Last week at the Chamber of Commerce luncheon, I got myself involved in a little dust-up by being a bit over-the-top in trying to make my point. My references to a couple of Omaha World Herald news articles from December, 2006 and August, 2007 got reported in the Lincoln Journal Star, and put my Omaha counterpart in the uncomfortable position of having to get a little prickly. Sorry, Eric.
Chief Buske is right, of course, Omaha is indeed a comparatively safe city for it's size. It's all relative. I was reminded of that fact by a news story last week. I am a member of the Police Executive Research Forum. A few years ago PERF started sending out a daily email with a few interesting news links from around the country. Last Thursday this article from the Philadelphia Inquirer was among PERF's clips. This article from the Inquirer was originally published on Tuesday, March 11th--the same day I was blathering about Omaha, Lincoln, bras, and t-shirts to the Chamber of Commerce.
Camden's population is 77,904. If I read this article correctly, on March 11, they were already investigating their 16th homicide of the year. Lincoln more than triples Camden's population, and we've had 15 homicides total in the past three years.
I'm still wondering about The Chief's Corner curse I wrote about the day after Christmas. There have been three homicides in Omaha since my Chamber of Commerce luncheon faux pas last Tuesday. Maybe I should blog about losing the lottery or something.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
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8 comments:
Beware the curse! We have a wonderful community. If you read yesterday's paper, there was a great article about big city problems in a city such as ours regarding youths and guns. Staff our police department today, otherwise when we get bigger problems we will never get ahead of the game.
Men's Health today listed Omaha as the 5th most drunk city in America(Lincoln #44), Lincoln scored better on just about every category exect binge drinking(we got 5th in the nation for that).
http://www.menshealth.com/drunk/
CYA
It's kind of eerie, but things do seem to happen, soon after you blog about them not happening. It's like you're typing in magic ink sometimes. As a matter of fact, it might make a good screenplay; a police chief that writes about things in a special little book, and then the things come to pass. He faces a moral quandary - is it right to write about local problem career thugs meeting their end from fatal accidents, if he knows the accidents are sure to happen after he commits the scenario to paper?
Perhaps, if you blogged about how you've proudly never been a lottery winner, the next week your wife might call you at work and say, "Tom, you know that I never buy these tickets, but last Saturday I bought one on a whim when I was gassing up, and...are you sitting down?"
Hey Frank, what resource material are you going to list next? Maxim? Penthouse? or maybe Cosmopolitan.
Why do Lincolnites always compare their city to Omaha. Omaha never compares itself to Lincoln. Omahans just look at Lincoln as a fun place to watch a football game. It sounds like Lincoln has a case of %$#*s envy.
People in Lincoln are afraid it will become like Omaha so they keep an eye on it.
Sorry I have to disagree with the Omaha Chief. I moved my family away from Omaha because where we lived was not safe. I was tired of calling 911 and being told the officers would be out in 2-3 hours. (only if I was being shot at, would an officer be dispatched priority status pretty much). My home was vandalized and burglarized. An officer would show up take a report, then I would never ever hear a follow up.
Lincoln PD is a far cry from what happens in Omaha. When I reported a petty theft from my business in Lincoln, the street officer who took the report followed up, interviewed suspects and made an arrest. Then the Officer called me a couple weeks later to tell me that she followed up and the disposition of the case.
Good Luck to whoever the next Omaha Chief is, they have their work cut out for them. If Mayor Fahey was smart, (thats a big IF) he would hire Chief Casady to consult on how to run a department.
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