarded, he could have worn one of those silly yellow plastic hard hats.

[Frank Murtaugh]

The Mayor indeed showed concern about the the serious subject matter and respect for those of us who were present by not attending. He kept political grandstanding and cheap shot questions out of the equation.

There was no need for the Mayor to "make a showing". Concluding the Mayor's absence showed lack of respect for the citizens is wrong at best - just as it would be incorrect to now refer to important civic events where the Mayor showed but not one member of Council appeared.

The Chief of Police was present and answered all questions put to him first by Public Safety Committe Chairman FitzGerald and Committee member Michael Dever. Each and every member of the public who wanted to make a comment or ask a question did so.

Most other Council members were present. In this instance, their absence would not have mattered.

Present also were two Police Department Captains, the Law Director, and the Chief City Prosecutor. The Mayor had the right people there to provide the requisite preliminary information.

The subject matter included crime statistics, enforcement strategy, and community involvement. Assembling and interpreting the stats is not a simple task. This can be accomplished only if those with knowledge of the underlying variables are careful to explain them during the next few weeks.

Those who have resided in Lakewood for 5 to 80 years do not need statistics in order to know crime has increased. However, we must have the statistics in clear form as soon as possible in order to proceed in a rational, informed manner.

Many of us can picture in our minds' eyes neighborhoods and parts of communities in Cuyahoga County where we once lived and/or worked which are no longer desirable. The areas off Dennison, Storer, Lorain, Bridge, Franklin, Madison, Detroit, Harvard, Broadway, Fleet, Miles, Cedar, Wade Park, once beautiful East Cleveland, Euclid, parts of South Euclid, Cleveland Heights, Maple, Garfield, and Bedford all come to mind.

The people of Lakewood who are expressing serious concern are not alarmists. They are realists.

It is crucial to keep this issue on the front burner. We must not settle for a quick fix. Only a reasoned plan will do.

It appears focus must be upon hiring substantially more patrol officers. Crime likely will be reduced and the public perception of this community will improve as it should and must.

It would be helpful if the Chief would explain how 10, 20, or 30 additional patrol officers would best be used. We need the Chief's opinion as to what the effect of substantially increased patrol hours will likely be. What success stories from around the country can we learn from?

The opinions of retired Lakewood police officers who are residents should be elicited. Judge Carroll should be asked to give his insight.

We are in the initial fact finding stage. It is obvious the Mayor recognizes and relies upon the skills, knowledge, experience, and advice of the the Lakewood Police Chief and his commanders. Their presence at the meeting sufficed.

[Kenneth Warren]

Mr. Murtaugh provides a constructive lens for us gauge where exactly we are in what, I believe, must become the most intentional and deliberative community and police planning process the city has ever undertaken.

While I can understand the rationale for the Mayor’s absence at this point in the process, I do believe that we are facing a point where having the spokesman for the coordination and allocation of resources, extending beyond the police force, would be most informative and productive of good results. Without a City Manager, that authority is, of course, the Mayor.

Now questions about whether or not the process is flawed, tainted by politics, front-loaded with opportunities for political grandstanding by contenders to the Mayor’s seat are legitimate ones. However, politics is, as Harvey Wheeler suggests, the conversion of conflict into norms and rules.

What we are seeing is citizens from stressed neighborhoods storming City Hall and demanding the enforcement of norms and rules that will right the ship as the city sails low rent seas made increasingly chaotic by the detribalization of the urban core.

In the face of the low-rent crisis and increasing neighborhood disorder, citizens are likely to feel the bad faith of calculating politicians productive of only deadlock and aggravation. Those with means will turn tail. I sincerely hope we can find a way beyond deadlock and aggravation. Yet there comes a point when leadership must supply, in Wheeler’s terms, “the best approximation to the hypothetical correct solution to the given political problem.â€Â￾

Here, Mr. Murtaugh supplies a clue, when he writes: “It would be helpful if the Chief would explain how 10, 20, or 30 additional patrol officers would best be used. We need the Chief's opinion as to what the effect of substantially increased patrol hours will likely be. What success stories from around the country can we learn from?"

Now, I believe the Police Chief suggested in response to my inquiry about the process required to discern the tools and resources needed to bring a sense of safety back to the neighborhoods that a working group would be in order.

Yes, I believe the idea of a working group or working groups would be excellent.

The Chief also made a good point about Bike Patrols and School Officers assignments work together. One citizen remarked that the issue is disorderly juveniles. As an experiment, a laser-like focus on this single element by a working group could give us a measured step for improvement.

I don’t want to see political hay that fails to deliver made from these deliberations, much less perceptions and responses about what to do held hostage to campaign calculations.

But that may in fact be the reality.

Although a working group of citizens, with reps from each of the Mayoral Candidates and Council reps, would allow for the city to craft a “Lakewood Consensusâ€Â￾ on crime and quality of life, such an approach might not be to the ambition and taste of each politician.

It might have to come down to the candidates who feel compelled by the issue to advance their own working group, one that comes up with the necessary expertise and leadership promise to craft a plan that compels voters. I doubt, however, that there are time and resources available to do so effectively.

Anyway, I would summarize from these deliberations thus far that there are three issues facing the city right now:

1. The immediate need for increased and pro-active police presence on the street to satisfy the people’s concerns for safety.
2. The socialization of economically, psychologically and socially stressed juveniles now living in Lakewood.
3. Housing code and nuisance strategies that bring relief to neighborhoods stressed by disorder spilling from properties.

Bill Call has said forget the police and focus on housing. I do not dispute the social fact that Lakewood faces the hazards of a low rent neighborhood.

In The Urban Villages, sociologist Herbert J. Gans notes: “In most American cities there are two major types of low-rent neighborhoods: the areas of first or second settlement for urban migrants; and areas that attract the criminal, the mentally ill, the socially rejected, and those who for one reason or another have given up the attempt to cope with lifeâ€Â￾ (4).

I believe many people feel that over the past decade Lakewood is veering ever more closely toward the second.

As a low rent district, now with African-Americans in the mix, and with perceptions of crime and disorder rising, we need to advance sensible neighborhood norms of good order/no criminal non-sense integration that are wholly consistent with the step-up aspirations of people who want to live in what Gans terms “the areas of first or second settlement for urban migrants.â€Â￾

The detribalization of economically, psychologically and socially stressed African-American urban core into inner ring and suburban settings, where comportment with middle class neighborhood norms and rules of etiquette is expected, is pressing very stressful challenges on neighborhoods and police, not the mention people of color who may through no fault of their own become the lightening rod man that catches the negativity surrounding perceptions, sentiments and symbols of disorder.

That’s why, on the level of our daily practices as neighbors, the focus on behavior and social engagement in community building is fundamental to our success over the long haul.

There remains, nonetheless, that in-your-face hardness to the defense-mechanisms needed for survival in the urban core that flies in the face of rules of etiquette. This in-your-face hardness can be seen extending into various behaviors and signs of chaos-making, disrespect, noise, litter, etc.

We see this and we cannot accept this in the culture of our community.

So there are challenges of acculturation and socialization that cannot be managed successfully by the policeman’s Billy club. Yet it is absolutely critical for Lakewood as a low rent district to make certain there is a sufficient number of police with Billy clubs on the street to retain the good order that repels “the criminal, the mentally ill, the socially rejected, and those who for one reason or another have given up the attempt to cope with life.â€Â￾

Kenneth Warren

[Mark Crnolatas]

One benefit of 30 more police officers, would be increased visability, so the "bad guys" will see patrol cars more often. More patrol cars, more often seen by everyone, acts as a crime suppressing enity, not to everything but to many things.

Over the years, many Cleveland officers have voiced, "if we had enough officers to go round...." it seems a common problem with too many cities.

I think in any large density city, it would not be common to find a police department where the citizens actually supported the proper number of police officers per X amount of residents for maximum effectiveness.

I sincerely hope Lakewood will do so.

Society exists at the same level of success as the level of peacefulness is maintained.

http://www.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=13741
In particular, these two paragraphs:

"But according to the FBI, Baltimore already has more cops than is average for big cities in the Mid-Atlantic (and far more than the national average). Baltimore's 3,000 or so sworn officers police a city of 630,000--4.8 cops per 1,000 citizens. The 2004 average in Mid-Atlantic cities with populations above 250,000 was 4.3 cops per 1,000. The national average was 2.8.

But here's the odd thing: Baltimore's total police roster, including administrative staff, is 3,739. That's 5.9 police personnel per 1,000 residents, which is slightly lower than the Mid-Atlantic average of 6.1. Put another way, the recent claim that Baltimore has too many desk jockeys and not enough cops on the beat is backward, at least in terms of the regional norm. The FBI says on its web site that its figures "should be viewed merely as guides."

Our numbers are smaller but the percentages are what I'm attempting to highlight. Bottom line, we need more police officers.



Mark Allan Crnolatas