New Haven Independent

Posted by: TSN | August 30, 2006 10:30 PM

Technology addicted Chief Ortiz and his elite hand picked task force of ID-NET police officers are successful in the targeted areas, as they damn well should be. Eighteen or more officiers saturating an area should be arresting people, calming the hood down, no question. It also appeases the residents fed up with the shootings and crime.

But what the hell happens when Ortiz's crack troops of IDNET move from one area to another?? The smart criminals leave their little hiding holes and start up again. It does not take a rocket scientist or computer print outs of crime corridors to figure this out. Chief, are you listening?

Why should we settle for something less than this city deserves, a recommitment to community policing?

Instead of Chief Ortiz's public relations office preparing press releases about the IDNET, now the New Haven Independant is doing it for them. How do you happen to find this cop of the week? I am a bit suspicious.

So the members of this elite high tech task force are better than the officers doing the daily grind in my hood? The men and women officers, who try their best to protect my hood, must deal with the attitude of their techno loving Chief, whose penchant for quoting statistics is well known rather than listening. These are the folks who know my hood more than the Chief and his elite transitory task force.

We are not going to get anything moving until the mayor and chief are held accountable for the understaffed police department, old vehicles, and the lack of community policing.

Posted by: scott | August 31, 2006 2:15 PM

Kudos to Officer Rivera on capturing another criminal. It is the work of dedicated officers of the police department, laying their lives on the line every day that helps keep dangerous people off the street.
I do take exception to the comments he made about any gun buy back program, though. These programs are a waste of taxpayer money that could be put to better use elsewhere. There is no solid evidence that these programs reduce crime. In the mid-1990s, the Justice Department commissioned a major review of the effectiveness of crime prevention programs by a team of leading criminologists at the University of Maryland. Uncovering three evaluations of gun buy back programs in St. Louis and Seattle, the authors found that these programs failed to reduce gun violence. The authors suggested three reasons for the programs ineffectiveness: they attract guns from outside the target city, they attract guns that were safely kept in homes rather than guns used in crime, and they may provide a vehicle for gun offenders to use the cash to purchase more expensive and lethal weapons. The authors concluded, "Given their high cost and weak theoretical rationale, however, there seems little reason to invest in further testing of the idea."
Garen Wintemute, director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California at Davis, has said, in part, "The guns that are removed from the community do not resemble the guns used in crimes in that community. There has never been any effect on crime results seen."
The guns turned in to these programs more often than not are not the type of guns used in crimes. A study of Milwaukee-area buybacks in 1995 and 1996 by the Medical College of Wisconsin Firearm Injury Center has found guns captured by buyback programs generally are not those associated with gun deaths. "The typical homicide or suicide handgun is relatively new and of larger caliber," according to Stephen W. Hartgarten, MD, MPH, Director of the Center and Chairman of Emergency Medicine. "The typical buyback handgun is older and of smaller caliber, more of an antique than a weapon". Also, the quantity of "old guns" that are turned in is swamped by the number of "new guns" that are acquired in the same period of time.
A survey of households in metropolitan Atlanta (recently the scene of a number of highly publicized gun buy-backs) revealed that less than half of one percent reported participating in a buy-back during the preceding year. Ten percent had acquired a firearm during the same interval of time.
Other studies have shown that when questioned, participants responded they have turned in old or non-working firearms and plan to use the money to purchase a newer, more modern firearm.
Justice Department sponsored studies in Kansas City and Indianapolis have shown that police patrols directed at illegal gun carrying in violent crime hot spots can result in reductions of 40 to 50 percent in gun crime. These studies also showed that the citizens of the targeted neighborhoods were very supportive of the increased patrol. New York City's aggressive enforcement of weapons laws and its consequent dramatic decline in violent crime provides another example of the benefits from proactive and strategic enforcement. In Richmond Virginia, the Project Exile program involving aggressive enforcement of federal prohibitions against felons in possession of firearms has generated significant reductions in homicide.
Gun buyback programs have little impact on gun crimes. Money is much better spent on enforcing existing gun laws, and programs to improve the quality of life and education of youth, giving them options to a life of crime.

Posted by: TJ | September 13, 2006 2:17 AM

I am a New Haven resident and have been my entire life. I read the above comment posted by "TSN" and I was disgusted by his comments regarding the ID NET officers and the fine job they do. When the ID NET was assigned to my neighborhood, there was a substantial drop in crime. All kinds of crimes. These cops were stopping cars, towing vehicles that had been abandoned, moving people hanging out on the corners and making arrests like I had not seen in a long time, since the early 1990's.

I personally know a bunch of New Havens finest from being in the community and being a resident. From patrol officers to the ID NET officers. They all do a hell of a job risking their lifes everyday. The person "TSN" above refered to the ID NET officers as "Elite high tech crack troops," in a derrogatory way. Are you kidding me?! These cops don't drive fancy cars with night vision. They drive beat up old police cars and they do their job.

They were arresting drug dealers everyday and making my neighborhood safer. For that I say thank you to them. If I could say one thing to "TSN" I would say, lets be 'frank'! Be honest about your opinion of the police. It sounds to me like you or a loved one had a bad experience with the police. I know and my friends and neighbors know our streets are safer because of the police and ID NET officers. I can go outside and 'Hale' a cab without worring about being shot or mugged.

These cops are not renegade cowboys. Like I said, I know most of them and the ID NET is mostly veteran cops. Most have about 10 years on the job. Good, hard working, honest police officers. The police who work in my area also appreciate the ID NET because they say calls for service go way down when the team is deployed to their area. As far as community base policing, New Haven has done a fine job with the beat cops out there everday. Those are the community police assigned to one area. The ID NET moves, as I understand it, from area to area. They hit areas that are plagued by violence and crime. And when they do this they talk to the residents and forge bonds. The residents feel safer and they feel like they have a relationship with another arm of the police dept. If this isnt community policing I dont know what is. My advice to "TSN" would be to get another job rather then being an anti-police activist. Maybe you can be a fisherman.