Last week, Anne Linehan noted that MayorWhiteChiefHurtt are proposing to hire civilians to handle some calls that normally are handled by trained law-enforcement professionals.
As KTRK-13 reported Friday, Hans Marticiuc is critical of the proposal:
“There’s a lot of issues going about,” said Houston Police Union President Hans Marticuic [sic]. “Is this the best use of money?”
Marticuic takes issue with the mayor’s proposal. Not only does he think the money could be better spent elsewhere, he’s not sure the public will respect a civilian the way they would a cop.
“There’s a distinction between a police officer and someone else who is just working out there with the uniform who doesn’t really have any authority or power,” he told us.
What is most interesting about the KTRK report is not Marticiuc’s criticism, but this paraphrase of Chief Hurtt:
Chief Hurtt says in the long run, it would be less expensive to do this than hire more officers.
Perhaps the paraphrase isn’t accurate, but that sure makes Chief Hurtt sound unconcerned about HPD’s critical manpower shortage, since the civilian officer proposal should, at most be considered a possible short-term solution to a manpower shortage at HPD that went ignored for too long by Houston’s pols.
