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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Heller became a great apologist for walling and Leyton in a recent column by claiming the real reason for our rising murder rate was poverty. Poverty abounds in all large urban centers and yet they are not experiencing our murder increases. Of course Walling was quick to jump oon any out for his failures and immediately tweeted on Heller. Stick to Grand Blanc Heller.
As city's homicides climb, other state metropolitan areas post big decreases
Published: Sunday, December 19, 2010, 12:00 PM Updated: Monday, December 20, 2010, 8:26 AM
By David Harris | Flint Journal
Ryan Garza | The Flint JournalFlint Police on the scene of a homicide on Donald and Harriet streets earlier this month.
FLINT, Michigan — While the city’s homicide rate is skyrocketing, other urban areas in the state are seeing marked decreases this year.
Grand Rapids is down 20 percent.
Pontiac dropped 40 percent.
Saginaw fell 50 percent.
Even Detroit, a city Flint often is compared with over urban decline, is showing a drop this year from 2009 in homicides. It was on pace to post at least a 17 percent decline as of mid-October, based on the most recent numbers available.
It’s hard to say whether Flint has the highest homicide rate in the country — but it is at least 11 percent higher than the nation’s highest rate in 2009.
“This is a long-standing problem for our community,” said Mayor Dayne Walling. “As population has declined, the drugs and the crime have become even more prevalent.”
Flint frequently is listed at the top or near the top of lists of the most homicides in the nation. It was 10th in the nation in 2009, 13th in 2008 and 22nd in 2007 among cities of 75,000 or more, according to an analysis of FBI crime statistics.
With 65 homicides, Flint’s rate is at least 5.8 per every 10,000 residents. The actual homicide rate is expected to be higher because that rate is based on 2009 population estimates of 111,657 residents, the most recent census data available.
In 2009, New Orleans had the highest homicide rate in the country, with 5.17 per 10,000 residents.
“It seems like with everything going on, people would get tired of going to funerals,” said Calvin Blake, 22, who lives down the street from where a 4-year-old boy was shot in the leg Thursday. “All that shooting, it isn’t going to solve nothing.
“It’s just stupid.”
Saginaw police Chief Gerald Cliff said his city’s lower numbers are the result of community programs. One of the first initiatives Cliff implemented when he took over the department in 2005 was revitalizing neighborhood associations throughout the city — something Walling also is doing.
While Flint has seen 66 layoffs of police officers, the Saginaw Police Department has kept its same staffing levels since 2005, thanks to two voter-approved public safety millages, Cliff said.
He said he believes there is a direct correlation between the number of officers on the street and crime levels.
“There’s not many criminals who will commit a crime when they think they might encounter a police officer,” he said.
Saginaw has hired five of Flint’s laid-off officers, Cliff said.
Walling is asking for an increased police millage. A resolution that would put the question before voters next year is expected to go to the City Council on Monday.
If voters approve a 6-mill levy, Flint could bring back a total of 40 police and firefighters and reopen the city jail, Walling said.
“With having more public safety personnel, the response times are faster, especially the response times to the lower-priority calls,” Walling said. “It’s difficult to quantify whether additional officers have a deterrent on crime. It has more to do with how those officers are deployed. We are making every officer is deployed the best way possible.”
Blake’s mother, Renee Blake, helped care for the 4-year-old who was shot Thursday. She said her family recently attended the funeral of her cousin, 18-year-old Andriana Caudle, who was shot Nov. 14 at her Evergreen Regency apartment. There have been no arrests in that case.
“We’re tired of the killings,” she said. “It’s just senseless.”
Staff writer Khalil AlHajal contributed to this report. |
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Mon Dec 20, 2010 8:57 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Wanna cut crime in Flint? Start at the beginning
Published: Thursday, December 16, 2010, 6:00 AM Updated: Thursday, December 16, 2010, 9:44 AM
By Andrew Heller | Flint Journal
I saw this bit of inanity on Facebook about the record number of murders in Flint: “Thanks Dayne Walling and David Leyton (and) you (too) Mr.Lock for all the support you all have made to get this many homicides in the city of Flint.”
Believe me, it was worse before I corrected the punctuation.
For those who don’t know, the references are to the mayor (Walling), the prosecutor (Leyton) and the police chief (Alvern Lock).
There are 4 pages of comments on the Journal Blog, the majority criticizing Heller.
Those three don’t need me defending them, but I’m going to anyway for two reasons:
1) In this society – especially in these hyperbolic times – we love to point the finger at politicians and their appointees for not magically curing all of society’s ills.
2) If we’re going to assign blame, we should do so accurately, or else we’re not really serious about solving the problem, we just want to complain.
Let me explain both points. First, mayors, prosecutors and police chiefs don’t prevent murders. You could have the world’s best mayor, the world’s toughest prosecutor and a thousand more cops and Flint’s murder rate would be the same. For the most part, police and the courts deal with the aftermath of crime. They seldom prevent it. How would they?
Now, I can understand why people think the crime rate is something local politicians control. Candidates never miss a chance to say they’ll arrest all the bad guys and usher in an era of peace and prosperity.
But have you noticed that it never happens? That’s because life isn’t a movie. A hero doesn’t stride in to town, guns blazing – or in the case of politicians, slogans flying - and clean up the streets.
And that leads me to my second point: the actual reason for crime – and a possible solution.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why cities like Flint and Detroit are drowning in crime. It’s poverty. Poverty breeds crime. But what breeds poverty? Well, poverty does. Poverty is often a burden handed down generation by generation, and that’s what is killing the Flints and Detroits of the world.
The conservatives among you are already rolling your eyes: “Here we go, he’s going to talk about how government hand-outs will cure all.” Wrong. Like many conservatives, I actually think that some handouts enable poverty rather than defeat it.
But I will say this: If we’re going to break the chain of poverty that leads to crime, the government is clearly going to have to get more involved, and not just at the back end. To me, the logical place to begin is at the beginning - with children.
Disclosure: I work for a nonprofit whose focus is making sure kids birth to 5 get things like preschool, quality child care, proper medical care and so on. So maybe I’m biased.
But I think providing those things for all kids may go a long way toward cutting crime, increasing graduation rates and producing more contributing members of society.
At the very least, they’ll do more about crime than blaming politicians.
Related topics: andrew heller, come heller high water, flint, murder
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Mon Dec 20, 2010 9:32 am |
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Ryan Eashoo
F L I N T O I D
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Why has Saginaw only had such few murders this year?
quote:
untanglingwebs schreef:
Heller became a great apologist for walling and Leyton in a recent column by claiming the real reason for our rising murder rate was poverty. Poverty abounds in all large urban centers and yet they are not experiencing our murder increases. Of course Walling was quick to jump oon any out for his failures and immediately tweeted on Heller. Stick to Grand Blanc Heller.
As city's homicides climb, other state metropolitan areas post big decreases
Published: Sunday, December 19, 2010, 12:00 PM Updated: Monday, December 20, 2010, 8:26 AM
By David Harris | Flint Journal
Ryan Garza | The Flint JournalFlint Police on the scene of a homicide on Donald and Harriet streets earlier this month.
FLINT, Michigan — While the city’s homicide rate is skyrocketing, other urban areas in the state are seeing marked decreases this year.
Grand Rapids is down 20 percent.
Pontiac dropped 40 percent.
Saginaw fell 50 percent.
Even Detroit, a city Flint often is compared with over urban decline, is showing a drop this year from 2009 in homicides. It was on pace to post at least a 17 percent decline as of mid-October, based on the most recent numbers available.
It’s hard to say whether Flint has the highest homicide rate in the country — but it is at least 11 percent higher than the nation’s highest rate in 2009.
“This is a long-standing problem for our community,” said Mayor Dayne Walling. “As population has declined, the drugs and the crime have become even more prevalent.”
Flint frequently is listed at the top or near the top of lists of the most homicides in the nation. It was 10th in the nation in 2009, 13th in 2008 and 22nd in 2007 among cities of 75,000 or more, according to an analysis of FBI crime statistics.
With 65 homicides, Flint’s rate is at least 5.8 per every 10,000 residents. The actual homicide rate is expected to be higher because that rate is based on 2009 population estimates of 111,657 residents, the most recent census data available.
In 2009, New Orleans had the highest homicide rate in the country, with 5.17 per 10,000 residents.
“It seems like with everything going on, people would get tired of going to funerals,” said Calvin Blake, 22, who lives down the street from where a 4-year-old boy was shot in the leg Thursday. “All that shooting, it isn’t going to solve nothing.
“It’s just stupid.”
Saginaw police Chief Gerald Cliff said his city’s lower numbers are the result of community programs. One of the first initiatives Cliff implemented when he took over the department in 2005 was revitalizing neighborhood associations throughout the city — something Walling also is doing.
While Flint has seen 66 layoffs of police officers, the Saginaw Police Department has kept its same staffing levels since 2005, thanks to two voter-approved public safety millages, Cliff said.
He said he believes there is a direct correlation between the number of officers on the street and crime levels.
“There’s not many criminals who will commit a crime when they think they might encounter a police officer,” he said.
Saginaw has hired five of Flint’s laid-off officers, Cliff said.
Walling is asking for an increased police millage. A resolution that would put the question before voters next year is expected to go to the City Council on Monday.
If voters approve a 6-mill levy, Flint could bring back a total of 40 police and firefighters and reopen the city jail, Walling said.
“With having more public safety personnel, the response times are faster, especially the response times to the lower-priority calls,” Walling said. “It’s difficult to quantify whether additional officers have a deterrent on crime. It has more to do with how those officers are deployed. We are making every officer is deployed the best way possible.”
Blake’s mother, Renee Blake, helped care for the 4-year-old who was shot Thursday. She said her family recently attended the funeral of her cousin, 18-year-old Andriana Caudle, who was shot Nov. 14 at her Evergreen Regency apartment. There have been no arrests in that case.
“We’re tired of the killings,” she said. “It’s just senseless.”
Staff writer Khalil AlHajal contributed to this report.
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Flint Michigan Resident, Tax Payer, Flint Nutt - Local REALTOR - Activist. www.FlintTown.com |
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Mon Dec 20, 2010 9:43 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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They have availed themselves of all available grants and implement the most innovative policing techniques. Last summer they, with the aid of a federal grant, took down the Sunny Side gang.
In other words, they have a chief that appears to know what he is doing.
crime went down with hagler and he was invited to apeak at a senate hearing on the Byrnes grants and JAG grants reductions. He also had a larger police force. Saginaw administrations appreciate their police. |
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Mon Dec 20, 2010 10:05 am |
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00SL2
F L I N T O I D
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quote:
Ryan Eashoo schreef:
Why has Saginaw only had such few murders this year?
It's not just murders. Saginaw has had help. This is an old story but provides some background insight.
State Police mark two years assisting Saginaw patrols
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Kristen Abraham
SAGINAW COUNTY (WJRT) -- (02/18/09)--In just two years, the Michigan State Police Department has helped curb crime in the city of Saginaw and Buena Vista Township.
The partnership with local agencies is part of an ongoing effort to make Saginaw County safe.
Since the start of the push, troopers have stopped more than 7,300 vehicles.
More than 950 fugitives have been arrested, which has led to the solving of nearly 1,800 outstanding warrants.
Police busted 260 people for drug possession and put 220 people behind bars for other major crimes.
A trooper's day on the city detail consists of making traffic stops, knocking on doors and simply being proactive.
"You can see the difference quite significantly," said Trooper Jason Bledsoe with the Bridgeport MSP post. "It gives us the opportunity to patrol the high-crime areas."
"It boils down to getting the bad guys, the guns and drugs off the streets," said Trooper Doug Hunt with the Bridgeport post.
For two years running, the State Police and Saginaw city detail have seen how their efforts have paid off.
"It seemed like every day we were going to after-hour club after club," Bledsoe said. "Crime has gone down. We aren't getting those calls like we used to."
Partners Hunt and Bledsoe have been on the detail since 2007.
"It was such chaos," Hunt said.
"I didn't think it would be as successful as it has been. It's surprising to see how aggressive patrols have really worked. It couldn't be done without everyone's effort."
"A lot of times we will stop a car for not using a turn signal, drivers may not have a license, or smell something," Bledsoe said. "There is always something beyond the initial traffic."
Their work receives plenty of community support from businesses like Blue Diamond on the city's east side.
"For me, I couldn't stay in business without police -- the city or the state," said Blue Diamond's George Kashat.
"With the economy, people, you know, with this kind of business, we need protection."
Troopers also credit their success to teamwork between the Saginaw Police Department and Buena Vista Township police.
(Copyright ©2010 WJRT-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.)
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Source: http://abclocal.go.com/wjrt/story?section=news/local&id=6665495 |
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Mon Dec 20, 2010 7:06 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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| Flint has had help too. The Sheriff's grant for the Safe Streets Task Force has had major busts and used Flit police, State Police and FBI. The city has been misusing the newer grant throught the Prosecutors office, but the help is there. |
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Mon Dec 20, 2010 7:29 pm |
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BAH836
F L I N T O I D
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Saginaw has approx 20 fewer officers than Flint and about half the population. Saginaw deploys its officers in a better manner than Flint and daily operations are run MUCH more efficiently. Policies reference dispatching certain types of calls are better as well.
Saginaw has made numerous changes to policy and procedure that were talked about in Flint, but never implemented.
MSP has played a part in the reduction of crime, but I don't believe it is as big as the article makes it seem. |
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Mon Dec 20, 2010 9:05 pm |
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Ryan Eashoo
F L I N T O I D
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See the problem (as I see it ) is that we lost focus on neighborhood block clubs, watches etc. The community policing efforts are non existant now.
quote:
BAH836 schreef:
Saginaw has approx 20 fewer officers than Flint and about half the population. Saginaw deploys its officers in a better manner than Flint and daily operations are run MUCH more efficiently. Policies reference dispatching certain types of calls are better as well.
Saginaw has made numerous changes to policy and procedure that were talked about in Flint, but never implemented.
MSP has played a part in the reduction of crime, but I don't believe it is as big as the article makes it seem.
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Flint Michigan Resident, Tax Payer, Flint Nutt - Local REALTOR - Activist. www.FlintTown.com |
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Mon Dec 20, 2010 10:39 pm |
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