In my last reader poll, I asked the question, “What are essential services?” and the answers were terrific — very enlightening. Certainly there was a lot more disagreement than I thought there would be, but there was one thing, and one thing only, on which everyone agreed: police protection is an essential service.
But how do we assess whether this essential service is adequately provided by the City? What would the City have to do for us each to say, “yes, they’ve adequately provided for police protection in Peoria”?
Is it as simple as staffing x-number of cops on the beat? Is it solely punitive, or is there a prevention or early-intervention component to having adequate police protection (e.g., could some funding for education be considered an investment in crime prevention, and in that sense be considered part of providing adequate police protection)? Is it a funding issue — having enough money for all the communications and other equipment needed?
I think a distinction needs to be made here for the purposes of this question not becoming too large. I’m talking about what the City Council can do to adequately provide police protection. I’m not looking for a critique of the police department’s or the state’s attorney’s effectiveness or what they can do better at this point. Just from a Council perspective, at what point are you/we satisfied that they (the Council) are doing enough, and any problems or shortcomings are someone else’s fault other than the Council’s?
During a meeting that I attended, yes, the Police Dept. should have more funds for more Police; but even if we placed an officer on each corner of the street, that would not stop the crime from occuring. We ,as citizens of the City should step forward with what we see, what we know, and offer our help also. Stop hiding under the perverbial ROCK….stop being afraid of retribution. If I need to make a call, I welcome the Police to stop at my home If we all stop talking to the Police, stop making the calls, what will become of this beautiful City?????
Then there is remaining anonymous when you make a call. Possibly one day, an e-mail address can be set up to where we can e-mail situations that don’t need an emergency service, just a complaint service. No access to a computer, just call the Police Dept., they will keep your information confidential, not stop at your home, just ask them not to. I’ve done that also and everything was fine.
I would like to see cops out of their cars in the older, rougher parts of Peoria either on bikes or foot. It seems to work down at the Riverfront.. I believe that this kind of presence would be a deterrent to scumbags causing problems with law abiding citizens in the hood.
The city does not need to give them more money. At ANY time of the day or night, look at how many marked and unmarked police cars are sitting at the downtown police station. It will be 20-40 cars. If you went by during the big snow storm, you would have seen how many did not move for days. Add in the number of officers who get to use their car as a commuter – they drive it home and park it there – and the number has got to be staggering. Are they $20,000+ each?
I think there needs to be more traffic stops. Having 1 or 2 officers that do nothing but radar and traffic stops is not enough. That is where the “thugs” are. They are riding in their cars.
While stopping at Jumer’s AMOCO on Western I asked an officer in there if more traffic stops were possible. He said there is not enough time in the day as they go from one call to the next. I noticed that there were 3 officers standing in AMOCO at the time.
I have stopped on an occassion to help at an accident scene when an officer pulls up and says “A traffic officer will be by in a few minutes” then leaves. I don’t understand why that officer couldn’t conduct the accident investigation but I guess we have specialized officers for that. If so, we don’t have enough.
It used to be years ago that you feared to speed or run a red light as if seen you would get a ticket. There were known streets that were radared all the time and if you had a tail light out, you would get a ticket. The police were “feared” if that is the right term and when one was behind you, you used turn signals and obeyed the limits. Now a days, you can turn left, with your muffler dragging, no signal, on the red arrow in front of a cop and chances are he won’t even get off his cell phone to pull you over. That is how I see it.
Good points, Emtronics. One solution might be to utilize civilians to conduct accident investigations. For virtually 99% of accidents, there is no need to tie up a trained police officer to take down witness statements, record insurance information, and call a tow truck. This can be done effectively and less costly with civilian personnel.
This will free up the highly trained and skilled police officers to do what is most important in the community, spend time patrolling and addressing crime issues.
This is one area I’d be interested in seeing those running for Council debate.
It would be nice that when you called, they (1) took you seriously, and (2) showed up in a timely manner.
To address MDD’s comments regarding the use of vehicles I can assure you that you are definitely mistaken.
First of all, you need to pay closer attention to what you’re looking at when you drive by the PD. I have never seen anywhere close to 40 patrol cars sitting in the lot at the police station at any time. With approximately 25 officers on the street at a time that would be roughly 20 cars being used depending on the time of day. On top of regular patrol, there are other units like street crimes, P.O.P., N.E.A.T. and traffic officers that need cars to use as well. When the day is at it’s busiest and the maximum number of officers are on the street there aren’t more than 10 available patrol cars in the lot. As a matter of fact, it isn’t uncommon for patrol officers to have to use the cars reserved for the special units because they are short cars so that when the special units go on duty they have to double up and ride two in a car or even three at times.
As far as what you saw during the snowstorm you’re correct. The cars didn’t move for several days and shouldn’t have. Thanks to the wonderful job done by our street department…wait…maybe not…the police cars were worthless!!! Fortunately, the police were patrolling the streets in 4 wheel drive vehicles that were unmarked so although you may not have seen a great police presence, they were out there.
Last, I’m not sure where you live or what car you’re seeing but the PPD doesn’t have take home patrol cars with the exception of K9 officers and that only totals 5 at the most.
The police department definitely needs more funds, not only for more officers but for updated equipment. The radio system we have is very outdated and although a new system is in the works, it won’t be ready for approximately 3 years. The cars available aren’t adequate for most police work due to the size and equipment. The police department doesn’t have the choice of what type of cars to get even though they drive around in them 24 hours a day. The choice for what the officers drive is made by the people that work on them…makes great sense doesn’t it!!!
For a department the size of Peoria, the equipment available is well below par. Any additional money for public services should go to updating the equipment.