IMPD Patrols

[Denny347]

As much as I like and respect the IMPD and (to a lesser extent) the MCSD, excuse me if I don't go all into crisis over the prospect of having to provide for my own security. Even now with 1000+ officers on the street you folks generally just pick up the pieces afterward. You complain about backup being more than a couple minutes away; in parts of other counties in the state, backup is MANY minutes away. I get the safety issues involved; I understand the financial issues involved - at least some of them - but the fact is, we could have 10,000 cops on the streets of Marion County and you still would be complaining you need more help - and we'd still have murders and breakins and robberies.

Perhaps when the economy improves we'll be able to afford to hire more police, but face it guys, the Department of Public Safety isn't the only part of the City/County government that needs attention badly and you've had a high priority for years and years now.

Um, it's more like 350 to 400 officers actually patrolling. Fact of the matter is that the VAST majority of tax payers look to us for protection and we bust our butts trying to provide it. Sure in a perfect world every one will take care of themselves. But how YOU'D like it to be is NOT how it really is. Burglary in progress? Hey, deal with it yourself. Even if you are not at home. Robberies, not my problem. You see someone driving off in your car? Go run after them and call us when you get them, we don't need to go looking for it. Husband beating wife? People fighting, as long as it's not me why would I care? It's not as much that we need MORE money but the money we did get was wasted by an inept leadership. And that ends at Ballard's feet. How about the 30 million dollar east district rollcall/homeland security building at the old Eastgate Mall. IT"S NOT EVEN HALF FINISHED!! No soap, no toilet paper, a crater filled parking lot, girls at the front desk getting sick (possibly from the construction dust created by the construction on the other half of the building. The front reception area is not secure like our old rollcall and so no one can walk in and ask for help like the old one. Entire sections of the interior set up for detectives had no power or internet connection to hook their computers up to do work...they run extension cords. It will never be finished. We never asked for this nor needed it. Millions WASTED and Ballard could either care less or knew so little that he was in the dark. But hey, what would you know about this other than what is spoon fed to you in the media? We are just a bunch of complainers because nothing is wrong and all will be fine. It just truly shows how little the public knows about what we do and how we do it.

 

[Denny347]

You need to blame the voters who put a higher priority on sports welfare than an effectively run city.

Yes^^^^ and with a smile. You will see this administration give millions more to the Pacers soon.

 

[Blackhawk2001]

I wouldn't be complaining, and neither would any of the other LEOs in the county. But the citizens sure as hell would be about it being a "police state" (or police county).

You will never have "enough" police to do the job some folks expect of you. For me it's enough if you have enough folks to investigate crimes and arrest suspected criminals. Let the rest of us provide for our own protection. Of course, I realize that "government's" essential problem is that is consists of bureaucrats who want to expand their scope, their numbers, and justify their jobs, so there aren't many "governments" which are going to be self-limiting. You folks have reached your limits, for now, and it's your turn to experience the budget belt-tightening that other governmental agencies within your governmental unit have been experiencing for a number of years now.

 

[Denny347]

You will never have "enough" police to do the job some folks expect of you. For me it's enough if you have enough folks to investigate crimes and arrest suspected criminals. Let the rest of us provide for our own protection.

Problem!!! The rest expect US to provide that. Like it or not...YOU are the minority. You want us to take prints...too bad, we don't have any ET's working. Nothing like having a crime in progress pend because there is no one available to take it.

 

[Frank_N_Stein]

You will never have "enough" police to do the job some folks expect of you. For me it's enough if you have enough folks to investigate crimes and arrest suspected criminals. Let the rest of us provide for our own protection. Of course, I realize that "government's" essential problem is that is consists of bureaucrats who want to expand their scope, their numbers, and justify their jobs, so there aren't many "governments" which are going to be self-limiting. You folks have reached your limits, for now, and it's your turn to experience the budget belt-tightening that other governmental agencies within your governmental unit have been experiencing for a number of years now.

Thats the problem, we don't even have enough detectives to investigate the major crimes (homicide, robbery, child abuse, rape, etc) and follow up on reports generated by patrol. In order to "save money" the department has been cutting the numbers of detective units and putting the officers back on the street. So, more reports, less investigation.

We have been experiencing belt-tightening for a while now, not just recently as suggested by the media. Like Denny said you don't know exactly what we do or how we do it.

 

[Blackhawk2001]

Problem!!! The rest expect US to provide that. Like it or not...YOU are the minority. You want us to take prints...too bad, we don't have any ET's working. Nothing like having a crime in progress pend because there is no one available to take it.

As a friend of mine likes to say: "It's a tough old world out there." You folks just keep right on doing the best you can with what you've got until the economy gets better.

 

[Frank_N_Stein]

As a friend of mine likes to say: "It's a tough old world out there." You folks just keep right on doing the best you can with what you've got until the economy gets better.

We are, and we will. And no matter what, someone will always b!tch about how we are doing it, good or bad.

 

[phylodog]

As a friend of mine likes to say: "It's a tough old world out there." You folks just keep right on doing the best you can with what you've got until the economy gets better.

OR... The citizens could wake the **** up and ask the city/county council why the Sheriff's budget has not been reduced since the merger. I wonder how much money it takes to pay for the salaries, equipment, training and insurance benefits for 400+ officers? In January 2007 the Sheriff of Marion County stopped paying for any of them yet his budget was increased. The Sheriff now has more than 1000 "officers" in uniform with no jurisdictional responsibilities yet no one wants to question it. Seen any of them riding around on their brand new Harley Davidson motorcycles? They justified the expense of new $16,000 scooters by telling the council how fuel efficient they are. Guess what the council said? "Oh, ok then, here's some more money".

If the council was really interested in funding the police department they don't need to look far. They won't do that though because odds are there will be a shift in control after the next election and they don't want to **** anybody off. Politics is what is screwing this city right now, nothing else. The money is there but no one has the balls to get it.

 

[Denny347]

As a friend of mine likes to say: "It's a tough old world out there." You folks just keep right on doing the best you can with what you've got until the economy gets better.

We always have, our ability to do so is taken for granted. The side effect is burnout. Without the ability to take time off to unwind (numbers too low, I lose vacation days at the end of the year that won't carry over because I couldn't find open days to use) you are getting more agitated, short fused officers. Even worse...it breeds apathy. Again, no one outside of the brothers/sisters I work with give a crap. As demonstrated here.

 

[VUPDblue]

not to mention that at current staffing levels one critical incident can strip an entire district of ALL of its manpower and put a drain on other districts. Remember the 38th street murder a couple months ago? Every Northwest District car responded and they asked cars from other districts to come help out as well. That one incident drained close to HALF of the entire city's manpower.

 

[Denny347]

OR... The citizens could wake the **** up and ask the city/county council why the Sheriff's budget has not been reduced since the merger. I wonder how much money it takes to pay for the salaries, equipment, training and insurance benefits for 400+ officers? In January 2007 the Sheriff of Marion County stopped paying for any of them yet his budget was increased. The Sheriff now has more than 1000 "officers" in uniform with no jurisdictional responsibilities yet no one wants to question it. Seen any of them riding around on their brand new Harley Davidson motorcycles? They justified the expense of new $16,000 scooters by telling the council how fuel efficient they are. Guess what the council said? "Oh, ok then, here's some more money".

If the council was really interested in funding the police department they don't need to look far. They won't do that though because odds are there will be a shift in control after the next election and they don't want to **** anybody off. Politics is what is screwing this city right now, nothing else. The money is there but no one has the balls to get it.

HA, or why MCSD is getting 7 million dollars MORE in this budget.

 

[Liberty Sanders]

Problem!!! The rest expect US to provide that. Like it or not...YOU are the minority. You want us to take prints...too bad, we don't have any ET's working. Nothing like having a crime in progress pend because there is no one available to take it.

Trust me folks...What these guys are telling you is true.

I also worked in a large metro police department big on professional sports. The government will poormouth when it comes to police & fire, but if the professional sports teams want something, they get it.

We had a perfectly good stadium torn down and a new one built because the Bengals threatened to leave town if they didn't get it. MILLIONS in overruns. A few years later they were threatening to lay off cops.

This would be a good time for Indy government officials to remind people that this is a concealed carry state and that if more people carried there'd be less crime.

Watch me...I'm holding my breath now waiting for them to do that....

 

[phylodog]

HA, or why MCSD is getting 7 million dollars MORE in this budget.

I'm sure it's so they can hire more officers to "help" like they did during Black Expo. Anyone else happen to notice what time the MCSD folks went home during Black Expo? It was a couple of hours before any real work typically needs to be done. All of them. Gone.

Keep giving them money, I'm sure it'll pay off eventually.

 

[phylodog]

This would be a good time for Indy government officials to remind people that this is a concealed carry state and that if more people carried there'd be less crime.

Watch me...I'm holding my breath now waiting for them to do that....

I've told people just that for years.

 

[Denny347]

I'm holding my breath now waiting for them to do that....

 

[Denny347]

Payment to Pacers not included in Capital Improvement Board's $64M budget | Indianapolis Star | indystar.com

 

[Trooper]

Buck stops with him. We've hired 17 officer in 3 years but have lost close to 100 with another 30 or so leaving in Jan. In fact, because they will not hire, we are below Federally mandated staffing and the city has to repay the 3.8 million dollars given to us that we used to hire officers with several years ago. There are no plans to hire in 2013 either. The administration is telling the news that we will have to do more with less. We are at dangerously low levels of officers on patrol and it's going to get worse. We are being forced to do less with less. But Vaughn seems unconcerned. They are clueless.

And some democrat would do better?

 

[Trooper]

You will never have "enough" police to do the job some folks expect of you. For me it's enough if you have enough folks to investigate crimes and arrest suspected criminals. Let the rest of us provide for our own protection. Of course, I realize that "government's" essential problem is that is consists of bureaucrats who want to expand their scope, their numbers, and justify their jobs, so there aren't many "governments" which are going to be self-limiting. You folks have reached your limits, for now, and it's your turn to experience the budget belt-tightening that other governmental agencies within your governmental unit have been experiencing for a number of years now.

And you ever have enough cops then you would have a police state as the police then would be going after the good guys just to have something to do.

 

[Trooper]

Why not have a larger reserve force made up of normal private citizens? Why do we need paid cops? As someone who has been a military reservist, it is your reserve force that holds things together. They also tie the fulltimers back into the community.

if we ever go to mandatory military service, police and fire duty should also be an option. After two years of military duty in the National Guard (MPs) it should be optional to serve as a police or fire reservist. That way we would have millions serving but still part of the community.

 

[Frank_N_Stein]

And some democrat would do better?

No, thats why most of us didn't vote for her. The Republican made it sound like he wouldn't screw us over.

And you ever have enough cops then you would have a police state as the police then would be going after the good guys just to have something to do.

Yep, thats how I roll. No criminals out and about on late shift, I go after the honest, hardworking citizens that are on their way to/from work or just picking up some medicine for their sick kid.

Why not have a larger reserve force made up of normal private citizens? Why do we need paid cops? As someone who has been a military reservist, it is your reserve force that holds things together. They also tie the fulltimers back into the community.

if we ever go to mandatory military service, police and fire duty should also be an option. After two years of military duty in the National Guard (MPs) it should be optional to serve as a police or fire reservist. That way we would have millions serving but still part of the community.

Reserve cops have full-time jobs and only have to work 16 hours a month to maintain certification. Who is going to cover the other ~704 hours?