Nothing causes the White Administration to swing into action like negative reporting, and so several media reports on HPD’s worsening manpower woes and four hours of criticism from Chris Baker yesterday in response to Chief Hurtt’s “solution” to the problem was sure to provoke a rapid response. The mayor’s communications team certainly had to be pleased with KPRC-2’s coverage:
The Houston mayor’s office fought back Wednesday against charges that a staffing shortage at the Houston Police Department has resulted in crime victims waiting hours for help.
The Houston Police Officer’s Union said Tuesday that for lower-priority calls in October, some crime victims waited up to 12 hours and 39 minutes for an officer to arrive.
The mayor’s office and the union agree that response times are good for Priority 1 calls, which are the highest-level calls for violent crimes in progress.
But they disagree over the response times for the lower-priority calls.
City leaders said they are also concerned over reports of slow police response times.
But Mayor Bill White referred to a report compiled by the FBI that ranked HPD as No. 1 with a response time of less than five minutes for Priority 1 calls.
“I think there’s no crisis citywide, although there’s some real problems in certain neighborhoods that we’re having in crime,” White said.
What was that we were saying about gaseous emissions from downtown pols just a few days ago?
Mayor White’s proposal doesn’t sound bad, at least for something that seemingly was crafted overnight:
The mayor proposed several changes that could put more Houston police on the street, including moving up cadet classes, and reassigning officers who work in low-crime areas to high-crime neighborhoods.
The mayor also proposed recruiting retired officers to help fill in the gaps. But that idea was shot down by the union.
“If it’s merely a support position, then that doesn’t give me too much heartburn. But I’m going to have to see details,” said Hans Marticiuc, with the police union.
Marticiuc said the city should focus on hiring new officers instead of recruiting retirees.
“At some point, the city is going to have to face the fact that in order to provide the necessary public safety that I think everyone wants and needs, it’s going to cost a little bit of money,” he said.
All solutions need to be on the table, and city leaders should have been thinking about this problem years ago. Still, it’s good that the local media and Mayor White are beginning to think about it more seriously now.
RELATED: HPD considers rehiring retirees to ease staff shortage (KHOU-11).
ARCHIVES: HPD’s manpower shortage.
