Community Policing: To Serve, Protect, and Solve Problems, Part II

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Inthe early 1990’s when I was a rookie officer in the now-defunct New York CityHousing Police Department, I was often called to apartments for seeminglyordinary events such as water leaks. While this may not be considered a policematter, upon investigation, it is often discovered that the circumstancessurrounding the water leak may require emergency personnel to respond. Onnumerous occasions, I discovered a person who had fallen in the bathtub and wasunable to shut down the water and call for help. Other times, a personpreparing dinner or washing dishes would succumb to an in-home mishap, orsuffer a heart attack, and the faucet would overflow the sink. Only when theresidents below noticed water dripping through their ceiling would the policebe called, and the tragic discovery made in the apartment above. Or,overflowing water from an apartment where the residents were not at home wouldflood the apartment below. The police would be the responding agency to assurethat there were no victims associated with the flooding other than property.Becausehousing police patrol residential complexes, it is the duty of the officers tobecome familiar with the residents in the developments they are assigned to. Asa rookie, I recall a senior officer making the observation that over the courseof time, an active officer will notice that he is arresting the same ten tofifteen individuals over and over again in each neighborhood. The officerfurther stated that it behooves a cop new to an area to work all three tours ofduty over a period of weeks and observe the comings and goings of the citizenson their beat. Beginning around 5:00 a.m. during the midnight tour, you willsee people going to work on public transportation. A bit later, parents willescort their children to school bus stops. In the afternoons, starting at 3:00p.m. or so, those same folks will begin to come home. By 9:00 p.m. on a warm,summer night, the working folks will start to go inside for the evening; theyounger kids will go in later. His point to me was that in between the typicalschedules of working adults and school aged children, the ten to fifteen repeatoffenders will be on the street corners, in the playgrounds, or other commonareas while everyone else is at work or school. In addition, there are unwantedvisitors in public housing developments who buy drugs, commit robberies, burglaries,or worse. Officers who familiarize themselves with the routines of theresidents they serve will spot those who do not live there and investigatetheir presence accordingly.Anobservant and active officer will begin his tour by visiting all of thefacilities located on his beat. Most of the public housing developments havehealth facilities, maintenance shops, community centers, pre-schools, and othersocial centers on the grounds. By speaking to those who operate the programsand the residents who patronize the facilities, and officer builds trust andkeeps lines of communication open with them. Officers perform vertical patrolsof the buildings and search the stairwells, roof landings, and roof tops fortrespassers and others who may be engaged in law-breaking. Many buildings haveactive tenant patrols. These are residents who maintain a post in the lobby oftheir building, working in conjunction with the Housing Authority and incooperation with the police, and screen visitors entering the building bysigning them in and asking for identification. Patrol officers visit tenantpatrols and sign their attendance records and inquire about any nuisances oroccurrences. It is also important to attend regular community meetings tolisten to and respond to the complaints of the residents and provideinformation on how various issues will be addressed by the police. AHousing police officer will utilize field reports to alert maintenance about damagedlocks on doors, shattered windows, broken lights, or poorly lit areas, downedfences and gates, and any other condition which leads to a lack of security. Inaddition, excessive graffiti, illegally dumped trash, uncollected garbage, and shatteredwindows lead outsiders to believe that there is a lack of oversight or weak lawenforcement in the area and the building and grounds then become an attractivelocation for drug use or sales, robberies, burglaries, or large groupsloitering in lobbies or obstructing pedestrian traffic. By maintaining closerelationships with maintenance crews or other city agencies, community policeofficers can concentrate resources on these problematic concerns and improvethe overall quality of life for the residents and reduce criminal activity.End of Part II 


Aboutthe Author: Michael J. Kannengieser is theauthor of the police thriller, The Daddy Rock. He is a retired New York City policeofficer who lives on Long Island with his wife and two children. Michael workedas the Managing Editor for Fiction at The View from Here magazine, a U.K. basedliterary publication. Currently, he is employed at a performing arts college asan Instructional Technology Administrator. He has been published at The Viewfrom Here, and in Newsday, a Long Island newspaper. Michael is a contributor to CriminalJustice News. Click Here to buy a copy of Michael J.Kannengieser's new novel "The Daddy Rock."