Category Archives: Peoria Police

Blogosphere, Peoria Police

There’s a reason you have to have press credentials to see the police blotter

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I read Billy’s recent “free” post about how he was denied access to police reports. His post calls into question the police department’s restriction of this information to only those with press credentials.

I wanted to find out what the police department’s policy actually was, so I e-mailed Chief Settingsgaard. It turns out that, rather than an attempt to keep information away from people, it’s actually an attempt to make information available more quickly. The police reports include private personal information such as social security numbers and home phone numbers that can be (and should be) redacted. But rather than hold up those reports until they can be redacted, the police department makes them available immediately to the press, trusting that they will be responsible and “[maintain] appropriate discretion.”

In order to restrict this information to the media, one has to ask, “who are ‘the media’?” Traditionally, that moniker has belonged to the mainstream media, but these days there are a lot more freelance reporters. With news organizations downsizing, and the ease of starting new niche-print or online publication, there are a lot of journalists out there who don’t have traditional “press credentials.” Settingsgaard realizes this as well.

“Obviously the industry is changing and not all reporters are members of the mainstream media any longer so clearly we need to adapt so that persons like yourself and Bill Dennis are not excluded. In the short term I will ensure that access is opened immediately to Mr. Dennis and others like him whom we are familiar with. Long term I will be taking a close look at how to make the system better and either configure the reports so that anyone can view them or modernize our ‘press’ qualification.”

My thanks to Chief Settingsgaard for his quick response to and resolution of the matter.

And as for Billy: That will be $30, please.

City of Peoria, Peoria Fire Department, Peoria Police

More kids being kids (UPDATED 2x)

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Remember when we were kids, and how much fun it was to point fireworks at police officers and firefighters and shoot them off?

What, you didn’t do that? Well, that’s just the latest incident of kids being kids here in Peoria:

A “major incident” involving a large group of people shooting fireworks at police and firefighters occurred near the Taft Homes just before 10 p.m. Sunday, about the same time the fireworks show on the riverfront was ending.

Police had to briefly shut down Adams and Eaton streets, near Taft, as they dispersed the large crowds.

No officers or firefighters were injured, dispatchers said on the radio.

At one point, police were ordered to tell those in the crowd to go into their apartments, leave or be arrested for unlawful assembly.

I’m sure it was just a party that was letting out, and this large group was on its way home, having a little fun. There was no property damage or injuries, so there’s no reason for concern. In fact, I wonder if the fireworks were really being shot at police and fire personnel at all, given that there are no interviews with neighbors who corroborate that story.

[/sarcasm]

UPDATE: Another news source in town — 1470 WMBD — is now reporting that there were injuries. “One police officer was treated for minor burns and hearing loss, while police say a fire fighter was treated for hearing loss,” according to their report. They also say that police described the event as a “riot.” I question whether these reports are true, however, since the Journal Star said there weren’t any injuries. After all, the Journal Star has editors that vet these stories before printing them to make sure they’re accurate. They wouldn’t just print something they heard on police radio without verifying it with two other sources. Right?

UPDATE 2: The Journal Star has updated their story. They are now confirming that there were injuries to police officers and firefighters. And they have some video of the incident. I was most interested in the City’s plans to deal with this situation in the future:

The fire engine never made it to the burning trash bin. [Division Chief Gary] Van Voorhis said the fire was not threatening residents or property and was allowed to burn as officers assisted the engine in turning around and exiting Taft. […] Van Voorhis added that firefighters have been targeted by fireworks before, but that the magnitude of the incident Monday was unprecedented. In response, the department will review its policy of how to respond to crowded areas with fires that don’t appear to threaten anyone’s physical well-being or nearby property.

Peoria police, too, will devise enhanced security measures for Taft Homes next year, Burgess said. Revelers there have traditionally held private firework displays on the Fourth and previously made targets of police and passersby, though not to the same extent as Monday.

If I were on the City Council, I would also want to know why this “tradition” of illegal fireworks displays on PHA property and targeting of police and passersby has not been addressed before it escalated to this level. I would also want to know what effect recent cuts to police staffing levels have had in the police department’s ability to respond to this riot.

City of Peoria, Peoria County, Peoria County Sheriff, Peoria Mayor, Peoria Police

Chief, Sheriff say two departments are not comparable

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At Tuesday’s State of the City address, Mayor Ardis announced a new initiative to see what it would take to combine the City and County police departments. This prompted the Journal Star to gather a few basic facts about the two forces:

The city’s Police Department has 214 employees and operates on a $21 million budget; the Sheriff’s Department has roughly 200 employees and operates on a $13 million budget.

A difference of 14 employees and $8 million seemed surprisingly large to me. So I asked Peoria Police Chief Steve Settingsgaard and Peoria County Sheriff Mike McCoy why there is such a disparity.

The first thing Settingsgaard wanted to clear up was that he actually has 248 total employees — the 214 number was the total of “sworn officers.” Even with that said, though, he still felt that a comparison of the two forces is “more apples to oranges than it is apples to apples.”

“[W]ithout a close comparison of both of our agencies, to include operations, budgets, staff, contracts, etc., it is impossible to tell you all the reasons there is a legitimate difference in budget numbers beyond just salaries,” Settingsgaard explained.

I would argue that the Sheriff’s Office and the Peoria Police Department are more dissimilar then they are similar. Yes we both have traditional patrol and traditional law enforcement functions but there are many more facets of what we do that is very different from one another. I don’t speak for the Sheriff and I would be interested to hear his take on it, but I believe the jail and the Court house account for the majority of his staff and his Office’s workload. I would guess that the “policing” part of law enforcement is a smaller part of his overall operation. In my Department, traditional “policing” is the vast majority of what we do and 217 of my 248 people are sworn officers as a result. I would not be surprised if a much higher percentage of my people are sworn versus civilian than what you would find on the County side and sworn staff are more costly.

There are other vast differences in areas of responsibility from crime rates, to total population, to calls for service, to poverty/income levels, etc.

It is critical to understand that I don’t point out these differences to say that one entity is better than the other. For everything I could tell you that I have to do more of, the Sheriff could probably list just as many that his staff is responsible for that I am not. I can’t tell you how many thousands of prisoners I didn’t have to house or feed that the Sheriff did. My point is that the two organizations are very different and a simple comparison of cost per employee borders on meaningless without an understanding of how different an urban municipal police department is from a sheriff’s office, and without drilling down into the level of great detail needed to understand those differences, drawing meaningful conclusions is risky at best.

Sheriff McCoy agreed. “Trying to compare agencies, on a wide level, does not work out. Comparing period …does not work out. We each have some similar functions and we have some unique functions.”

In addition to basic patrol services for 648 square miles and having contracts with nine different communities for police and dispatch services, the Peoria County Sheriff’s Office operates the ONLY Jail in Peoria County, booking in 17,000 people each year. We also serve all the civil papers for the courts as well as provide security for the Peoria Airport.

Nevertheless, McCoy did allow this observation: “In my opinion, cost differences primarily relate to individual pay and benefit packages. Peoria City Officers are paid at a higher rate than Peoria County Deputies, all thru the pay grades. Compounded, these costs become staggering for both agencies.”

And this is why the Peoria police union is not too excited about the prospect of combining forces. The given reason for combining forces is to save money, and clearly no money is going to be saved by bringing both forces up to the same salary level as city officers.

According to another Journal Star report, “A starting police officer who completes a probationary period earns $51,994 annually; a sheriff’s deputy’s starting salary is $43,227.” And there are also different pension programs: “the city’s police pension program is governed through contribution limits set by the General Assembly; sheriff’s deputies are part of the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund (IMRF).”

Undoubtedly, there can be some savings by eliminating redundancies and finding new efficiencies by working together, but that’s not going to save enough money to get the City out of its structural deficit. When talks turn to salaries, the police union has already made it clear that they will fight to keep the salaries and benefits they’ve won. I don’t envy the Chief or the Sheriff as they take on this consolidation initiative.

City Council, City of Peoria, Peoria Police

Feds to provide money for basic City services

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News came yesterday that the federal government will be paying for ten of our police officers for the next three years. Nevertheless, Peoria will still be losing three officers, as 13 positions were cut from the 2011 budget. Peoria can’t afford them because it’s too busy spending its money on civic centers, hotels, risky start-up businesses, and other non-essential, losing propositions, as well as giving away its assets to other tax-collecting public bodies.

The good news is that Peoria will get to keep 10 of its police officers who would otherwise get cut. The bad news is that the entire nation is now paying for the City’s poor fiscal management. What’s another $2.7 million to the federal government? They’re only in debt by $13.8 trillion or so. Big whoop.

City of Peoria, Peoria Police

On second thought, maybe we do have too many police officers

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It wasn’t that long ago that the police were needing lots of overtime and help from the state police to handle violent hot spots in the City. But now it looks like they’ve got nothing better to do than conduct sting operations on people smoking in bars.

The Journal Star article says that “smoking violations [are] administrative in nature and not criminal,” and are adjudicated through “a complicated, quasi-judicial administrative system set up through the Illinois Department of Public Health.” So my question is, why are the police involved in the process at all? Why isn’t the health department sending inspectors into these bars like they do for restaurant inspections?

City Council, City of Peoria, Peoria Police

City getting grant for police officers

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From this week’s Issues Update:

Senator Dick Durbin’s Office contacted the Peoria Police Department on Thursday, September 30, 2010, to inform them that the City of Peoria had been chosen to be one of the cities awarded funds under the 2010 COPS Hiring grant. Peoria was awarded funding for the entire request of 10 sworn officer positions, at a total cash value of $2,721,400. This grant will fund the salary and benefits of 10 officers for a period of three years, with the City being responsible for funding a fourth year. The application was for the hiring of 10 new positions, however, once the City has received and signed off on the formal documents, we will have the opportunity to request a modification to the grant wherein it will fund 10 current positions, thereby preventing layoffs. [emphasis added] It is worthy to note that Peoria received the largest allotment of all Illinois cities with the next highest being Waukegan at $2.2 million. It is also interesting to note that all applications from across the country were scored and Peoria finished with a score of 94.49 (out of a possible 100) placing Peoria at the 99.86 percentile. A meeting will be scheduled next week with Chief Settingsgaard and his staff to sort out the details.

So the City is going to take this grant and try to use it to pay for current officers instead of using it to add officers. And we may still have a net loss of three officers, according to Word on the Web’s coverage of last night’s City Council meeting:

Mayor Jim Ardis talked about the city’s operations budget. The 5 percent budget reductions would mean 13 fewer police officers, 15 fewer firefighters and two fewer employees in public works. The impact of fewer police officers, presumably, would be lessened by a federal grant.

Can we afford to keep cutting police officers?

City of Peoria, Crime, Peoria Police

Task force sees early success

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Click above for larger image (PDF)

Peoria Police Chief Steve Settingsgaard recently updated City officials on the results of his efforts to quell gun violence. So far, it’s going well:

[P]lease see attached hot spot maps relative to our current task force initiative. We are 14 days into the task force so I conducted an analysis comparing the 14 days prior to launching the task force versus 14 days afterward. City wide we had a 25% reduction in people being hit by gunfire and a 25% reduction in confirmed gun discharges.

The attached maps demonstrate the before and after picture for the combination of murders and gun discharge incidents. The red hot spot areas are gone which is very good news. I would temper the good news however by stating that 14 days is a very small sample size and we need to keep up our efforts.

I also would note that the hot spot maps include all instances where someone was killed, someone was shot, or simply where we had a confirmed gun discharged. This does not include reports of shots being heard with no witness and no physical evidence. We must have had someone who was willing to stat they saw it happen, or we found shell casings, or someone or something was hit, etc. The criteria is identical for both “before” and “after” to ensure apples to apples comparison.

City Council, City of Peoria, Peoria Police

We want to celebrate you! That will be $19,500, please.

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The International Association of Chiefs of Police wants to showcase the Peoria Police Department’s “best practices and leadership in law enforcement” at its annual conference to be held in Orlando (Fla.) this year. They want to produce a five-minute video that will highlight Peoria’s Armadillo and ELITE programs and show it to an audience of “up to 15,000 police chiefs from around the world.” Peoria would be one of only ten to fifteen communities showcased.

There’s just one catch: It will cost us $19,500.

Yes, it turns out that they want to showcase us, but they want us to “offset the costs of the production and other expenses.” City staff is requesting that we pay it out of Federal Asset Forfeiture funds, which according to staff will have “no impact upon either the City’s operational or capital budget.”

How can this be? Do we have a fund that can only be used for video showcases? Can this money not be used to offset other expenses in the City’s budget? Are these funds not fungible?

According to the U.S. Department of Justice website, “The Attorney General is authorized to use the Assets Forfeiture Fund to pay any necessary expenses associated with forfeiture operations such as property seizure, detention, management, forfeiture, and disposal. The Fund may also be used to finance certain general investigative expenses. These authorized uses are enumerated in 28 U.S.C. §524(c).” Looking through the list of approved expenses, a couple things cross my mind: (a) there seem to be a lot of useful, crime-fighting expenses that could be paid with these funds, and (b) I don’t see where “showcase video” is an approved expenditure, although I’m sure it falls under “training” or some miscellaneous category.

I’m all for celebrating our successes, but we are looking at a $10+ million budget deficit and potentially more officer layoffs at a time when we’re on a record pace for murders. Perhaps this request is . . . ill-timed. While I grant that it’s a relatively small amount, the accumulation of “little” expenses can (and do) make a big contribution to the deficit.

City of Peoria, Crime, Peoria Police

Another murder, but immediate arrests

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The Peoria Police Department issued the following press release last night:

RELEASED BY: Lieutenant Vincent C. Wieland – Criminal Investigations Division 673-4521
DATE: July 17, 2010
SUBJECT: Homicide & Arrests –– 10-17329

At 0958 hours, on Sunday July 18, 2010, the Peoria Police Department responded to 1215 N. Frink on a reported shooting. Upon arrival officers found three gunshot victims (43 YO male, 28 YO male, and a 40 YO female). All three were immediately transported to OSF Medical Center.

As officers responded, witnesses described to dispatch the suspect vehicle and its direction of travel. This information was broadcasted to responding officers and officers observed the vehicle travelling down Main St. hill at a high rate of speed. A vehicle pursuit ensued and the suspect vehicle then turned from Main St onto Perry and continued on Perry until the driver lost control and crashed at Lincoln Middle School. At that time two suspects bailed from the car and were shortly thereafter apprehended. A handgun was recovered.

Both suspects, Skyler Jordan (24 YOA) and Taurean C Gregory (24 YOA) were brought to the Peoria Police Department where they were interviewed by detectives. Jordan was arrested for First Degree Murder, 2 counts Attempted Murder, Unlawful Use of Weapons, Aggravated Discharge of a Firearm, and Criminal Defacement of a Firearm. Gregory was arrested for First Degree Murder and two counts of Attempted Murder.

The 43 YO shooting victim died in surgery and the other two shooting victims sustained non-life threatening injuries. A crime scene was located in the 1200 Blk. N Frink and police are continuing to attempt to locate witnesses.

This case remains under investigation and the Peoria Police Department urges anyone possessing any knowledge of this incident to contact the Peoria Police Department at 673-4521 or Crime Stoppers at 673-9000.

City of Peoria, Peoria Police

Despite promised enforcement, jaywalking tickets tossed

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Students were ticketed for walking in the middle of the street near Manual High School again. And once again, Police Chief Steve Settingsgaard is tossing out the tickets. But I was intrigued by this statement at the end of the article in the Journal Star:

Settingsgaard said he is looking for better long-term solutions than issuing tickets. He has asked City Manager Scott Moore to investigate possibilities, particularly along Wiswall, that would provide a safe place for students to walk.

“One possibility might be to create a pedestrian/bicycle lane on one side of the street. This could potentially alleviate the problem without the tremendous expense or installing sidewalks/curbs/gutters.”

Some thoughts:

  • How many sidewalks/curbs/gutters could we install for $39.3 million — the amount the council is desperately trying to put in Gary Matthews’ pocket? I guess a skywalk between the Pere and the Civic Center is more important than the safety of our city’s children. We keep spending money hand over fist to lure the ever-elusive tourist while our basic services disintegrate. You’d think the big push for the census would remind City Hall that residents are important, at least in terms it can understand — money. The more population we have actually living in Peoria, the more revenue we get from property taxes and federal/state appropriations. But if we keep treating our residents as second-class citizens and catering to the Almighty Tourist, it should come as no shock that people will choose to live in surrounding communities where they are more valued.
  • While the city has a responsibility to provide for the safety of children, these students nevertheless also must bear some personal responsibility. In the absence of sidewalks, they should be walking next to the shoulder, not walking down the middle of the road obstructing traffic. The last time students were ticketed, they got their tickets thrown out only if they attended mandatory school assemblies where police officers and school officials tried to give students a “better understanding of the rules.” Furthermore, Settingsgaard said at the time — and this is a quote from the 2007 press conference announcing the jaywalking tickets would be expunged — “there will be enforcement in the future.” Now we learn there will be no enforcement, no assemblies — no accountability or consequences of any kind. What message does that send?
  • I wonder how the police officers feel who gave out the citations. Having their Chief throw nearly all the citations out after he had said there would be enforcement in the future certainly sends a mixed message at best. It also might make me wonder what other laws the Chief would like not to see enforced, and for which people.