Long story short, I went to the Public Safety Review Board meeting. I went there for one reason, stayed for another. At the end of the agenda was an item about upcoming issues and this is their list.
From an older list
– Neighborhood safety
– School safety
– Five year plan for the Fire and Police Department
– Capital budget
– Detox issues
– Landlords and police working together
– Recap on Rhythm and Booms (July or August meeting)
– Special Investigations Unit – update
– Gun violence
– Domestic violence prevention
– Heroin-related incidents and crimes
– Review of Chritton child abuse case (after trials completed)
Items added at the meeting
– Police contact with people with communication issues (autisms, disabilities, etc)
– Police issues/training around people with disabilities who have greater vulnerabilities and might present differently
– Homelessness
– Having psychiatric support in major incidents
– Burglaries
– Beefing up the “nuisance” law (chronic nuisance?)
– Need for more youth activities in some neighborhoods
What is missing from this list? Thoughts?
Continue cultural competency/unconscious bias/communication training with officers- particularly beat cops who regularly interact with community members.
Training for CPT officers, make sure the vision, commitment and approach is similar for all neighborhoods to really become sensitive to issues important to individual communities.
What does ‘beefing up the nuisance law’ mean? I really hope it means adding more specific wording so it is not so subjective.
I like the psychiatric support in major incidents, but between that and detox issues, I hope that includes working with community orgs on solutions other than just shipping an intoxicated person to either detox or jail. Maybe working with hospitals as well to make sure medical needs are met.
I would say
I would say pedestrian crosswalks are not at all safe. Both drivers and pedestrians do not know what to do, all confusing and unsafe for all. Not all drivers are yielding for pedestrians when the yellow lights are flashing and pedestrians are losing trust but what about children, what do they know? Well, they just cross and so far we’ve been lucky since the last accident in the summer when a child was struck by a pick up truck. I see this over and over again, it happens so much and it happened to me today when I almost got hit by a car when all other cars stopped except that one car….
I say if they are there, make them work but if they are not working…take them away! One or the other.