Joke of the Day Hotline: 427-1222

I suppose the place to begin here would be to try to explain why I seldom call the police any more. Even when I here gunshots, it seems more prudent to simply walk outside and observe the situation before determining whether I should make a call or not. I won’t try to list all of the circumstances which have brought me to this point, just a few events that will help to explain my point of view on the matter. Although some of the perceived problems I detail here are out of the control of the patrol officers, they have such a strong impact on officer/citizen relations that I think it would be important for us to hear each other’s point of view on them.

First of all, you have to understand that I live in a neighborhood where the sound of gunshots is a routine occurrence. Last year, there were 35 reported incidents of shots fired, shooting, or party armed within two blocks of my house. Far more than this occurred which never got called in. I used to think it was idiotic to hear gunshots around your house and to not call the police, but now I understand.

Often, this attempt to help out by giving information to the police is met with either disregard or open hostility. For example, I was once verbally accosted by an officer for not being able to tell him definitively whether it was four or five shots that I heard, even though I explained to him that it was the sound of the gunshots which had awakened me. There was also the time that I witnessed a man running from the scene of an arson. I gave a description of him, what I thought his last name was, and which direction he headed to the first officer on the scene. The officer simply stared at me for a moment as if I was speaking a foreign language, then walked away without saying a word. I remained on scene until the fire was controlled and all the officers had left. Not a single one approached me to get a statement.

There is also the fact that when a certain individual calls frequently, particularly when no one else is calling and when the area is calm by the time the police arrive, then the police seem to begin viewing that person with suspicion, as if they are making superfluous calls.

The situation is often further confused by trying to communicate with the operators who answer the telephones. I realize that these people have a difficult job, as the callers are sometimes in a frenzied state and not speaking coherently. But I also think they respond to this poorly at times. Hearing gunshots or seeing someone being shot near ones house is a disturbing situation for most people. I think the operators should realize that these civilians are not trained or always experienced at keeping cool while under duress. I think that if the caller is only able to give a partial plate number, a fuzzy description of the perp, or otherwise less than perfect information, the operator would be wise to accept this for what it is rather than harangue the caller for not giving a completely accurate account of what transpired.

I once called something in and described the car (along with the plate prefix) as well as the address where the car was parked at. Even after I explained that the car was too far away to read the plate, the operator repeatedly pressed me for the full plate number. Only when I said “Look, I’ll just grab a notepad, run down there and jot down the plate number for you. If you hear gunshots, don’t worry, that’s just the drug dealers shooting at me” did the operator finally accept that I could not give a full plate number.

One of the strangest things that ever occurred here was the day that I overheard a group of drug dealers talking on the phone and ordering a gun to be delivered to them. I knew the guys in this group, particularly the one making the call, well enough to consider this to be a legitimate threat. I called the vice & narcotics department directly to explain what was going on. The civilian who answered the phone said that there were no officers available to speak at that time.

After I described the situation, she asked if I wanted her to send a patrol car through the area. I told her that this would probably just make everybody leave and put off the gun purchase for another day. I told her I was calling vice directly in hopes that they might be able to notify an unmarked unit in the area who could check on the situation. Thinking that (as a civilian) she may not have understood the type of neighborhood I was calling from, I briefly stated that gang-related narcotics activity and shootings were a common occurrence here and I really thought that this call should go to someone above the level of the patrol officers. After she stated that she would pass my information on to the ATF, I hung up and went back outside to observe.

The person attempting to deliver the gun made three attempts, but appeared to have gotten spooked each time by my appearance. After the third time of driving away from the group, one of the drug dealers called and told her where to meet him at. As the group walked in that direction, I called vice again and this time was able to speak with a detective. I explained the situation (including giving the name of the guy buying the gun) and stated that since the buy was about to go down, a marked car would be better than nothing at all. He thanked me for my call and I went back outside. I did not see any police activity in the area any time during the day and no one contacted me later for clarification as to what I had witnessed.

Ironically, that same drug dealer was arrested a short time later for selling drugs to an undercover officer. As he realized he was being set up, but before the uniforms were on him, he punched the plainclothes officer in the face and ran. I suppose it’s just lucky that he didn’t happen to have a gun on him at the time or things might have turned out far worse. And for making the call that tried to stop this drug dealer from arming himself, I get labeled by some members of the department as a trouble-maker.

Many of them seem to be of the opinion that I am trying to play like I am a cop, with my calls to vice and other departments. Yet the calls to the front desk just don’t get the job done. Even though people in vice have sometimes told me to call the front desk rather than them, the people at the front desk actually direct me to vice at times.

I was communicating for a while with the second-in command for my district (FW uses the quadrant system). Things were going pretty good for a while until one day I described a situation which he said I should call vice to talk about. I explained that I already had and that they had brushed me off. I told him that I was hoping he could use his position to find the right person in that department for me to get in touch with. He said he’d get back with me, but that was the last I heard from him.

Years before this, I had spoken directly with the deputy chief who runs this area. I actually offered (in writing) to let her department use my house to place cameras and officers if it would help to straighten things out here. She made no reply to this. Years later, I discovered that she had not even circulated among her subordinate officers the fact that a there was a police-friendly civilian living in the heart of the worst neighborhood in the city.

I’ll be honest and say that I think the people who run the department realize that they do not have the resources to do everything that is required of them. In my opinion, the only legitimate way of dealing with such a situation is to muster the courage to speak honestly about it. The people who run the department should be telling the politicians that they are simply inadequately funded to be able to do everything that is asked of them. Instead, they lie. They say “Yes sir, we’ll get the job done” knowing full well that they can’t.

And one of the ways they cover their tracks seems to be by creating a confusing and frustrating labyrinth of hurdles for a citizen to maneuver through. We are told that we are not allowed to liaison directly with the patrol officers in anything other than a most rudimentary fashion. We are told that for the big problems we must talk with the higher-ups, who will then integrate our information into their master plan and pass it down the line to the patrol officers who drive past our houses every day.

Yet when a citizen attempts to communicate with these higher ups, they are run in circles until they get so frustrated they just give up and stop trying to even communicate at all with the department. Then, as a final wound, the department constantly and publicly proclaims that the reason crime is so bad here is because the citizens won’t cooperate and communicate with the police. And this is what they lean on for their ultimate excuse.

They don’t have to challenge the duplicitous and lying politicians, by telling them that their funding is woefully inadequate for the mandates which they have issued. And this is a very good thing as it is those very same politicians whom the highest members of the department depend upon for an advancement in their careers. Instead, they can simply point to people like me - people who obviously just don’t give a damn because we won’t run through the endless maze of trying to communicate with a department that really doesn’t want to listen.