|
National
News Sources
Dallas: 05-01-08:
DPS trooper shot, killed during traffic stop
Houston:
HPD hopes to lure cadets with $12,000 bonuses
New
crime-data system is HPD's latest weapon
Houston
to spend $24 million to beef up police force
San
Antonio: Memorial services set for slain police officer
KPRC
Houston: Dallas Uses Houston Billboards to Recruit Officers
The
Boston Globe: Police Recruiting Draws a Surge of Applicants
New
York Times: Recruits say joining force is a test of wills and wallets
Dallas
Business Journal:Dallas police hiring at record pace
Washington
Post: Police Finding It Hard to Fill Jobs- 03-27-06
Dallas
Morning News 01-19-07: Half of officers let go by chief back on force
Houston
Chronicle 01-22-07: As Houston's rate of violent crimes rises, the number of police
officers falls
back to top
National NEWS STORIES & OTHER NEWS SOURCES
05-01-08: Dallas
DPS trooper shot, killed during traffic stop
A DPS
trooper was shot and killed last night during a traffic stop in Marion County
.
Trooper James Scott Burns, 39, was shot and killed by a driver
he had stopped near the intersection of FM 729 and FM 1969, northeast of Lake
of the Pines. At approximately 7:57 pm , Marion County dispatchers received a
call over the trooper's radio from a citizen stating that the trooper had been
shot. Trooper Burns is the eighty-third DPS officer to die in the
line of duty. Law enforcement officers throughout the state are
looking for a blue Dodge Intrepid with Texas license plate 039-LCG and for Brandon
Wayne Robertson, 37, who is a suspect. Anyone with information about the whereabouts
of the vehicle or its driver should immediately call 911. Trooper
Burns joined DPS on March 1, 2003 . After graduation from the DPS Recruit School
, he was stationed in Linden until that office was closed. He then transferred
to the Atlanta Highway Patrol office on April 1, 2004 . He transferred to Jefferson
on Sept. 1, 2006 , and was stationed there when he died. Before
joining the DPS, Trooper Burns had worked for the Texas Department of Criminal
Justice. He was born in Longview and attended college at Tyler Junior College
, Texarkana College and Ouachita Baptist University . Trooper Burns
is survived by his wife and five-month-old child. Funeral arrangements
are pending. back to top
Houston,
TX: HPD hopes to lure cadets with $12,000 bonuses
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/metro/5544113.html Feb.
14, 2008, 11:59PM
HPD hopes to lure cadets with $12,000 bonuses
Mayor
contends offer is needed to compete with law agencies, military By LINDSAY
WISE
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle In an effort to put at least 1,000
more officers on the streets, the Houston Police Department plans to offer signing
bonuses of up to $12,000 to new cadets starting with the next academy class in
March, officials said Thursday. The decision to offer bonuses follows similar
moves by other police departments and the military, all of which are competing
for the same pool of applicants. The city of Dallas, for example, has offered
a $10,000 incentive to police cadets — even advertising the deal on Houston
billboards. And with a starting salary of $41,690, Dallas is reeling in
recruits from Houston, where the base pay is just $29,000. "The field
has never been as competitive as it is right now, and you've got to do something,"
said Capt. Dwayne W. Ready, who heads up HPD's human resources division. The
proposal, supported by Mayor Bill White, is expected to go before the City Council
on Wednesday. Officials with the Houston Police Officers' Union, however,
have criticized the bonus plan, characterizing it as a Band-Aid solution to a
more serious problem of HPD's uncompetitive pay scale and warned it could hurt
morale. The department employs about 4,800 officers, and Police Chief Harold
Hurtt wants at least 6,100 to keep pace with the city's population growth, said
Executive Assistant Chief Martha Montalvo, who oversees HPD's administrative operations. "We're
well below the average of what the public expects," Montalvo said. The
national average is 2.8 officers per 1,000 residents, and HPD is at 2.2 per 1,000,
she said.
Most classes not filled HPD has struggled for years to fill
cadet classes despite attempts to attract qualified applicants,
including
holding an open-house job fair at the academy, designing a new Web site where
recruits can apply online, and spending $300,000 on print advertising.
"We've
been hit and miss, but I would say the vast majority (of classes) have not been
full," Montalvo said. With 43 cadets, the latest class fell far short
of filling all 70 slots. Under the new recruiting plan, at least $2 million
in incentives would be phased in over four scheduled cadet classes this year. Cadets
in the first two classes this spring would be offered $12,000 signing bonuses,
and those in two later classes this summer would be offered $8,000. HPD officials
said they also hope to offer $6,000 to cadets in two classes in the fall. The
cadets would be paid half as they enter the academy and the rest after graduation.
Cadets who accept the money must stay with the department for five years barring
an emergency, and those who leave would have to repay the money under a pro-rated
system that considers their abbreviated service to the department.
City needs an 'incentive' Mayor White, HPD and HPOU, the department's largest
union, sought to improve recruiting in
recent years by focusing on advertising
and lobbying the state Legislature to allow more flexibility around civil service
rules.
But the mayor said the city still needs an edge to compete. "If
we want to continue to fill these classes, we need an extra financial incentive,
at least in the short run, to compete with the military and other law enforcement,"
he said. "We think this incentive is the most cost-effective way that we
can fill our next four classes." Vague details of the plan were discussed
during a committee hearing this week, and no one raised any concerns, but HPOU
officials say the bonuses will hurt morale of recent cadets and other officers
who have already committed to HPD. "You are basically giving a new
officer a raise of up to the level of almost a second year
officer, and I
think that's a morale problem," said Union president Gary Blankinship. "What
are you saying to people who've already committed to a career here?" said
Mark Clark, HPOU's executive director. "You're sending a poor signal."
'Band-Aid' solution
The signing bonuses are a short-term answer to
a serious manpower shortage problem that needs a long-term solution, Clark said.
"What
if it doesn't work, what are they going to do?" he said. "Band-Aid solutions
aren't going to cut it." The union strongly supports recruiting but
would like to see an across-the-board pay increase for all officers instead of
bonuses for a few, Clark said. "It's reached a crisis point where (we)
have told the mayor to his face this would not be advisable, but I think they've
gotten themselves between a rock and a hard place and they're throwing Hail Marys
now to get people through the door," he said. "We're not going to war
over this, but we just don't think it's the right way to go." Mayor
responds
The mayor said he's aware of the union's concerns. "I
recognize that there is some unfairness to the incentive pay, but our No. 1 job
is to fight crime, and I believe that we'll do a better job with more officers,"
White said. Chronicle reporters Matt Stiles and Carolyn Feibel contributed
to this report.
back to top
New
crime-data system is HPD's latest weapon
Street officers to get more
info when responding
By PAIGE HEWITT
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
The Houston Police Department will soon roll out technology that more effectively
arms street officers with crime data, reducing to seconds or minutes what historically
has taken hours or days. Houston will incorporate best practices of what
is called data-driven policing, a strategy that has become increasingly popular
among major cities since the Sept. 11 attacks. The model relies heavily on the
idea of sharing data among various databases, public and private, and getting
information quickly into the hands of those who need it. Relying more on
technology is a critical component — along with overtime and recruiting —
of the department's goal to reduce the crime rate by 10 percent in three years,
said department leaders who earlier this month outlined that objective. HPD
brass have been exploring the strategy for nearly two years, traveling to various
cities to study different systems. 'Being proactive'
While HPD will
continue its longtime model of community policing, a plan that relies on partnerships
with neighborhoods, officials say adding the strategy is a significant element
to fighting crime. ''It goes back to the core of being proactive,"
said Capt. Mark Eisenman, with the department's crime analysis and command center
division. ''The quicker we can get information to an officer on a call, the more
efficient he or she can be on that call. We are trying to push better information
faster, quicker. ... This is real-time, current, up-to-the-minute information." The
new data-based project will be housed at police headquarters downtown in an area
to be called the crime control center. The project, expected to be completed next
month, will be part of the department's command center and will operate 24-7.
The software is scheduled to be tested in November and officially online in January. The
center's ''data wall" features two huge screens that ultimately will allow
teams — each composed of a ''criminal intelligence analyst" and an officer
— to post the likes of a map showing locations of fast-food restaurant robberies
on the south side that night or a live feed from downtown surveillance cameras. Initial
staffing plans for the crime center call for 20 criminal intelligence analysts
and 20 police officers, paired into teams and working at the headquarter site.
At any given time, three or four teams will operate, on rotating shifts. An
example of how the crime center works is the following scenario: An officer stops
a blue, four-door sedan in a high-crime area at 2 a.m. A driver and three passengers
are in the vehicle. After reporting the stop, the officer learns the car had been
reported stolen earlier that night, and the driver was recently paroled after
serving time on an aggravated assault conviction. Faster access
The
officer then calls for backup and contacts the crime center for more information,
quickly finding out that a woman a few blocks away had been fatally shot in a
drive-by shooting involving a blue four-door. The officer also learns the driver
is a known gang leader. The drive-by suspects match the description of the driver
and passengers involved in the traffic stop. New software allows police
to access the information faster, because the databases will be "talking"
live. Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt said the system will enable the
department to recognize crime activity and trends as they happen. He also said
the data can be used in homicide investigations to "freeze all the activity
that was going within a mile of that homicide (at the time of the crime),"
such as reports of speeding vehicles, or other suspicious activity. "All
of that will be captured," Hurtt said on Monday. "So by the time the
detective responds (to the crime scene) he will have all that." The
center will also have a strategy room, complete with a wall-sized, plasma ''smart
board" so officials can monitor larger-scale scenes, such as a hurricane
or major sporting events. The project runs about $2 million, with money
coming from the department's general fund and state and federal grants, said Joe
Fenninger, deputy director for budget and finance. About $950,000 of that will
go toward developing the software program. "We didn't get an off-the-shelf
system," Hurtt said. "We wanted something that would work for Houston." Some
criticism
The strategy is an offshoot of a model known as intelligence-led
policing. In that strategy, police can access criminal and personal databases,
such as credit card records. HPD's model focuses on crime and uses criminal databases.
While more cities across the county, including Dallas and Chicago, are
turning to intelligence-led policing, the plan isn't without critics. They say
the approach can raise issues of privacy, racial profiling and undue harassment,
said Larry Hoover, director of the police research center at Sam Houston State
University. The potential downside, he said, is police can ''end up victimizing
the victims" with frequent stops of suspicious vehicles in particular neighborhoods,
possibly creating a hostile environment with law-abiding citizens. But,
he said, studies show most citizens living in high-crime areas want more police. ''The
alternative is to let the gangs take over the neighborhoods," he said. ''Good
police officers know who's who and what's what. You cannot do that in the fourth-largest
city of the United Sates. You have to rely on computers." back
to top
Oct. 2, 2007, 6:34PM
Houston to spend
$24 million to beef up police force
By KEVIN MORAN
Copyright
2007 Houston Chronicle The city of Houston will spend an extra $24 million
on police overtime in the next three years while boosting the number of officers
on the streets by more than 500 in that period, Mayor Bill White said today. The
overtime money will finance more than 500,000 hours of police work through the
fiscal year that ends in July 2010, White said. Police Chief Harold Hurtt
said he expects the overtime work and new officers to drop violent crime by another
5 percent in the next two to three years. Hurtt last week released figures showing
violent crime in Houston this year is down 5 percent from last year. Total
violent crime in Houston through August was down by 4.9 percent from August 2006,
with reported rapes showing a decrease of 36.2 percent and robberies down by 4.2
percent, Hurtt said. The added funding and manpower announced today will
immediately put more officers to work, for more hours, in troubled areas of the
city such as Acres Homes, where the bodies of seven women have been found in the
past two years, White and Hurtt said at a City Hall news conference this morning. The
$24 million is in addition to more than $40 million the city has budgeted for
overtime in each of the past two years. The announcement drew praise from
rank-and-file officers. "The bottom line is that this is boots on the
ground," said Houston Police Officers Union president Hans Marticiuc, who
attended the meeting. "This is welcome news for every Houston police officer." The
money to add three police academy classes to four already scheduled, and put more
officers to work on overtime in high-crime areas, comes from increased property
taxes that voters exempted from a city budget tax cap, White said. About
80 of the new street police will be already-commissoned officers who currently
are working in the city jail and are scheduled to be replaced by civilians, he
said. Those civilians eventually will become Harris County employees, he said. "We
cannot guarantee that we will not have criminals in Houston, Texas," White
said. "But what I can say is that the criminals are going to have their hands
full with the Houston Police Department." Hurtt said more officers
already are patrolling Acres Homes this week and others are looking for people
there who have outstanding arrest warrants. The increased overtime means
neighborhood, or "storefront" police substations will be open longer
and have more officers assigned to work there, Hurt said. "We're going
to focus most of these individuals on catching crooks," Hurtt said. In
some areas, Houstonians will see two officers in patrol cars "so they don't
have to wait for backup," Hurtt said. As the police force builds to
an anticipated 5,400 or more officers in coming years, overtime spending will
decrease, White said. Hurtt said he expects to be able to show the public
within as little as two months that the additional spending and manpower announced
today will be reflected in reduced crime rates and more arrests in at least some
areas of town. back to top
Memorial services set for slain police office
He was
killed Friday during a sting at an apartment complex.
Web
Posted: 09/23/2007 10:34 PM CDT
Elaine Ayo
Express-News Staff Writer Funeral
arrangements have been set for the San Antonio police detective killed while trying
to arrest a suspect at a Northwest Side apartment complex Friday afternoon. Visitation
for Detective Mario Moreno is 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday at Porter Loring Mortuary
at 1101 McCullough. The funeral will be at 10 a.m. Thursday at Community Bible
Church at 2477 N. Loop 1604 East. Moreno, 37, was gunned down around 1:30
p.m. Friday during a sting at the Villas of St. Moritz in the 7200 block of Lamb
Road. Undercover detectives with the Repeat Offender Program and uniformed officers
were trying to arrest Jimmy Garcia, 35, on aggravated assault charges. But
when officers tried to approach him as he exited an apartment, Garcia darted toward
the parking lot, raised a shotgun and fired once, striking Moreno in the face,
a police report said. As officers were tending to the fallen detective,
Garcia briefly retreated inside the apartment before emerging again, gun still
raised. When Garcia did not drop his weapon despite commands from officers,
police opened fire and killed him, the report said. Garcia was wanted in
connection with a shooting the day before at his apartment in the 4600 block of
Gardendale. In that incident, Tanya Garay, 29, was shot in the leg. Moreno
is the 48th SAPD officer killed in the line of duty and the first officer to be
killed by gunfire since 2001. An 11-year SAPD veteran, Moreno was promoted
to ROP detective in June. Before that, the San Antonio native served in
the department's Central Substation, colleagues said. Moreno leaves behind
his wife, Alena, 8-year-old son Nicholas and 4-year-old daughter Elizabeth. The
police department has established a memorial fund for the fallen detective at
the San Antonio City Employees Federal Credit Union. Any donations should be sent
to the Detective Moreno Memorial Fund, account No. 745320. For more information
about assisting the family, call the 100 Club of San Antonio at (210) 340-0100
or log on to www.100clubofsanantonio.org.
back
to top
Houston KPRC: Police recruiting draws a surge in applicants
Dallas
Uses Houston Billboards To Recruit Officers
POSTED: 11:41 am CDT July 9,
2007
UPDATED: 4:30 pm CDT July 9, 2007 HOUSTON -- The Dallas Police
Department is boldly recruiting in the
Houston-area for new officers, KPRC
Local 2 reported Monday. The north Texas agency is using local billboards
to advertise its
need for 350 new officers who will receive a $10,000 sign-on
bonus. Dallas is recruiting in an area that already has a manpower shortage. The
Houston Police Department has 400 to 500 officer vacancies while
the Harris
County Sheriff's Department is short 140 deputies. "Our pool of candidates
-- I would encourage them to take a good hard
look at us before going to Dallas,"
said Hans Marticuic with the
Houston Police Officer's Union. The local
police union president does not fault Dallas for its
recruiting tactics. "It
doesn't surprise me. We try to go and steal from other places,
too,"
he said. The city of Houston hired a marketing agency to help compete against
other recruiting campaigns. "We've recruited officers from other agencies.
It's just the nature
of the beast," Gabe Ortiz with the Houston Police
Department. Once a top recruit, Thomas Warnkehad, 22, had his choice of
agencies
to work for in law enforcement. "I had several police
department I was eligible for," he said. "You
always shop before
you buy something. You always want to get the best
deal for your money." The
new officer eventually chose to work for the Pasadena Police Department. Houston
City Council recently budgeted for a seventh Houston Police
Department cadet
class. The police union, though, said it's a little upset with the city
for
not paying $7,000 bonuses for officers who were recruited to the
department
from other agencies. back to top
Police
recruiting draws a surge in applicants
The Boston Globe
By Suzanne
Smalley, Globe Staff | May 14, 2007
An unprecedented advertising blitz and
some last-minute face-to-face persuasion produced a surge in the number of potential
Boston police recruits. Officials say the department can now be more selective
as it tries to diversify the ranks and overcome a series of corruption cases. Of
the 2,553 applicants who signed up to take the May 19 civil service exam, 735
are black and 386 are Hispanic. Those proportions are similar to 2005, the
last time the test was offered, when there were 1,345 applicants, including 392
black and 195 Hispanic candidates. "I'm more than excited with the
results," said Sergeant Detective Norman Hill , the recruiting commander.
"It gives us a greater candidate pool and a more diverse candidate pool.
. . . We're hoping that the quality of the candidates will increase." In
recent years, recruitment has lagged at the department, but this year's applicants
total the most since 2001, when 3,792 people applied. The department is
still reeling from the arrest two weeks ago of veteran Officer Jose Ortiz , who
federal authorities say used his badge to extort money on behalf of drug dealers. Commissioner
Edward F. Davis said it is critical for the Boston Police Department to attract
the best candidates and thoroughly scrutinize their backgrounds. "We
were able to present the BPD as an organization that values diversity and community
outreach," Davis said in an interview last week. "That was the intent
of the campaign, and it was very helpful to us as we attracted new candidates.
This bodes very well for the city in the future." Davis, who started
on the job in December, has pledged to put more officers on the street s as part
of the department's community policing mission. As of late last month, there were
2,140 uniformed officers. The department plans to add 70 officers -- transfers
from other department -- in the coming months, using a state grant of at least
$1.4 million that Governor Deval Patrick announced Thursday. It also plans
to add 140 officers from Police Academy classes who will graduate May 24 and later
this year. The candidates who pass the civil service exam this month will
be ranked on their scores, whether they are military veterans, and whether they
speak foreign languages. The department will select recruits from that list. In
February, the department launched a snazzy $100,000 marketing campaign, featuring
ads that pictured 11 officers working with youths, taking crime-scene photos,
and performing other duties. The billboards and posters decorated bus shelters
and buildings throughout the city, trumpeting the slogan, "Many Jobs, One
Career, Boston's Future." When the recruiting numbers had not increased
markedly by late March, the department resorted to unusually bold tactics, including
having uniformed officers camp out at South Bay Shopping Center for a day of spontaneous
sales pitches to shoppers. The number of applicants more than doubled between
late March and the sign-up deadline in late April. Hill also attributed
much of the increase to an initiative that paired selected community leaders with
uniformed officers. The community leaders, dubbed recruiting ambassadors, let
police recruiters use their e-mail lists to blast messages that promoted the May
19 civil service exam. Representatives from the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts,
Cape Verdean Community UNIDO , and local veterans' outreach organizations were
among the ambassadors. The ambassadors did more than just loan out their
contact lists: They also offered guidance such as urging police officials to cover
the city with billboards in foreign languages, such as Vietnamese, Portuguese,
and Spanish. "They did exceptional work," Davis said. " They
were all over the city reaching out to minority candidates and other interested
candidates who want to make policing their career." Several community
leaders praised the department for its effort to broaden the diversity of recruits.
They said that by reaching out to more racially diverse applicants, the department
ensures it will be able to hire more minority officers. The Rev. Jeffrey
Brown predicted the successful recruiting drive will go a long way toward improving
the relationship between residents and police. Many believe that distrust has
hurt the department's ability to solve crimes because witnesses will not cooperate. Last
year, the department arrested or identified suspects in only about 38 percent
of 74 homicides and 23 percent of nonfatal shootings or assaults with guns. "It
is so important for the community to see police officers that are reflective of
them," said Brown , director of the Boston TenPoint Coalition , a group of
clergy and community leaders credited with helping control gang-fueled violence
during the early 1990s. "And it makes a difference when a neighborhood resident
is able to talk to a police officer that looks like them and may understand their
neighborhood and where they're coming from. . . . [It's] a great step in the right
direction toward bridging the gap." Jorge Martinez, executive director
of the Grove Hall nonprofit Project RIGHT , agreed. "It shows the commissioner
is really serious about community policing and putting officers on the ground
in the neighborhoods who can be effective [and] who can relate to people,"
he said. The department is now focused, Hill said, on understanding which
recruiting strategies worked, so it can use them again. He is planning to insert
a survey into the civil service exam materials to ask applicants what persuaded
them to sign up. In addition to the multimedia campaign and the shopping
center recruiting drive, Hill said uniformed officers regularly walked through
business districts with community leaders, handing out pamphlets. They also spoke
at churches, visited college fairs, and even fanned out in Fenway Park on Opening
Day for the Red Sox. "We accepted applications and money orders on
the spot," he said. back to top
Recruits
Say Joining Police Force Is a Test of Wills and Wallets
By CARA BUCKLEY
May
12, 2007 - New York Times There are days when Wilfredo Gonell fantasizes
about not having to steer his dates to the dollar menu. Or when Michael Ferrari,
who is 27, recalls his life before peanut butter and jelly sandwich lunches, and
before he had to become a roommate with his mom. Kerry O’Connor, 32,
fondly remembers when she did not have to keep her thermostat set at 60 degrees
in the dead of winter. And Joseph Torres yearns for that not-so-distant
time when he did not have to make a half-pound pack of cold cuts last an entire
week. All four are new recruits with the New York Police Department and
are struggling with the reality of scraping by their first six months on annual
salaries of $25,100, the city’s pay to officers in training since January
2006. Once officers graduate, their salary rises to $32,700. Mr. Gonell,
Mr. Ferrari, Ms. O’Connor and Mr. Torres, along with several other recruits,
said that they knew being a police officer would never make them rich, but that
their desire to join the force outweighed the financial hardship. But now,
four months into their training at the Police Academy, and with graduation less
than two months away, several recruits said that they had greatly underestimated
just how difficult it would be to make ends meet. Student loans have gone unpaid.
Credit card debts have mushroomed. Parents have been tapped, repeatedly and exhaustively,
for emergency funds, extra bedrooms and leftovers. “After my mom cooks
for me, I spread it out,” said Mr. Gonell, 25, who lives in the Bronx. “Rice
and chicken, rice and chicken. I’m going to fly out of here eventually, that’s
how much chicken I eat.” The Police Department’s entry level
salary is the lowest for police officers in the region, and so is its officers’
top base pay of $59,588 after five and a half years. Those wages are a result
of past contract negotiations, and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has suggested that
the job’s perks and prestige outweigh its drawbacks. Still, police
union officials say the wages are deterring would-be recruits and driving seasoned
officers to higher paying jobs elsewhere. The department hired 1,346 recruits
in January, about 1,000 short of its goal, and police officials say the relatively
low pay is largely to blame. Critics have suggested that the academy has
lowered its standards in an effort to fill its ranks — an assertion the department
denies — but Mr. Torres said the pay keeps away those who are not truly dedicated.
“You’re going to get cops who really want to be cops,” he said.
Still, Mr. Torres, who is 24, said he found the transition to a $25,100
salary especially rocky. A Brooklynite by birth, Mr. Torres said he made several
times as much when he was a police officer in Burbank, Calif. He longed
to return home, though, and be a police officer in New York. He is living rent
free with an aunt on Staten Island, while his girlfriend and her 5-year-old daughter
stay with his parents in New Jersey. Even so, after making car payments and buying
gas and groceries, Mr. Torres said there was little left. “There was
a lot of careful planning,” he said. “But right now, surviving is impossible.” Ms.
O’Connor, who attended law school at Notre Dame University and until recently
worked as a paramedic in Queens, said she worked overtime during the final six
months of her old job to save up money. Her girlfriend took an extra job to make
the mortgage payments on their new house, while Ms. O’Connor picks up the
utility bills. But, like many others in the academy, she found herself
unprepared and unable to cover unexpected expenses. Recruits must spend hundreds
of dollars for, among other things, uniforms, swimsuits and gym clothes. They
must buy their own guns and the $150 safe to store them in. Their graduation uniform
costs $500. Many take out loans just to cover the costs. “If I had
to do it again, I don’t know if I could,” said Ms. O’Connor, whose
credit card debt and other unpaid bills have crept past $4,000. The academy’s
pay is especially challenging for single parents, like Gladys Diaz, 31, who lives
with her 13-year-old daughter, Samantha, in the South Bronx. Ms. Diaz relies on
Samantha’s father to pay for their daughter’s clothes and sneakers.
She also set up a pickle jar in her apartment that she and her daughter are filling
with extra coins and dollars for a dream vacation in Puerto Rico. Much
like starving students, many recruits have said goodbye to luxuries for now, and
arguably a few necessities, too. They rarely go out to eat or to the movies. They
said they had canceled cable television — Mr. Gonell dug up an old set of
rabbit ears — and a few said they pirated wireless Internet connections.
“The luxury I wanted to keep was my cellphone,” said Kiesha Lawhorne,
25, a recruit who lives in the Bronx. “I made it through by the grace of
God.” Inadvertently, many recruits have become environmentally friendly,
washing clothes in cold water, because it costs less than hot, snapping off lights
in empty rooms and walking longer distances instead of hopping into taxicabs or
cars. “I have air-conditioners in the window, but I don’t think
I can afford to run them in the summer,” said Matthew Caplan, 27, who is
still paying off loans for his master’s degree in forensic psychology. Already,
some recruits from the current class, which graduates in July, say they are planning
to take tests for police departments in Nassau and Suffolk, where officers’
top pay exceeds $90,000, or for departments in other states. Others, though,
said they planned to pledge their lives to the department, even Mr. Torres, cheap
ham sandwiches and all. “I want to stay here forever,” he said.
“I’m know I’m always going to be N.Y.P.D.” back
to top
Dallas Police hiring at record pace
Dallas Business Journal
- March 1, 2007 by Dave Moore If Dallas residents have felt more secure
lately, that may be because the city is employing more police officers than ever
before. "We're at a point where we have 3,065 officers," said
Deputy Chief Floyd Simpson, commander of the Dallas Police Department personnel
division. "That's the most we've ever had in history."
The
department is on pace to hire 337 officers this fiscal year, which would be the
most new hires for the city in more than 20 years, Simpson said. Lt. Tammie
Hale, a Dallas Police recruiter, said national recruiting efforts, the department's
$10,000 signing bonus and Dallas Police Chief David Kunkle's work in cleaning
up the department's image have helped attract recruits. Currently, the
city of Dallas has about 2.5 police officers per 1,000 residents, Simpson said.
Its goal is to have three officers per 1,000 residents, he said. The addition
of about 350 officers this year -- the department's goal -- would bring the ratio
to about 2.8 officers per 1,000 residents. City police recruiters have
traveled across the state, as well as to Louisiana and Detroit, to lure prospective
applicants, Hale and Simpson said. "We're able to sell it to our recruits
on the night life, the climate and all the things a big city has to offer,"
Simpson said. Texas' lack of a state income tax also helps attract potential hires,
he said. The Dallas City Council last year hiked starting wages for police
from about $39,000 to about $41,000. They also shortened the time officers need
to wait for a pay raise. The city of Dallas is competing against the Texas
Department of Public Safety, other police departments and the military for qualified
candidates, Simpson said. The city of Dallas is the third-largest public-sector
employer in North Texas. back to top
Police
Finding It Hard to Fill Jobs
Forces Use Perks And Alter Standards
By
John Pomfret
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 27, 2006; A01 LONG
BEACH, Calif. -- Police departments around the country are contending with a shortage
of officers and trying to lure new applicants with signing bonuses, eased standards,
house down payments and extra vacation time. From this seaside Southern
California city to Washington's suburbs, more than 80 percent of the nation's
17,000 law enforcement agencies, big and small, have vacancies that many can't
fill, police officials estimate. "I was just at a conference of police
chiefs," said William Bratton, the chief of police in Los Angeles, which
has 720 openings. "It was all everybody was talking about." Police
officials and researchers say a confluence of demographic changes and social trends
have precipitated the shortage. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have siphoned
off public-service-minded people to the military. Hundreds of law enforcement
officers have handed in their badges to take higher-paying positions in the booming
homeland security industry. And each year an increasingly large number of
baby-boomer officers, hired in the 1970s, retires. The labor pool in the next
generation is smaller, further cutting the number of prospective applicants. The
younger generation is better educated than its predecessor, so a career in policing,
where the average starting salary is $32,000, is not as attractive as it was before. Prince
William, Fairfax and Loudoun counties all have recently instituted programs --
signing bonuses, bounties for county employees recommending successful candidates,
and pay increases -- designed to keep their police departments intact. In
the District, officials said they have noticed increased competition for applicants
but are not facing a shortage. But Prince George's County began a $1 million advertising
campaign last summer touting police work as exciting and challenging in the hope
of boosting its chronically understaffed ranks. The force is 60 officers short
of its authorized complement of 1,420 officers. Elsewhere, departments have
dropped their zero-tolerance policy on drug use and past gang association, eased
restrictions on applicants with bad credit ratings, and tweaked physical requirements
to make room for more female candidates or smaller male candidates, police officials
said. Departments also offer crash courses in reading and remedial English for
the written parts of the entrance exam, and provide strength and agility coaches
for the physical part -- all of which have raised concerns about how qualified
some of the new personnel will be. "We no longer say if you've smoked
marijuana five times, you can't be in the LAPD," said Cmdr. Kenneth Garner,
who runs recruitment for the Los Angeles Police Department. "If we did that,
I'd be sitting in this office by myself. But we really take a hard look at honesty." In
the past, some recruitment drives have resulted in questionable hiring. In 1989
and 1990, the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, seeking to quell a crime wave,
mistakenly hired numerous gang members and people with substantial criminal histories
and drug and credit problems. Some were later implicated in questionable police
shootings. Experts said that while they hope the inherently conservative
nature of law enforcement agencies will protect against a slew of bad hires, there
is a concern that with a smaller pool of applicants, less-qualified people are
becoming police officers. "That is clearly a concern, and police chiefs
are very uneasy about that possibility," said Hubert Williams, president
of the Police Foundation, a law enforcement advocacy group. "The question
is, do we keep our radio cars empty or hire people who a few years ago we wouldn't
have hired? It is very problematic." Williams said that some departments
are hiring applicants with criminal records. "A few years ago, an arrest
record was a deal breaker," he said. "Now departments are asking whether
someone is salvageable." To fill the void, police recruiters are fanning
out across the country. When layoffs were announced in the automotive industry
in Detroit, recruiters flocked there to try to sign up furloughed assembly-line
workers. Police recruiters comb the beaches of Florida, California and Texas during
spring break and conduct ad campaigns -- on billboards, in newspapers, on radio
and TV -- at a level unprecedented in the history of U.S. policing. Police
officials say the shortage of police officers has hit law enforcement agencies
west of the Mississippi particularly hard because they historically have carried
smaller staffs. For example, New York City has twice as many people as Los Angeles
but nearly four times as many police -- about 37,000, compared with L.A.'s 9,600
-- and last week announced plans to hire 800 more. In Texas, the need for
law enforcement officers is so great that Dallas, Austin and Houston are in the
midst of a bidding war to hire veteran officers, with Houston recently upping
its bonus to $7,000. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, one of
the country's more aggressive recruiters, recently drew the line on tattoos, branding
and body piercing -- but left some wiggle room. If the body art can be covered
by a long-sleeved shirt and pants, then applications are still welcome. To
find new recruits, the San Diego County Sheriff's Department has offered a $500
bounty to county employees who find applicants who become deputies. The sheriff's
department, like many agencies, used to frown on transfers from other departments,
but now such lateral hires are given a signing bonus of $5,000. Mike Farrell
was lured over to the San Diego County Sheriff's Department from the San Diego
city police force in December. The six-year police veteran got $5,000 to sign,
better hours, the chance to clock more overtime and the promise of a fatter pension
when he retires. The San Diego city government is tottering toward bankruptcy,
so law enforcement recruiters from around the country, including Honolulu and
Phoenix (which is sweetening its offer with a down payment on a house), have been
picking over its force. Of Farrell's original squad of six on the city police
force, he said, only two remain. "When I first started applying, there
were 100 applicants as qualified as I was," said Farrell, 33. "Now they
are having a hard time finding 25 to 30 people like that." In past
decades, police departments were hampered by budget cuts. But now, even when there
is adequate funding, cities can't find enough cops. In 2004, voters in Oakland
approved a $9 million tax increase to hire 63 additional officers to increase
the ranks of that police department to 802. Today the city is nowhere close to
meeting its recruitment goal because there are not enough suitable applicants. "People
are not as equipped or as inclined to be police officers as in the past,"
said Barbara Raymond, who has researched the police shortage for Rand Corp. "There's
more drug use, there's a more sedentary lifestyle. People are more in debt and
overweight." "What you are really talking about is a major national
shortage in a variety of sectors -- teachers, firefighters, nurses and police
officers," said Williams, the Police Foundation president. "Corporate
America can move across the world to find people to work in its factories. But
there are some things that you can't outsource." And unlike the nursing industry,
which has attracted thousands of overseas applicants to the United States, most,
if not all, police departments require candidates to be U.S. citizens. Policing
also has changed, Raymond noted in her report for Rand. The job is far from the
adrenaline-packed hook 'em and book 'em, car chase stereotype of the past. As
cities around the nation become more culturally diverse and police departments
embrace community policing tactics, officers are often pushed to deal with the
root causes of crime, becoming more social worker than cop. The events of
Sept. 11, 2001, have put new stresses on police work. In Long Beach, for example,
the terrorist attacks prompted the department of 1,000 officers to create its
first counterterrorism unit and a special port unit. To do it, Long Beach reduced
foot patrols, cut staffing in the narcotics division and switched most officers
from two-person to one-person patrol cars. There are concerns, said Elaine
Deck, a researcher at the International Association of Chiefs of Police, that
staffing changes and shortages could affect public safety and the well-being of
law enforcement officers. The LAPD, for example, is too short-staffed to investigate
complaints against its officers, so that many complaints from 2005 may not result
in punishment until this year. "When you have single officers in vehicles,
a lack of backup, slower response time, cuts in prevention programs and fewer
school resource officers, things obviously could be affected," Deck said.
Also, with fewer recruits entering the system and a large number of veterans exiting,
officers' street knowledge -- critical to effective law enforcement -- is evaporating.
It used to take 10 years to make sergeant. Now in many bigger departments, people
are getting promotions after only two.
The
Dallas Morning News
Half of officers let go by chief back on
force
back to top
Dallas: 6 others under appeal 7 months after Kunkle's housecleaning
01:04 AM CST on Friday, January 19, 2007
By TANYA EISERER / The Dallas Morning
News Over two weeks in June, Dallas Police Chief David Kunkle fired 12
officers in what was billed as an unprecedented housecleaning aimed at cleaning
up the department's image and creating more accountability within its ranks. The
chief even ordered his roughly 3,000 police officers to watch a recording of a
news conference in which he explained his decisions. More than seven months
later, half of them are back on the force. The other six firings remain
under appeal. Chief Kunkle says some of the reinstatements are evidence
of flaws in the appeals process, something that previous chiefs have complained
about in public and private. Also Online
WFAA-TV's Rebecca Lopez reports
But attorneys for the officers, the head of the largest police association
in Dallas and one of the reinstated officers view the reinstatements as evidence
that the chief, in some cases, rushed to judgment and meted out punishments that
were too harsh for the alleged transgressions. Of those reinstated, three
were given back their jobs by assistant city mangers. One got his job back after
being acquitted by a jury on an indecent exposure charge. Another was reinstated
because of a paperwork error. The sixth officer was told Tuesday by an administrative
law judge that he could go back to work. "It was common knowledge
that these officers would get their jobs back," Sgt. Bob Crider said. "A
lot of the officers lost faith in him over what he did." Sgt. Crider
was fired in June for failing to tell his supervisor that other officers had threatened
to embarrass a TV reporter who was critical of the department. Sgt. Crider,
who did not hear the threat, did report the comments to the reporter. Chief
Kunkle concedes that others might see some of the firings as too harsh, such as
the firing of Sgt. Crider or a police sergeant who sent a taunting, anonymous
e-mail to a neighborhood activist from a private account on a city computer. "Depending
on how you interpret what happened, you can tell the story in different ways,"
Chief Kunkle said Thursday. 'Defies logic'
It was the latest reinstatement
that irritated the department's top brass the most. In June, Chief Kunkle
fired Officer Johnny Rodriguez after an internal investigation concluded that
he took tires and wheels that did not belong to him from the city's auto pound.
A civilian employee told detectives that she saw him leave with two tires and
wheels. But a grand jury twice declined to indict him. On Tuesday, Administrative
Law Judge Kimberly Lonergan reinstated Officer Rodriguez with full back pay and
benefits. Her order included no explanation for her decision. She did not return
a call asking for comment. "The Johnny Rodriguez decision defies logic,"
Chief Kunkle said. He said there was no other logical explanation for how the
wheels could have ended up for sale on eBay "without him having participated
in the theft." The officer's attorney sees it differently. "Mr.
Rodriguez has always denied the allegations," said John Haring, Officer Rodriguez's
attorney. "Mr. Rodriguez is very happy about being returned to work, and
he feels vindicated." Since his reinstatement, Officer Rodriguez has
been put on special assignment in the department's communications unit. Appeal
process
For fired employees, the first step is an appeal to the city manager's
office. An assistant city manager then arranges a hearing. If the appeal is denied,
the former officer can make a second appeal to either a three-member civilian
trial board or an administrative law judge. If still not satisfied, the
fired officer can take the case to an outside venue such as state district court.
Chief Kunkle said he believed that some reinstatement decisions, such as
the one in the Officer Rodriguez case and that of another officer who was accused
of shoplifting, contradict the intent of a recent change to the city charter.
Previously, civil service trial boards and administrative law judges who
are the last stop in the city's internal appeals process had determined whether
discipline was "just and equitable." The new wording still has the "just
and equitable" language, but the city charter now dictates that the disciplinary
action must be upheld "if a reasonable person could have taken the same disciplinary
action against the employee." City officials and some legal experts
had hoped the charter change would narrow judges' discretion about reversing disciplinary
decisions during appeals. Chief Kunkle said finding work for reinstated
officers is problematic, too. "Where do we assign these officers?"
Chief Kunkle said. "If we think they've committed theft based on the evidence,
I can't put them at the auto pound or the property room or out in the public where
they'll be in people's homes and businesses frequently without any oversight."
Frederick Ahrens, an administrative law judge who reinstated the officer
accused of shoplifting, said he did not see the charter change as a significant
change. "Obviously, when you make a ruling, you got to follow whatever
laws that apply," he said. "We just look at each case and apply the
law. If the [administrative law judges] aren't following the intent or the spirit
of the law, they can always appeal." First Assistant City Manager
Ryan Evans said he understands Chief Kunkle's frustrations but he added that the
"appeals process is in place to protect individual employees and to provide
them due process." Little solace
Meanwhile, Sgt. Crider, who
was reinstated by an assistant city manager in November and received no punishment,
said he feels bitter and finds little solace in the roughly $33,000 he got in
back pay. Sgt. Crider believes that his firing was related to a federal
whistle-blower lawsuit he filed last February, in which he alleged that he was
transferred to the Dallas County Jail after speaking up about security flaws and
overtime abuse at the airport. "They fired me for supposedly not taking
immediate action on a rumor that I heard off-duty," said Sgt. Crider, who
was reassigned to the jail after his reinstatement. "It's not like someone
was planning to rob a bank and I didn't tell until afterward. With 27 years on
the department, I meant no more to the department than that. "It damages
you for the rest of your career," Sgt. Crider said. "It hinders your
ability to supervise. It ruins your reputation. It leaves a sour taste in your
mouth." Chief Kunkle says he wouldn't change anything about the firings
and would do the same thing again. "Faced by those same set of facts,
I would have done it the same way," he said. "I thought about it a long
time before I made the decision. There are good men and women who do their jobs
professionally on this department, and they should not be defined by the relatively
small number of people who don't follow the rules and engage in misconduct."
E-mail teiserer@dallasnews.com OTHER REINSTATED OFFICERS
Other
officers who were fired during the first part of June by Dallas Police Chief David
Kunkle but who have now been reinstated: Sgt. Ramon Gonzalez was fired
in early June after being accused of acting in a retaliatory manner by sending
a taunting e-mail to Avi Adelman after Mr. Adelman was ticketed for abuse of 911
when he called to report loud noise coming from a Greenville Avenue bar. The ticket
was later dismissed. Sgt. Gonzalez was reinstated in September because the officer
was not properly served with written notice of the allegations against him. He's
now assigned to a patrol station. Officer Zenoc Castro was fired in early
June after investigators found he made comments in May in front of other Love
Field unit officers threatening to embarrass a local TV reporter whose undercover
camera videotaped officers on the overnight shift spending several hours hanging
out at a private jet company. Assistant City Manager Jill Jordan overturned the
decision in November. He's now assigned to a patrol station. Sgt. Richard
Garcia was fired that same day after investigators found he failed to report misconduct
to his superiors in connection with the Love Field incident. He was present when
Officer Castro made the comments about the TV reporter. Assistant City Manager
Charles Daniels overturned the firing in December, and Sgt. Garcia is now assigned
to the unit that collects physical evidence. Senior Cpl. Steven Reideler,
a veteran homicide detective, was fired after he was accused of committing conduct
discrediting the department in connection with an incident in February in Coppell.
Detective Reideler, 47, faced a charge of indecent exposure after a woman accused
him of exposing himself in a vehicle on a residential street. He was reinstated
after an August trial in which a jury panel acquitted him. His attorney has said
that the detective often fished near the location and at the time of the alleged
incidents was sitting in the truck preparing fishing lures. He is now assigned
to a patrol station. back to top
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