Each month, Advocate Community Newspapers has lunch with members of the East Dallas Police Storefront (670-5514). The storefronts are best-known for their bicycle patrol officers and community policing emphasis. This month’s lunch included Sgt. Jim Little and was held at Angelo’s Spaghetti House.
Advocate: What’s new down at the Storefront?
Jim: There are going to be some reassignments of personnel within the Storefront because of realignment of manpower throughout the department. We are likely to lose some familiar faces in the neighborhood, but the end result shouldn’t be a decrease in the services offered to the neighborhoods. We’ll experience some adverse affects initially, because when you’ve got people who aren’t experienced, they’re not going to be able to step right in and take over for experienced officers. My responsibility will be to minimize that effect.
Advocate: What type of changes are you talking about?
Jim: We’re going to lose three officers, and we’ll end up with three new civilian employees who will be handling the crime prevention duties the officers have been handling.
Advocate: Where do civilian crime prevention employees come from?
Jim: It’s a civil service job, and the employees will be selected from the approved applicant list furnished by civil service.
Advocate: So if I wanted to apply for the job, being a neighborhood resident interested in crime prevention, could I?
Jim: No, not these specific jobs. Once the list is requested in an area to fill an opening, no more applications are taken until the opening is filled and the list is returned to civil service.
Advocate: Do these people live in East Dallas?
Jim: Well, we haven’t hired anyone yet, but the people I have my eyes on don’t live here. Incidentally, most occupy other positions with the department at present, such as public service officers, so they won’t be new to the department.
Advocate: What is the point of all this shuffling around?
Jim: The whole program was designed to free up sworn officers for the street patrols by replacing those officers who are handling crime prevention duties such as providing seminars about rape prevention and things like that, with civilians trained to conduct those programs and activities.
Advocate: You know, since we started publishing the Advocate more than two years ago, I’ve watched Mike Gurley, Eddie Vasquez and Pam Maines come and go through the Storefront. All of this shuffling around doesn’t seem to be appropriate if the department is really committed to “neighborhood policing”, as I keep reading in The Morning News. I mean, as an officer, don’t you have to be in the neighborhood for awhile before you can qualify as a neighborhood patrol officer?
Jim: The reasoning on that is: “How long does it really take to get to know people in a neighborhood? You should be able to do that in a couple of months.” The longest I’ve ever stayed anywhere is four years. The bottom line is that you can’t depend on staying anywhere in this department for any length of time due to changing manpower needs and budgetary concerns within the department. Changes within the community will be a factor, also.
Advocate: Now, how can someone really get to know a neighborhood in two months? Do you guys really agree with that as a realistic timetable?
Jim: It is realistic in one respect. In a couple of months, you can be very familiar with the turf and some of the people, in general. But getting to know your neighborhood is a never-ending challenge. I remember back years ago when I was a neighborhood patrolman, I knew every car in my beat, and if there was a vehicle there that didn’t belong, I knew it. If I saw people walking down the streets, and they didn’t belong, I knew it. And at the Storefront, you have to remember that we aren’t out patrolling the street every day. We do have a lot of crime prevention duties, too. When I was at the West Dallas Storefront, there was a separate unit for crime prevention. But here, the Storefront is the crime prevention unit – that’s part of our job. So we have had to balance all of this out. So on paper, the affected positions are crime prevention officers. But in reality, that’s not true here. These officers do so much more than crime prevention.
Advocate: All of this still makes me think that the supposed emphasis on “neighborhood policing” sounds great to the media, but it’s not really a priority within the department.
Jim: If I had my druthers, I’d find a place I like and stay there. But the people who have to make these decisions just deal with numbers. They don’t know our names or what we know about the neighborhood, or whether we’re doing a good job or a bad job. And really, I think that when the citizens want crime prevention, they just want someone to provide the information. They shouldn’t care whether an officer delivers the message or a civilian, they just want the information.
Advocate: Of course, a civilian can’t do all of the same things as an officer, right?
Jim: No, only a police officer can do what a police officer does. But when you’re walking down the street wearing a uniform and not carrying a gun, it can be confusing for the citizen. And if someone hollers, “Officer, someone just broke into this building,” well, the civilian will have to get on the radio and call for backup. But that’s as far as the civilian employee can go. These people are there to be crime prevention officers, not crime enforcement officers. I’m close to my people and I hate to lose who are leaving, but I assure you those who remain and the new civilian crime prevention officers who arrive will continue to put forth their best efforts for the citizens of Dallas.
