Vandalism trend

I was asked to supply some trend data on vandalism earlier this month, and quickly assembled a spreadsheet.  I was a little surprised myself at the results. 

Snow day

How about a little shout out for the police officers who worked their tails off yesterday afternoon and evening?  It was a pretty busy day once the snow started falling.  About 3:45 PM, shortly before it really starts getting busy, this is what the pending incident queue looked like—a couple dozen calls being held by dispatchers awaiting an available unit, since everyone was already tied up on something else:


You might notice that a couple of those calls had been holding for nearly an hour at that point.  These are the pending incidents: the already-dispatched incidents spilled over onto an additional two full screens. By the end of the day, LPD officers had handled 433 incidents, including 123 traffic crashes. The evening rush—one of our two daily peaks—was really a joy. The paperwork that follows each of those crashes would be similar to preparing a Federal 1040 in length and complexity.

Crowdsourced answer

Have you ever heard of crowdsourcing?  I thought it might be interesting to try that out, so here’s the question posed by Tyler in an email I received this morning:

“Hello, I have been wondering if it is legal for someone to ride in the bed
of a truck? I want to have the actual explanation of the law.
Thank You very much”

What say ye, readers of the Chief’s Corner?

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. 

Picking up the slack

No sooner did Officer Scott Parker save the life of a suicidal subject then Officer Scott Wolf did the same the following day.  Officer Wolf’s subject had climbed onto a ledge on the top floor of a parking garage, and it took about an hour of negotiation to convince him to step away.  Another nice save!

So far in 2011, we have handled 47 suicide attempts, and there have been 6 successful suicides in Lincoln. That’s quite a few so early in 2011, since we only had 16 in the entire year of 2010. Last year as of February 17, we had investigated 34 attempts and one successful suicide.

I am concerned that mental health crises generally are on the rise.  Capt. Joe Wright is Nebraska’s leading expert on the subject of police intervention in mental health issues.  He sent me this graph of mental health investigations by the Lincoln Police Department last week.



The light blue segment of each bar represents the portion of the total cases that result in involuntary emergency protective custody. If you created a similar chart of funding for community mental health services in Nebraska, I wager it would be the exact opposite of this.  As Capt. Wright noted, as public budgets strain and the availability of services for the mentally ill declines, in will be the police who must pick up the slack--as usual.

Carry a good knife

Mine is a Spyderco police model, stainless, that I bought 25 years ago.  Here’s why police officers need a good sturdy knife, preferably with a serrated edge:
 
Nice work saving a life, Scott. Good thing you were armed with something sturdy enough for the job at hand.

Weapons offenses

Here is a recap of the 207 weapons offenses investigated by the Lincoln Police Department in 2010:

There were 15 cases of possession of weapons that are illegal per se.  This included three sawed off shotguns, and two firearm with the serial numbers ground off.  The remainder were illegal knives—primarily switchblades. 

Seventeen cases were felons in possession of firearms. 

Illegally concealed weapons constituted 83 cases: 56 knives, 15 firearms, and 10 brass knuckles, one Samuri sword, a machete, and two flails. 

The remainder ran the gamut, such as underage possession of a handgun, illegally discharging guns (and crossbows) within the city limits, illegal transactions or attempts at pawn shops .

No man’s land

The status of bicyclists in crosswalks closes out the week.  It’s complicated.  Municipal Ordinance 10.02.270 defines a pedestrian as “a person afoot.”  There are a number of ordinances that concern pedestrians, including a number of provisions in chapter 10.14, which afford pedestrians the right of way when lawfully within a crosswalk.  But a bicyclist is not “a person afoot,” and thus is not entitled to the same right of way protection in a crosswalk—unless, that is, he or she has dismounted and become a pedestrian pushing a bicycle.  In fact, ordinance 10.48.130 places the responsibility on a bicyclist entering a roadway from a sidewalk or the sidewalk space to “…yield the right-of-way to all vehicles lawfully approaching on said roadway.”

Thus, not only is a bicyclist not entitled to the right of way in a crosswalk, he or she is arguably obligated to yield to any approaching motorists before leaving the sidewalk and entering the crosswalk.  Not only is it a legal twilight zone, crossing intersections in a crosswalk on a bike presents a number of risks and challenges to a bicyclist.  To pick a simple example, consider the intersection of S. 84th Street and A Street.



A northbound cyclist on the bike path/sidewalk along the east side of 84th Street approaches A Street with a green light, and has three vehicles to contend with as he or she prepares to enter the crosswalk.  Vehicle A is waiting for northbound traffic to clear in order to make a left turn onto A St. eastbound.  Vehicle B is preparing to make a right turn onto A Street eastbound.  Vehicle C is preparing to leave a stopped position and make a right-turn-on-red to proceed northbound on 84th Street.  All these vehicles will be turning through the crosswalk the bicyclist is about to enter.

From my perspective, I am most concerned about vehicle B, which is approaching from my rear.  Vehicles A and C are at least in my line of sight, and I have a chance to make eye contact and maybe get some indication from the drivers that I am seen.  With vehicle B, I must rely on my hearing, and perhaps a quick glance over the left shoulder.  If any one of these vehicles collides with me while I am in the crosswalk, there is no violation for failure to yield the right of way, because I am in a legal no man’s land as a bike in a crosswalk .

This is a pretty straightforward intersection compared to Normal and South, Cotner and Vine, or 27th and Capital Parkway, where there are odd angles, more lanes, more movements, more distractions, and thus more danger. Over the years, I have seen many car-bike accidents of this nature, and dealt with a few people who were frustrated and perplexed that the driver of the car didn’t get a ticket.  Such is life: proceed at your own risk.

Personally, I am far more concerned about survival than about someone getting a ticket for mowing me over. This is why cyclists should never listen to music, always wear a helmet, and assume that they are completely and totally invisible when crossing an intersection.  Simple physics is at work: 200 lbs. of bike and rider will always loose in a match with 3000 lbs. or car and driver.