Can this be accurate?

It's 2:21 AM.  You've just returned to bed after about a half-hour of  singing softly to a five year old with a touch of stomach flu. The sheets have been changed, and the washing machine is humming as you drift back to sleep, trying not to think of the 7:30 AM staff meeting where you are expected to make a brief presentation.  Suddenly, you are jarred--again--by the shouts and whoops and slamming car doors coming from across the street, where your new neighbors this year seem to have a perpetual parade of their closest 40 friends over for a few cases of beer three or four times a week.  This is getting very, very old.  

So, after suffering through these nights most of the year, picking up cans, cups, and bottles the next morning with depressing regularity, you finally call the police.  You know they've got other things to do, and you know that you tipped a few yourself when you were 21 or 22. You never wanted to be "that guy", but this has gotten ridiculous.  

That, readers, is a wild party disturbance complaint: incident code 12311, location code 81, with a default initial response of two units, priority three, code one.  As of midnight, we have dispatched police officers in Lincoln to 282 of these.  Usually, the call is the last straw in a situation like this that has been brewing over hours, if not months.  During the same time period last year, Januray 1 through July 21, we dispatched police officers to 519.  That's a pretty dramatic reduction by any standard.  But wait....

In 2005, from January 1 through July 21, Lincoln police officers were dispatched to 1,012 wild party disturbance complaints.  Could that really be accurate?  I double checked and checked again.  Are we missing a few months from the data? Does this query have a syntax error?  Apparently not. It is both accurate and remarkable. 

You can click the link in my label cloud to Party On. read about the trend and the strategies, and follow the emerging pattern over the four years I have published the Director's Desk.  

Prelude to Spring

Awfully nice weather graced Lincoln on Friday and Saturday.  I took advantage of the February thaw to dust of the bike for a nice ride on Saturday morning.  I can attest that there is a lot of gravel out there, the motorists aren’t used to seeing humans on two wheels, and every other person in the city must be training for the Lincoln Marathon. 

The third shift also had a prelude to spring, with 69 disturbance calls on Saturday, and 26 alcohol-related calls—including 8 drunk drivers.  The hour of power—bar break, was particularly busy.  The reality of February returned yesterday afternoon.  It won’t be long, though, until warming weather exerts its inevitable change on the pace of police work in the City.

Saturday also offered the second screening of an excellent new feature on Nebraska Educational Television.  Binge features a few comments by yours truly, and some arresting video of Officer Megan Riffey, Sgt. Jason Goodwin, and Officer Josh Atkinson dealing with the binge drinking scene in Lincoln.  There is some particularly good footage of the O Street scene in Lincoln that I believe would be valuable for more Lincoln residents to see and contemplate. 

Binge will air again this coming weekend on NET: Thursday, March 3 at 6:00 PM, Friday, March 4 and Saturday, March 5 at 7:30 and 10:30. 

Fatherly advice

Would it surprise you to learn that a few tickets for minor in possession of alcohol were issued over the course of the last weekend before the start of classes at our colleges and universities?  Friday, I received an email from the father of a 19 year old UNL sophomore who got one of those tickets, in the wee hours that same day.  His son was a victim of circumstances.  He had been called by his friends, who needed a sober driver to come pick them up at a party and take them home. It was the friends who had the beer.  His son hadn’t even been drinking.  He was an innocent bystander trying to be a good Samaritan.  What’s more, something quite similar happened to him when he received another MIP citation a couple of years ago in his own home town.  The local police wouldn’t listen to him then, either. 

Right. 

Here’s my response:

“After your email was routed to me, I read the reports. Your son's account is wildly different than the events reflected in the officers' reports. The difference is far greater than could be explained by a different angle, viewpoint, or perception. Ultimately, when the facts are in dispute, these cases are decided in court, but the version your son provided is so vastly different, I think something else may be going on here. I'm a father, too, and I hope you will allow me to give you my advice as a father. I think you have two choices: forget about the discrepancy, accept the fact that your son might be trying to save face with his dad, and help him deal with the consequences. Alternatively, you could ask him again. If you chose to do that, first let him know that you have spoken to the chief of police. He might--and I stress might--be a little more forthcoming. Sometimes, however, when you've told a tall tale, you are so committed to it that instead of acknowledging that it might not have happened quite the way you said, you continue to embellish the whopper and dig yourself into an even deeper ethical hole.

I would be happy to sit down with you and discuss the details, but he's an adult, and your son probably ought to be the one who decides whether he wants that to happen or not. You know him well, but I would just ask you to remember that we all tend to tell things in a way that makes us appear a little less culpable when we have done something regrettable. Personally, I'd give him the space to do so, rather than insist on getting the bottom of the story. But if you and he want to do so, we can hash this out. I can't think of any reason at all it would be beneficial in any way for the officer to recount a completely inaccurate version of the events. If she did so, it would not be at the risk of her Dad being disappointed, rather it would be at the risk of her job as a Lincoln police officer, and her career in law enforcement.  I think it is far more likely that your son is painting a picture of the events calculated to explain how he received the ticket without admitting to some conduct he knows would be terribly disappointing to his parents. Even good people do dumb things.

Think back to your own youth, and recall some occasion when you failed live up to your parents expectations. Did you ever stretch things, deflect some of the blame elsewhere, omit a few pertinent details, or anything of the sort?

Regards,

Tom Casady, Chief of Police”

I realize this is a little long winded, but it still might  be good for all parents of teens and young adults to read this and save it for future reference, particularly if you are about to tell the chief of police that your son or daughter did nothing wrong, and would never lie to his parents.  Add it to my other parental advice.

Still falling

On a few past occasions, I have blogged about our efforts to reduce party disturbance complaints. The trend in recent years has been good. I put together the 2009 data last week, and here's an update:



This is a huge reduction. Stop and think for a minute about the impact of 800 fewer party calls. Each of those required a minimum of two officers to be dispatched, and took several minutes to handle. A significant number of those required more officers, more time, Incident Reports, Citations, probable cause affidavits, Property Reports, and so forth. There would have been several that included resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer. How many trips to the emergency room, or to Internal Affairs emerge from 800 wild party calls? How many thefts, robberies, fights, assaults, sexual assaults, drunk driving arrests occur at or as the result of 800 parties that have gotten to the point where the neighbors have called the police? We certainly have many examples of this collateral damage.

Particularly gratifying is the drop in chronic problems at the same place. The number of repeat calls to houses has fallen by 71% in the past five years.

These are some outstanding results, and reflect good police work behind some proven strategies that have been particularly effective. Nothing wrong with a party, so long as illegal activity isn't occurring and if it doesn't disturb the peace of the rest of the neighborhood.

Helpful trend

Late last week, I assembled some data about the trends in party disturbances in Lincoln. We peaked at over 1,800 complaints from the public a few years ago. Aside from the impact of such disturbances on the neighborhoods where they occur, it represents a practical problem for us, too. It is a large workload, a minimum of two officers must be dispatched to each of these complaints, and the alcohol-fueled problems exacerbate matters.

Here’s the data I put together. It shows large increases in enforcement activity (tickets for MIP and for Maintaining a Disorderly House), and a significant decrease in party disturbance complaints from the public.

You might notice, though, that the declining number of party complaints actually starts in 2005. That’s about the time that our five patrol teams started working more assertively with landlords and property managers. This strategy and its results has been a topic of a few past posts on the Chief’s Corner. I am convinced that working with landlords has been an important contributing factor to the decline. If I am correct, we would expect to see not only a decline in complaints, but specifically a reduction in the number of repeat complaints: back to the same address a second, third, or eighth time. Here’s what those data look like (for single houses—I couldn’t do it easily for apartments):

I sent the following email last Friday to the five captains who command our patrol teams:

“Good work! See the attachment. I needed to put these data together today for an award nomination we are going to submit. I suspected that the overall decrease in party disturbance complaints might be related to a decrease in repeats to the same address. I had no idea that it would be this dramatic.

Your increased efforts at holding landlords and property owners feet-to-the-fire, and getting them engaged in resolving some of the chronic addresses certainly appear to be paying off. This would represent a healthy percentage of the 600 annual CFS drop in these disturbance complaints since 2005. It represents a huge workload reduction when you consider that at least two officers had to be dispatched to each--not to even mention the improvement in neighborhood livability. How many Internal Affairs complaints, assaults, rapes, officer injuries, and so forth would emerge from 600 wild party calls? By the way, so for this year, we've dispatched officers to repeat locations on house party disturbances only 8 times. 8 ! ”

Story in the works

If members of the local news media can report about my blog, can I blog about their reports? I think so.

When I started writing The Chief's Corner, one of my goals was to provide readers (if any) with some information that they wouldn't normally find in the news: stuff that was too long, too boring, or too opinionated. But an interesting thing happened: reporters started using my blog for story leads and even quotes. I suppose that's OK with me, but they spend 30-45 minutes every morning at our daily media briefing, and they call all day long, so it's not like they don't have plenty of access to pick my brain in person. I've been telling other police chiefs who ask me about my blog that it's almost like having your own news channel--you can blather on at length about whatever you want, and nobody but you is going to select the sound bites.

So, one Jeremy Buckley, associate editor and the Daily Nebraskan, emailed me last night. He tells me that a colleague steered him to this post, and to the sentencing order linked there:

"A co-worker recently sent me a link to a post from your blog where Judge Gale Pokorny issued a judgement against an individual for assault on someone at a house at the 1000 block of Charleston St. last May 1. While the report was shocking, it fostered a discussion as to how aware students are that events like the one discussed transpire. We'd like to try and work on a news story discussing the perils of hosting house parties that have the capability of attracting unwanted company.

My reason for emailing you is to ask if you can think of any other similar situations where students attracted unwanted attention that led to unfortunate outcomes such as the curb stomping described in the court ruling for the Phipps case.

I want to stress that my goal isn't to sensationalize, rather, I'd like to tastefully explain some extreme circumstances that can arise from seemingly harmless house parties or gatherings. I've made a phone call to Judge Pokorny's office to see if the judge will speak with me about his/her (?, not sure with Gale) opinions on the subject, but I'd also like to be able to bring up other cases as well as get some thoughts from law enforcement officials and students who live in the area and might host such parties."

I encouraged his story idea, and sent him a few links to other posts on The Chief's Corner where other cases and incidents of a similar vein are either described or linked. Many young people seem to be oblivious to some of the risks involved in hosting or attending a loosely-controlled house party, and the disturbance is not the most serious risk by any means. We've had plenty of serious crime that has occurred in and around high-risk drinking parties in residential settings--thefts, assaults, robberies, rapes, and a murder.

I'll be interested to see what results from Mr. Buckley's efforts.

Could it be?

I was checking up on Labor Day weekend activity, when I ran a query on "wild party" disturbances. These are complaints from citizens about disruptive parties. There were only 34 over the four days from Thursday night through Monday. That seemed low to me. So did the preceding week. Here's what Incident Code 12311-DISTURBANCE WILD PARTY looks like through Labor Day weekend over the past several years:

That's 449 fewer incidents--a 34% drop. It represents a huge workload, when you consider that each of those party disturbances requires a minimum of two officers, and holds the potential for many problems. Lots of assaults and complaints (mostly bogus) against officers in particular emerge from these alcohol-fueled events. One of our County Court judges summed it up pretty well in this sentencing order he sent me a couple weeks ago (the footnotes on page 3 are worth reading, too.)

Could it possibly be that some of these messages are getting through?

This is supposed to be better?

On the morning break during Friday's training, I read an email from my secretary, J.J. Mayer. Andrew Ozaki, from KETV(Channel 7, Omaha) had called, wanting an interview pertaining to a weekend debacle we had investigated. I told J.J. to just have him come down to Classroom C at his convenience. It would only take a couple minutes, and I thought the police academy trainees might enjoy seeing one of these TV interviews from the other side of the tube.

When Andrew arrived after lunch, he set up his camera in the classroom, and I gave him a short synopsis of the events from Friday night/Saturday morning. The backdrop theme of his story, however, was just what I suspected. It was set in the context of the recent call, by several U.S. college presidents, to roll-back the legal drinking age in the United States.

The argument goes like this: binge drinking by young people is a national epidemic. The legal drinking age of 21 contributes to this, by creating a legal taboo that makes the forbidden fruit more appealing. Rollback the drinking age, and the taboo phenomenon is reduced: young people learn to drink more gradually and moderately, under the watchful eye of parents--rather than at the frat party.

Personally, I don't buy it. The comparisons to Europe don't sway me: Americans, it seems to me, do everything to excess. I don't think it's the drinking age that causes the "let's get wasted" drinking culture. Even if it is, though, how in the world is dropping the legal drinking age to 18 going to change that? I can picture high school seniors out on their birthday bar crawl. This is supposed to be better?

The real cause of high risk drinking among young people is much more complex than the legal age limit or any alleged taboo. Most of these bingers started their drinking career well before college. The phenomenon of reckless drinking to intoxication and beyond would still exist, I think, among college freshmen who are out on their own for the first time without some measure of community and parental supervision.

The drinking age of 21 was adopted as public policy based on strong research in the 1970's showing that states with lower legal drinking ages had significantly higher rates of alcohol involved fatalities among young people. It would be foolish, in my view, to tinker with that public policy without revisiting that research. Lives are potentially at stake.

...and darned if you don't

The Lincoln Journal Star allows readers to post comments on certain articles. I do not delude myself into believing that posted comments are representative of the citizens of Lincoln overall. Nonetheless, I like to read them at times, because there are occasional nuggets of wisdom that inform, or humor that entertains.

I have noticed that there is a sub-set of LJS commentators who regularly bust my chops about the fact that among many, many other things, the police department engages in efforts to reduce the impact of high-risk drinking parties on neighborhoods and on the community. Here's some typical examples of the critique:

Kurt wrote on January 27, 2008 3:22 pm: "...maybe it would have never gotten this bad if the police weren't so worried about our small keg parties and instead busted the crack heads... "

Shelly wrote on January 28, 2008 6:13 pm: " ...there's always five to seven cop cars downtown...what about cops that bust college parties?"

mike wrote on March 22, 2008 2:42 am: " ...I do not know what we pay our police chief for. He attacks bars, bar owners, people of legal age who party...get a life and go stop some real crime."

It was strangely gratifying to open Wednesday's Lincoln Journal Star and see an article about the North Bottoms neighborhood containing just the opposite criticism:

"...Caudill lives in Omaha, but spent 21 years in the North Bottoms and keeps a place at the Hayward Place Condos, a complex he manages. He left more than a year ago, driven out in part by his frustrations over late-night parties and what he believes was inadequate police enforcement...."

I'm used to catching it from both directions at the same time.

I empathize with Mr. Caudill. When you have a job, kids, and responsibilities, it's not much fun living next door to some hard-partying 20-somethings who regale you with their exploits in the wee hours. There is a legitimate police role in trying to control illegal behavior that makes it difficult for other residents to enjoy their own home. You should expect the police to do so, but you should realize that it is only one of many competing demands upon their resources.

I think the key is to try to maintain balance: don't become so focused on one or a few issues that other important issues are neglected, and don't ignore the small stuff lest it becomes big stuff. You can read all about our efforts to reduce the impact of large drinking parties, the rationale behind those efforts, and the results.

Jean Ortiz, the author the North Bottoms article, wanted me to comment about Ed Caudill's criticism. I told her that we have focused a lot of effort on the North Bottoms, but that ultimately the police were not responsible for the economic and social trends that have caused this neighborhood to go from an area of families and owner-occupied houses to an area primarily of rental houses attractive to single young people. We didn't close Hayward Elementary School, cause Reifschneider's Grocery to be replaced by a mini mart, build Interstate 180 or move the University of Nebraska to the doorstep.

I also told her that my perception was that the conditions in the neighborhood have noticeably improved in the past decade or so. I was thinking about things like the replacement of the rickety 10th Street overpass, the demolition of a group of seriously-dilapidated houses, and the new streetscape features recently installed. But I was also thinking about the police incidents occurring in the neighborhood. I told her that if I could have a couple of hours, I would bring some data to bear on that, and see if my perception holds any water. She was near her 4:00 P.M. deadline, and declined. My own curiosity had been piqued, though, so I produced this spreadsheet:


Column B is wild party complaints, column C is total police dispatches, and column D is dispatches to disturbances of all types. I made another chart looking at bell-weather crimes: burglary, larceny from auto, drug offenses, and assaults. It showed the same pattern. Looks like my perception was pretty accurate.

Party crashers

Last November, I blogged about some of the hazards that arise from large, open-invitation drinking parties. In Not all harmless fun I described a couple of "party invasion" robberies that had occurred in the North Bottoms neighborhood on the preceding weekend.

Well, they're back. Sunday morning, I was reading overnight reports waiting for the newspaper to arrive, when I encountered the Incident Reports on three robberies in the 1100 block of Claremont Street, just after midnight. Apparently, the victims, leaving a party were confronted by a group of assailants cruising the neighborhood just for the purpose of committing such crimes. The victims were jumped, and lost cash, credit card, wallet, cell phone and (of course) the 12-pack they were toting to their next stop.

My guess would be that at least some of the suspects were also involved in the November cases in the same neighborhood. Party crashers seem to be coming in two types: "invaders," who are looking to forcibly rob and assault the inebriated and meek; and "slinkers," who will secretly look around, lift a purse or two, and maybe case the place for a later burglary. We've had our share of both, and made a few arrests in such cases.

It appears that this is a growing risk of hosting a rent party, or something that looks like one to the gang on the prowl for tipsy victims who are accustomed to a little high school chest-bumping, but not to real violence. With spring on the horizon, and Phase II of the high-risk drinking party scene about to unfold, this is worth keeping in mind.

We are not alone. A Google search and a click on the News link revealed quite a few recent news articles from far-flung media sources. This phenomenon of violent party invasion is occurring in many other locations, and the story is often quite similar to our own local cases.

Landlord holds the key

Last weekend, Northwest Team officers got slammed with a series of investigations that emanated from a large drinking party in a big new duplex on N. 21st Street near the northern edge of the city. Six assaults and one robbery occurred after a group of uninvited attendees showed up and were not exactly friendly, a trend of late. Fortunately, the robbery was cleared quickly when Sgt. Bill Kuhlman stopped a vehicle leaving the area and found the rather distinctively-described suspect. (Note: not a good idea to commit robbery when you are 6'7" tall. )

When the dust cleared, the Northwest Team had a mound of reports to complete, follow-up to conduct, evidence to tag, and statements to transcribe. It's not the first time, as this same location has been the site of 19 police incidents this year, including a total of 9 violent crimes: rape, robbery and assault. I think it will get dramatically quieter in the next several months, because Capt. Genelle Moore had a frank conversation today with the registered agent of the corporation that owns the duplex--a nice little factoid made readily available 24/7 courtesy of the Lancaster County Assessor and the Nebraska Secretary of State. Our registered agent is a well-known developer of many-bedroomed-vinyl-sided-huge-garage-in-front duplexes.

Our experience with such places has been that when we bring some pressure to bear on a landlord, manager, or property owner, the situation normally improves quite quickly. Take away the anonymity, and suddenly it's not just the police who are trying to solve the problems. We have occasionally used Lincoln's ordinance Maintaining a Disorderly House to cite landlords or property owners, but usually the mere implication that we might do so spurs the owner to get a move on it.

The Northwest Team has another great example of the phenomenon. It's another one of those big duplexes dropped into a formerly quiet little area of single-family homes. In 2005, we responded to the duplex on 34 incidents. In 2006 it was 48. I was working on New Year's Day this year, and noticed the trend. I sent a facetious email to the captain who commands the area, wondering if we should just assign an officer to park in front of the duplex as a fuel saving measure, since we were there ten times in December of 2006 anyway.

That ramped up the heat on the landlord with a citation for Maintaining a Disorderly House (we had warned him several times previously). His initial response was to complain to a City Council member. I had to explain all the details in order to assure her that we weren't picking on the landlord, rather, he was failing to take the necessary steps to deal with these problem residents (among those cited there--five times--was this guy). After he was cited, the landlord promised to do better, and the City prosecutor dismissed the charge. Within a matter of weeks, he sold the property. He just wasn't equipped to deal with tenants who were not cooperative.

Apparently the new owner is. Our last police dispatch to the duplex was case number A6-139400, a wild party disturbance on December 29, 2006. If we make it through today, that's a full year with zero police calls, arrests, citations, and complaints.

Not all harmless fun

One of the more common calls the Lincoln Police Department responds to on Thursday night through Sunday morning is a party disturbance. The typical complaint involves someone who has kids, a job, or a Friday morning class who isn't nearly as interested in the shenanigans going on upstairs or next door as the partiers who are regaling the neighborhood with the inflated tales of their prowess at 3:00 a.m..

We have had some strategies in place for the past few years to try to reduce the number of these complaints, and to prevent "party houses" from damaging the livability of fragile neighborhoods in our city. These strategies have primarily involved ramping up enforcement, and identifying and engaging landlords in helping to solve the problems being caused by certain tenants who could care less about their neighborhood--or their guests. While there is still an unending supply of disturbances, the strategies have actually helped reduce some of these problems.

Cutting down on these complaints not only helps out the affected neighborhoods, it saves some substantial police resources, as well--a topic I blogged about earlier this fall. There is, however, an even more valuable side-effect to controlling the party scene and minimizing high-risk behavior. Sometimes drinking parties become the site of much more serious events. We saw a tragic example of this in 2004, when Nebraska soccer player Jenna Cooper was murdered, landing her killer, Lucky Iromuanya, in prison with a life sentence. But less dramatic and less publicized violent crimes--especially assaults and rapes--occur at or in the wake of drinking parties with depressing regularity.

In the wee hours on Saturday morning, for example, we investigated two cases in which uninvited "guests" crashed two separate parties in the North Bottoms neighborhood. Only one of these was reported in the local press, but the two parties together resulted in one robbery, two vandalisms, and eight assaults. On top of the victimization, that's a noticeable bump in the crime rate and a ton of investigative work and police reports.

These party invasions have become rather common, fueled in part by the instantaneous spread of information via cell phone and text messages about the location of parties where few questions are asked about invitations, nobody knows who's supposed to be there, and many people just show up on their own. Larceny is sometimes the motive for the new guys who (after the goods are noticed missing) nobody seems to have recognized. Purses and home electronics are the frequent target of such thieves posing as party-goers.

Anyone who thinks our efforts to keep large drinking parties under control is merely the result of the conservative leanings of the police chief has never seen the unhinged mayhem that police officers encounter, or the aftermath in the emergency room. Want to make an impact on violent crime in your community? Institute strategies to encourage safe, sane, and legal partying that doesn't involve inviting a couple hundred of your closest friends over to share six kegs and a single toilet in your 750 sq. ft. rental.

Housing slump blues

I had a visit yesterday in my office from a very nice couple with a problem. They've been caught in the housing market slump. They bought a new home almost two years ago, and haven't been able to sell their previous residence. It's a nice place in a great east Lincoln location--three bedrooms, finished walk out basement, covered deck, cathedral ceilings. The photo on the Lancaster County Assessor's site confirms their description, and it sure seems to be reasonably priced to me, at an asking price of $229,000.

But they've had no takers, and in order to make two house payments, they've need to rent the house. Here's where the problem comes in. The police have been called to the address on disturbances six times since December of 2006. Most recently, the Southeast Team was sent there at 1:34 AM on September 20th on a report of loud music. The responding officer could hear it from half a block away, and he found a minor carrying a beer walking down the driveway, as he walked up the same.

In response to the ongoing problems, Capt. Kim Koluch sent a letter to the property owners. She let them know of our concerns, and of the fact that they could be held responsible for repeated disturbances at their property, through Lincoln's Municipal Ordinance prohibiting maintaining a disorderly house. It was this warning letter that caused them to schedule a meeting with me.

They began by telling me that they feel these calls were merely the result of a single oversensitive neighbor. I let them know that the calls had come from at least four different telephone numbers, were made by people both male and female, with different last names and addresses, and were clearly not all from a single neighbor. They weren't aware of the officer's personal observations on September 20, so I just I read them Officer Aksamit's narrative report. I gave them a few other excerpts from previous calls:

"Party in a hot tub in backyard" (3:04 AM)
"Loud music and male voices in background" (2:23 AM)
"Lots of people, very loud" (12:09 AM)

...and so forth. It's obvious that the hard-partying lifestyle of the young renters is in conflict with that of the rest of the neighborhood. When you've got to get up at 5:15 AM to get your workout in before getting the kids off to daycare in time to make it to work by 7:30 AM, you really aren't particularly interested in listening to the exploits of the hot-tubbers, or their music.

I looked up the names the couple gave me of the three polite young people who couldn't possibly be causing such problems. They are age 21, 22, and 25. Between the three, they have been arrested or cited for the following alcohol-related offenses:

2 Maintaining a disorderly house
1 Open container of alcohol in motor vehicle
2 Driving under the influence of alcohol
4 Minor in possession of alcohol
5 Disturbing the peace

Each tenant contributed at least two to the total of 14. The disturbing the peace and maintaining a disorderly house arrests were at three separate addresses. In addition, it appears likely that a fourth person is actually a roomie (not on the lease, but he keeps giving us that address when he gets arrested, which is frequently.)

I'm sorry to tell this nice couple that it does not appear to be a grumpy neighbor who is the problem here, and that Capt. Koluch's warning letter should be heeded. I gave them a copy of our brochure for landlords and property managers on how to track police dispatches at your property, and how to do an effective background check on prospective tenants. My closing advice after talking with them for about an hour was a strongly worded letter of their own, along the lines of "FINAL WARNING."

Unbelievable headline

There's no place like home, and I'm happy to be back in Lincoln this morning. My presentation at the Problem-Oriented Policing Conference concerning strategies to reduce high-risk drinking by college-aged young people included a section on the off-campus party scene. We've had a methodical approach to this that has yielded some significant results.

In preparation for the presentation, I gathered some data last week about the number of complaints received from the public concerning party disturbances. We have a specific incident code for these calls: 12311 DISTRUBANCE-WILD PARTY. Here's a slide with the results from my PowerPoint:


A reduction of 35 complaints per month is nothing to scoff at. I would estimate that the average party complaint requires just over two officers for the response. These calls often result in citations, reports, court appearances, and a fair number of complaints to Internal Affairs or the Citizen Police Advisory Board. Cutting 35 of those per month not only relieves some of the heartburn for residents in these neighborhoods, it saves police officers a significant amount of work, too. Although these data are not specific to college-aged young people, many of our party complaints come from neighborhoods where there are lots of rentals and a large proportion of tenants in the 20-25 age bracket.

There are a number of indicators that our strategies have helped, including survey research data from the University of Nebraska's Omnibus Survey, police complaint and incident data, data on the number of arrests and citations for such offenses as maintaining a disorderly house or minor in possession of alcohol. Here, however, is the anecdotal evidence that there has been a shift, however slight, in attitudes about the propriety of inviting a couple hundred friends over to share a few kegs in your tiny two-bedroom one-toilet rental on New Hampshire Street: an unbelievable headline. I doubt our colleagues in Madison have seen anything like that in the Wisconsin State Journal.

Madison wrap-up

Well, while I'm rubbing shoulders with colleagues in Madison at the Problem-Oriented Policing conference, all manner of mayhem breaks out in Lincoln. Overnight yesterday we had a downtown stabbing that left the victim in critical condition, and an early morning domestic-related homicide. This creates a huge amount of work for the street officers and sergeants, investigators, duty commanders, public information officer, and even the Records Unit. They all performed superbly, though, and by mid morning, Assistant Chief Peschong emailed me to report that both cases were cleared, with suspects located and in custody.

My two presentations at the POP Conference went quite well. The attendance was good, participation and discussion great, and I think the topic (strategies to reduce high-risk drinking and wild parties) was well received by officers from across the country who deal with the same issues in their own community. Two other conference presentations dealt with similar issues, from Anaheim, CA to Lancashire, UK. The moderator of my presentation was Dr. Deborah Lamm Weisel, from North Carolina State University. She's a pretty significant reputation in our field, so her compliments were particularly encouraging. She was especially impressed by our analysis and assessment: the extent to which we gathered data from survey research, police reports, detox admissions, arrest records, and our geographic information system to both inform our strategies and monitor our impact.

Yesterday, an early morning informal discussion with Herman Goldstein, the "father" of problem-oriented policing was a highlight, as was an evening discussion for chiefs and executive officers facilitated by Michael Scott, the POP Center's director. These were provocative discussions, and we all reflected on the need to do a better job studying the literature of our own profession. There is a widespread feeling that we don't do enough in our field to ensure that our officers and managers are familiar with the growing knowledge from research about "what works" in policing.

Madison continues to impress me as Lincoln with a Lake. Actually, two lakes. I will say this, though, Lincoln's a little cleaner (thank you DLA), and downtown Madison seems to have a much larger population than downtown Lincoln. Madison has the more eclectic street people though. . I snapped this photo directly across the street from the State Capitol. Note that this guy has a 17" laptop, with his A/C adapter plugged into the City light post on the left. I debated about posting this photo, for fear of appearing insensitive to the homeless, but I just thought there was some sort of obscure social commentary here. I don't know what, though, so it must really be obscure. I showed this photo to a Madison police captain. She said, "That is so Madison."

A sea of red (and yellow)

After last weekend's football game, Nebraska v. USC, I was somewhat flooded with complaints about the failure of our police officers to stop all the public urination. One of the complaints was forwarded to me by City Council member John Spatz from a constituent who was particularly upset that there were no police around in his neighborhood:

"Parties started at 8 am and didn't even break for the game at 7 pm, and continued unabated until the wee hours...the situation as "anarchy".... as for urination in public: I stopped counting at 30 and that was just at one party...."

This particular citizen wanted more police in his neighborhood to patrol around preventing this kind of problem. It's a neighborhood close to the stadium, where everyone with an empty lot or a back yard off the alley seems to rent $10 parking spaces. Trouble is, they don't rent out their toilets. As I explained to Councilman Spatz, when a few thousand people descend on a neighborhood, drink, eat, and make merry, nature will inevitably take its course, and if there aren't banks of porta potties there will be trees, walls, and bushes, whether the police are around or not.

We have our hands very full on game days. Along with directing traffic to get 85,000 into and out of the Stadium, we handled 474 incidents on Saturday, Sept. 15, including 31 thefts, 2 rapes, 8 missing persons, 7 child abuses, 3 death investigations, 29 assaults, 31 traffic accidents, 104 disturbances, and so forth. It's not very realistic to expect that the police will be available very much to drive around streets and lots issuing citations for public urination. We give it a good try, though, and there are hundreds of citations issued annually for this.

Jean Chalupsky, in a letter to the editor in Monday's Omaha World Herald, described a similar scene:

"As I approached Memorial Stadium at 5:30 p.m. with my aging parents, Iviewed at least 12 males urinating on the sidewalk in open view. Even more were carrying open beer cans."

I called Ms. Calupsky on the phone and we had a nice chat. I wanted to pinpoint the area, and it was right where I suspected, near the pedestrian exit to a large private parking lot where the tailgating was particularly spirited, so to speak. Her take on the situation was different than most. She wasn't concerned so much about the lack police to take enforcement action (she realized we were quite busy), rather, she thought the problem was largely the lack of facilities when the need was so obvious and could be predicted so far in advance.

Not every problem is a police problem, and not every problem responds well to police presence or enforcement. Ms. Chalupsky is quite correct. In this case, the problem is not the lack of police officers or tickets, it's the lack of toilets. We can help, though. We need to make sure that the large lots (often just a field during the other 358 days of the year) are taking care of business, so to speak. That's what we'll be trying to do as the season continues--contact whoever owns or leases those lots and make they understand the nuances of Lincoln's municipal ordinance 9.20.030, Maintaining a Disorderly House, which, despite the name, applies to any premise--not just a house.

Philanthrophic binge drinking

Just when you think you've seen everything, something comes along to remind you that the human imagination knows no limits. I couldn't possibly make this stuff up.

Yesterday, a colleague at the University of Nebraska forwarded a URL to me of a website advertising a "Crawl for Cancer"--a three hour bar crawl on October 27th in which 10-person teams are served twenty (20) pitchers of beer. At first, I thought it was a joke.

After a few minutes on their site and a little Googling, I realized that this was not a hoax. I got out my favorite online BAC calculator, and plugged the numbers in. Then, I sent the following email to the mysterious contact address at crawlforcancer.org:

From: Tom Casady
Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2007 2:10 PM
To: 'info@crawlforcancer.org'
Subject: Who are you, what are you doing?

It appears you are sponsoring some type of event in our fair City which could potentially result in a violation of the law--serving alcohol to an intoxicated person. According to the promotional material on your website, the plan is for teams of 10 people to visit five bars over the course of three hours, and to consume four pitchers of beer at each venue--a total of 20 pitchers per team.

A typical pitcher of beer is 60 ounces. If 10 people in a team consume 20 pitchers of beer, that would be the equivalent of ten standard 12-ounce beers for each person (not counting any alcohol consumed at the "...after-party with entertainment and yep, more beer.") A 175 pound man consuming this volume over three hours would have a blood alcohol concentration of about .156% at the conclusion. A 125 pound woman would be .240%.

Since it's illegal to provide alcohol to a person who is intoxicated, I am somewhat concerned for the well-being of our local liquor licensees who are participating in this event. I am assembling as many of the owners/managers from the 11 bars listed as can be located for a meeting this afternoon to discuss these data with them.

So, before I start pointing this out to the City Council, the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission, and the local news media, I'd like to give you the opportunity to explain yourself. I'm particularly interested in financial information: how are the funds which are collected allocated, and what percentage does your organization keep? There are no beneficiaries listed on your website for the Lincoln event. The tab for "Benefiting Charities" has a message: "Coming soon."

Our local and State chapters of the American Cancer Society are unfamiliar with your organization, and their director seemed somewhat shocked at the concept of promoting an afternoon of heavy drinking as a fund raiser for cancer. Do you have any specific information about who the beneficiaries are to be from the Lincoln "Crawl for Cancer"? Are there any administrative costs for operating your organization that are paid from the funds collected for team entry fees? Is there any other redeeming information about your organization you would like me to be aware of?

Tom Casady
Chief of Police
Lincoln Police Department
575 S. 10th Street
Lincoln, NE 68508
402.441.7237

Yesterday afternoon, my staff spoke with Samantha Green (the contact person on the website) to make sure she received this email, and I also left a message requesting a return call on the voicemail of the local contact person, Jennifer. I have not had a response from either.

The meeting with the bar representatives hastily called on Tuesday afternoon went well. I just shared the basic math of time, quantity and body weight with them. Some of the bar managers explained that the promoter buys the kegs and keeps the team entry fee to distribute to whatever charities the local sponsor chooses. This arrangement would also violate a couple of the rules and regulations of the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission concerning multiple drink sales and resale of alcohol without a license. The Commission's director, Hobart Rupe, was there to emphasize that, and we had a brief discussion about how they could support charitable work without such risks.

In my conversation with the staff at the American Cancer Society, I learned that the ACS nutritional guidelines suggest no more than two alcoholic beverages daily for men, and one for women.

LSU v. UNL

I am in Baton Rouge, Louisiana this morning, at LSU. I flew in last night, I have a speaking engagement at the Louisiana Sheriff's Association this morning, and I'll fly back to Lincoln this afternoon.

LSU's Campus-Community Coalition for Change brought me here, and I will be addressing a group of about 75 people this morning about the importance of law enforcement in community efforts to reduce the impact of high-risk drinking by young adults. I'll be sharing some strategies that have been successful for us.

LSU and UNL are part of a program called A Matter of Degree. We are a group of major University's who have been involved in campus-community coalitions to reduce high-risk drinking by college students. Our coalition is NU Directions, which I co-chair with Dr. Juan Franco, UNL's Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs. We are something of the poster child for success in Lincoln, where (believe it or not) the high-risk drinking rate by UNL students has fallen significantly and consistently since we started our efforts in 1998. Enforcement has been only one part of those efforts.

After my flight arrived, Dr. Nancy Mathews drove me around campus. Except for the huge 200-300 year old oaks, LSU looks a lot like UNL. Some of the surrounding neighborhoods look pretty similar to the transitional neighborhoods in Lincoln where lots of students live, and the college bars look quite familiar. Baton Rouge is a little smaller than Lincoln: we're 239,213 at the Census Bureau's most recent population estimate, while Baton Rouge is 227,818.

Back at my hotel, I decided to spruce up my PowerPoint a little bit. I was on the Baton Rouge Police Department's website when I noticed something interesting in the FAQs section at the bottom of their main home page:

How Big is the Department?

The Baton Rouge Police Department is authorized to employ 645 sworn officers, 44 communications officers, 34 other specialized police personnel, and 189 civilians, for a maximum allotment of 912 employees.

Lincoln, by comparison has 317 police officers and 105 civilian employees. Baton Rouge--a little smaller than Lincoln, a State Capital, home of a big University with a fairly successful football team--has a police department that is more than twice our size. I hope no one tries to tell me later this morning that they don't have the time to mess with minors in possession of alcohol.

Actually, they might have a point there. Last year, Baton Rouge had 56 murders. Lincoln would have to add up the past decade to reach that number. Let this final score for 2006 sink in:

Baton Rouge 56

Lincoln 5

You suppose alcohol played a role in those 56 murders, or in their 1,727 robberies, or 1,757 aggravated assaults? That will be my point: if you can have a small impact on high-risk drinking, it will help protect young people.

We take a fair amount of heat at LPD for the work we do in liquor license enforcement, DWI enforcement, efforts to control large drinking parties, and the like. A few years ago, some researchers right here at LSU studied alcohol-related deaths in 107 of the largest cities in the United States. The lowest rate: Lincoln. The reason:

"Regulations related to alcohol accessibility, licensure of alcohol outlets, disciplinary procedures of alcohol outlets, and enforcement of laws were associated with lower rates of fatalities."

That would be us.