By Mark Shepherd Santa Monica
So Santa Monica is going to purchase communication/video/computer gear for our police fleet at about $12,000 per unit. It’s great that we live in such a well-funded community, I guess. But residents, and City Council members for that matter,have no way to quantify whether this purchase over three years will reduce crime or make our cops better at what they’re supposed to do. Crime goes up, crime goes down, and through it all our police do their best. Or do they?
What’s remarkable about the $1.4 million equipment deal is this: The police also are going to be purchasing, over the next few years, 120 new vehicles; 120 police cars in a city that’s about eight square miles. That works out to 15 police vehicles per square mile, or, roughly, one cop car for every 2.5 square blocks. Which raises the question: Why is it we rarely see the police, except on their way to some call?
Don’t get me wrong, our officers are great. If somebody’s car-camping outside your home, for example, they’ll come and make ’em leave. If you have an emergency, they respond — quickly, professionally.
But could we do better? I’d love to see at least one of those 120 police vehicles regularly drive up and down my street and alley, and maybe the officers inside their high-tech rides once in a while could roll down their windows and stop to say hello and meet my family as we work and play outside.
Even more than that, I think cops should actually walk the sidewalks — low-tech, high-value police work. Because of our council’s misguided and unsustainable housing policies, I assume many, if not most, regular patrolmen and women can’t afford to live in Santa Monica, especially the new ones. But that doesn’t mean police can’t get to know our special community and the people they’re here to serve — it’s harder to do that inside a car, watching a computer screen.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 2, 2006. Read the original PDF.