Robert Rogers, Staff Writer
San Bernardino County Sun
Copyright 2006 MediaNews Group, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
SAN BERNARDINO - As the year wears on, police statisticians pile on the numbers that make sense of the intermittent gunfire and wailing sirens: Crime is down significantly, and the trend is only strengthening.
The growing chorus from the Mayor’s Office and other city leaders is that the reason has been law enforcement. It’s bigger and more collaborative, they say, with more local police boots on the ground during peak crime hours and augmented by California Highway Patrol and sheriff’s personnel.
“I’m doing a lot more traffic stops,” said Officer Mike Roche, a 19-year veteran who has worked under six chiefs. “It’s just more police on the street with more time to do police work. That’s what’s reducing crime.”
In addition to more police, officers face less paperwork when they use force to subdue a suspect, and police seem to be working harder than ever according to the number of arrests and citations. Arrests are up 10 percent since last year, and citations have nearly doubled.
Violent offenses are down more than 13 percent this year, with some summer months about 20 percent quieter than the same period a year ago.
On the street Wednesday morning, Roche scanned between his console-mounted computer and the sidewalks as he cruised down D Street. More cops on the street mean more time for Roche to do pro-active work between calls.
Roche said that when he has time he’ll stop people for jaywalking or other legitimate reasons with an eye out for more serious offenses.
On a recent routine traffic stop, he said he found a revolver underneath a seat.
Energized by the transfer of power from former Police Chief Garrett Zimmon to current Chief Michael A. Billdt in January, rank-and-file officers hit the streets with better strategies and more gusto, police officials say. The officers are deployed in teams focused on high-crime areas during high-crime hours.
They also got a clear message from the top: Do what is necessary within the law and you won’t face repercussions.
“The officers were under a lot of scrutiny under the Zimmon administration,” said police union President Rich Lawhead.
“Feeling that you would be scrutinized over every little thing you did every time you had to use force necessary for safety had an effect on police in the street. Billdt has simplified it. He made clear he doesn’t need a book every time things get done.”
However, few will talk openly about police being greenlighted to take the gloves off to battle the biggest crime wave in decades. Lt. Mark Garcia said he wouldn’t comment on whether use-of-force protocol changes have affected crime.
But Lawhead said there is a material difference.
The form officers must complete when they do anything from wrestling a suspect to firing their weapon grew under Zimmon from a brief three-quarter page of questions and fill boxes to a two-page form, the second page of which was expected to include a narrative justifying whatever force was used, Lawhead said.
Now, not only has the form been “adjusted” to take less time, but less is expected on it.
“Billdt has simplified the procedure,” Lawhead said.
Lawhead said Zimmon had officers “under a microscope” to the extent that if an officer used a certain non-lethal force repeatedly, like a leg sweep for instance, they could expect a consequence.
“A guy would do what he felt comfortable with, and then he would wind up in re-training for using it,” Lawhead said.
Not only is crime down, police work is up. From January to September 2005, police made 11,576 arrests. Over the same period this year, that number is 12,866 - an increase of 11 percent.
Much more telling, however, may be the number of minor citations, which come from police on the street and are prosecuted by the City Attorney’s Office.
Through September 2005, the office prosecuted 781 citations for offenses including trespassing, drinking in public and possession of concealed weapons not including firearms.
This year, the number of citations has nearly doubled to 1,408.
City Attorney James F. Penman said the citations are a key indicator of police being more eager to “make contact” with people on the street and engaging in pro-active policing that squelches crime before it becomes more serious.
Penman, who ran a losing campaign for mayor on a platform of getting tough on crime, paints a picture of criminals and potential killers riding roughshod over the community in 2004 and 2005.
The police, he said, were pacified by the fear that their own leaders would slap them with disciplinary action for using force.
Those days are over, Penman said.
“The word is clearly out that the heat is on,” Penman said. “And the result is that crime is coming down and criminals are looking over their shoulders. They’re not riding around with guns in their cars because they know the police are stopping people, and they are starting to leave town.”
Penman’s conclusions are at least partially borne out by statistics and observations by other law-enforcement officials.
Redlands Police Chief Jim Bueermann said in August that he suspected ramped-up efforts in San Bernardino were displacing some of the criminal element into his city.
But Penman’s assertion that criminals, especially those with guns, are laying low beneath a blanket of police power, looks shaky.
A double homicide last weekend brought the year’s total to 39 deaths, just off the 2005 pace that ended with 58 slayings. Almost all were the result of gunshots. Crime may be down, but homicides remain historically high.
Billdt, a 30-year veteran of the Police Department who plodded step by step up the ladder from reserve beat cop to chief, has a reputation as a no-nonsense cop’s cop, in stark contrast to the Harvard-educated outsider Zimmon was when he replaced Lee Dean in 2002.
Billdt could not be reached for comment Wednesday, but Garcia said the chief has submitted to Mayor Pat Morris a staffing plan that will add $5.5 million to the budget.
The amount, corroborated by the mayor’s son and chief of staff, Jim Morris, all but ensures that all money derived from a sales-tax increase proposal on the Nov. 7 ballot would go to the Police Department.
The quarter-percent sales-tax hike, dubbed Measure Z, is characterized by its supporters as crucial to sustaining police efforts currently ramped up by thousands of overtime hours and help from outside agencies.
The police budget has grown from $51.5 million in 2005-06 to $55.6 million in the current fiscal year, an increase that has brought 17 new positions, overtime hours, salary increases and a police helicopter, said City Manager Fred Wilson.
Billdt’s plan to add $5.5 million to the budget is aligned with the $5.6 million Wilson’s office has projected the tax increase would generate.
Jim Morris downplayed comments by Lawhead and Penman regarding use of force by police.
“There has been no change in policy, no change in the way police do their job, nor has there been any discussion of use-of-force policies between the mayor and Chief Billdt,” Morris said. “The changes have been tactical in how we deploy officers, and they have been very effective in reducing crime.”
Indeed, many police and elected leaders cite Billdt’s immediate bolstering of Crime Impact Teams as an effective clamp on crime.
The teams, which had withered to an average of about three officers, now consist of six-officer teams assigned to each of five geographic beats in the city, Garcia said. The officers rove during peak crime hours, almost totally pro-active.