Class act

I was a guest speaker last night at Dr. Donnette Noble’s University of Nebraska class, Diversity and Leadership (ALEC 466), at the College of Agriculture on East Campus. I am a frequent guest at a variety of college classes, and I really enjoy talking with students. I was one myself for nearly 10 years, and taught part time at UNL and NWU for another 12, so a pretty good chunk of my life has been spent hanging around campus and jockeying for parking spots.

It was a great class, with engaged students who were willing to participate in a challenging dialog. The primary topic was hate crimes, and I gave them my take on what each of them could do personally to impact the kind of bigotry and hate that rears its ugly head in our community with depressing regularity. A couple of the topics we addressed last night have been here in the Chief’s Corner in the past.

For me, it’s inspiring to see young people tackling subjects that we just don’t talk about much in our culture in a mature, thoughtful manner. One of the reasons I’m an optimist is that I am around students and police recruits enough to realize that the world is going to be in good hands for a good long time to come. Dr. Noble’s class was another class act.

Dance if you want

Personally, I normally do so only at weddings, but I have no objection to others who wish to do so on more frequent occasions. Some observers, however, seem to think that I have some sort of vested interest in Lincoln’s ordinances that regulate public dances. I don’t. These ordinances date from the 1930’s, but have been tweaked from time to time—most recently in 1993.

This issue has become a matter on the public agenda lately, due to a campaign by a local club owner to expose the problems he sees with these laws. The rub seems to be the City’s differentiation of public dances from teen public dances. You can’t hold a public dance that overlaps the age groups of 14-18 with the age group of 19 and up, unless it’s a dance without alcohol service, in which case you can admit 18 year olds, or unless the minor is accompanied by a parent or guardian.

One of our city council members sent me an email with a list of questions, one of which was this: “What is the intent of the rule and has it outlived it's time?” My response:

“I wasn't around in the 1930's but I suspect that public dances were occasions where there was a perception of heightened risk for such things as rumbles, unlawful gambling, illegal liquor; underage drinking; kissing, hand-holding and other forms of naughtiness--particularly between adult male ne'er-do-wells and impressionable young people. That is still probably the case. The inspection by [the] Building & Safety [Department] for exits, capacity, lighting, electrical, and other life-safety issues seems to me to be the best reason to require a permit for a public dance--there have been some famous disasters at public dances in our national history--Coconut Grove, the Kansas City Hyatt, and the Station in Warwick, RI, to name a few with particularly large loss of life.”

I’m guessing that the evidence of shenanigans at public dances dates back to the beginning of recorded history. I know what was going on at Teen Canteen in Lincoln when I was in ninth grade, which is pretty close to that time. I doubt it has changed much. Changing the age limits or just repealing the teen dance permit ordinance entirely would have little or no impact on the police department.

Does the thought of your 15 year old daughter grinding with a 24 year old man who’s been drinking bother you? Does it bother you any more or less than if he was a Pepsi-drinking 17 year old? Is it a matter for government to concern itself with? This is a public policy issue for our elected representatives to mull over; it doesn’t impact the police department or me personally, one way or another—because my daughter isn’t 15 any more.

Nice acknowledgement

I’m one of those people who still likes holding the newspaper in my hand. One of my favorite weekly routines is leisurely perusing the Sunday paper in our north-lit living room with a pot of coffee. It’s actually about the only time we ever use the room.

My newspaper habit is fixed: I turn first to the Editorial page, then to the local section, then back to the front page, and wrap up with sports. I suspect that the majority of police chiefs start at the editorial page. This is a highly political and pressure-packed position, whether you’re chief in a big city or a small town.

Yesterday, the lead editorial in the Lincoln Journal Star was focused on the police department. That sentence alone is enough to make most of my colleagues cringe, but this editorial was a compliment, not a criticism. The editorial staff has taken notice of the trend in party disturbances in Lincoln, and was passing on props for the results achieved.

I certainly appreciate the recognition of the department’s work. Specifically, it’s the late-shift officers and sergeants that need to take the deep bow, along with the five Team captains who have worked with landlords, property owners, managers, and in some cases parents. These calls are more than annoying. It is a genuine pain to work your way through a big party, where there is inevitably a handful of obnoxious drunks, a pre-law major who wants to engage in a curbside debate, and a loud mouth whose daddy is personal friends with Chief Cassaday.

It is good to know that the editorial board recognizes the positive impact that this good police work has had on the community in several ways. Thanks!

2009 meth labs

Among other things, Sgt. Mike Basset supervises our clandestine lab team. He sent me a summary of the meth labs located in Lancaster County last year:

For 2009, the Lincoln Metro Clandestine Laboratory Team responded to
and processed six (6) meth lab incidents. Below are the labs worked:

• A9-017650 Feb 26th, 2009 400 block of N. 44th St. & Wyuka Cemetery; dumpsite with equipment
• A9-19239 March 3, 2009 900 block of S. 44th St.;equipment with residue
• A9002144 March 26, 2009 5500 block of Claire Ave.; dumpsite
• A9-067881 July 14, 2009 West O St. & NW 90th St.; lab in progress
• A9-117754 November 27-28, 2009 4600 block of Baldwin Ave.; lab in progress
• A9-124184 December 17th, 2009 2200 block of S. 9th St.; dumpsite glassware with pills

Five persons were arrested in connection with these six lab incidents which is unusual. Meth labs have fallen precipitously in Nebraska since 2004, when we had around 60 in Lancaster County. Although they are encountered less often today, it is still important to have a group of properly trained and equipped personnel who can safely deal with the hazards that labs can present, and can both the collection of evidence and the proper disposal of chemicals. I certainly appreciate the work of the officers and deputies who have volunteered to serve in this capacity.

On a related note, like many police chiefs and sheriffs, I have a small collection of photos of meth addicts taken at two different time intervals, showing the devastating impact the chronic abuse of this drug has upon some addicts. The Partnership for a Drug Free America maintains a website devoted to this phenomenon. Yesterday, a friend who has seen my collection sent me a link to this NPR program that ran on Sunday. I had the same idea a few years ago, but it looks like Mendocino County (CA) Sheriff Tom Allman actually acted upon it, and found a company to produce the software.

Welcome aboard, Dexter

Officer Nikki Loos has a newly-certified partner, Dexter. He’s a good looking youngster, don’t you think?

And Dexter, give a welcoming bark to the 18 new police recruits that started their training in our police academy yesterday.

Choropleth map

A choropleth map is one in which polygons (such as census tracts, zip codes, states, etc.) are shaded in hues that correspond with the density of some phenomenon within each polygon. They are frequently used to display demographic data, and often used for crime data within such polygons as police districts, census tracts, and so forth. I don’t use them very often myself for some complex GIS-geek reasons, but you’ll find a couple of examples in the Chief’s Corner of choropleth maps.

I received an email yesterday from Mike Behm, the director of the Nebraska Commission on Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice (AKA the Crime Commission). Mike was letting the police community in Nebraska know that the Commission has launched a new application that generates a choropleth map of Nebraska’s 93 counties, based on either the offense rate or arrest rate.

Like LPD, the Crime Commission has some good web-based tools for generating your own tables and statistics from the data that it collects. This mapping application is a nice addition to their offerings.

Thanks, Jim

One of the most well-known Lincoln police officers, Capt. Jim Thoms, retired last week after 37 years on the force. He was often the person interviewed at the scene and quoted by reporters. Jim spent 31 of his 37 years as a supervisor at the rank of sergeant and captain, so a large percentage of the officers on the department worked for him at one time or another. At his reception on Friday, I mentioned that there are 177 Lincoln police officers who weren’t even born on the day he first pinned on the badge.

Jim was a motor officer when I joined LPD. He was promoted early, and supervised many squads of street officers for a good long time. In the mid-1990’s I had the opportunity to promote him to the rank of captain, where he has been in charge of field operations during his shift as one of our duty commanders. He has also coordinated all our emergency preparedness activities, a job that took on new importance in the past decade.

I've admired the enjoyment he takes his work. Jim Thoms bleeds LPD blue: he loves this place, he enjoys his coworkers, he relishes the opportunity to solve a problem, help someone out, and make a difference. On his last day, he was having as much fun as on his first. I have enjoyed working with him tremendously. Jim Thoms always practiced the Golden Rule policing that I so frequently talk to new police recruits about. He has modeled it for scores of officers who have been fortunate to work for him.

Jim likes to pretend that he walked five miles to school everyday, uphill in both directions, after milking the cows, slopping the hogs, cleaning out the chicken coop, and pitching 60 bales of hay. He also likes to pretend that he is old-school, and eschews technology. It doesn’t work, but it’s a funny shtick. I came to work one day a couple years ago, and he was wearing this memory stick on a lanyard around his neck. He signed it and gave it to me as a memento last week.

Thanks, Jim, for all you have done for the department, your fellow officers, and the citizens of Lincoln. You are a charming man. Enjoy your retirement!

Statewide crime prediction

Friday's release of Lincoln's 2009 crime stats took place earlier in the year than in most other cities. We normally have our UCR crime reports wrapped up by the middle of the month, so we are ready pretty early. The national data all has to be compiled. The FBI's annual compendium of Uniform Crime Report data, Crime in the United States, generally isn't published until the fall.

In Nebraska, the Commission on Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice sends the local UCR data on to the FBI, and also publishes its own statewide report, cleverly titled Crime in Nebraska. Like the FBI, the Nebraska Commission of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice publishes the report online. It also has a very slick application which allows you to plug in various parameters and create your own statistical reports. The Nebraska report will be out this spring or summer.

In the meantime, I am predicting that statewide crime in Nebraska will fall in 2009. My prognostication is that the decline will be slightly more than 3% overall. Auto theft and aggravated assaults will fall significantly, while there will be a slight uptick in burglary, and reported rapes will increase by around 10%. This prediction sounds pretty similar to what we already know from Lincoln's data.

Omaha hasn't released its end-of-year crime data for 2009 yet, but the data for the first 11 months are published on their public web site. The pattern looks very similar to Lincoln. December's rotten weather would almost guarantee low crime during the 12th month, so I doubt the year end percentages in Omaha will change much in any of the crime categories.

If the crime data for Lincoln and Omaha are similar, it's a pretty good bet that the Statewide data will reflect the same trend, since these two cities together comprise about 39% of the State's population. Lincoln is 14%, Omaha 25%. Later this year, we can see if my projection proves accurate.