FEAR KCPD COVERAGE GAPS AND RESPONSE TIME SLOW DOWN!!!

While Mayor and a majority of the City Council didn't want to provide more cash for police . . . The strategy of "doing more with less" seems to be backfiring. Take a look:

KCMO police numbers dropping, response times rising even for violent crimes

The number of KC police officers on the street is dropping while the department's budget and response times to calls are rising. Daily assignment sheets for police officers exclusively obtained by 41 Action News show coverage gaps all over the city.

Comments

  1. Yeah Yeah, a White Police Chief will change all of this plus bring the murder rate down to 10 / year.

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  2. Damn. KSHB really hit Forte with some legit questions which he totally avoided.

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  3. The police have NEVER responded with urgency to anything except when they're trying to get taxpayers to approve the public safety sales tax. In fact, most anything dealing with government is horribly slow paced and that includes violence. This is just more fear mongering from the media. Sigh.

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  4. Patty Higgins is completely worthless. She could not answer simple questions that everyone knows except her. Besides her name coming up in the news that is the only time she is ever heard from. She is an absent commander with no clear job description.

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    1. Why put Higgins front and center if she's going to dodge all the questions? She wants to argue with Council over money, but she doesn't want to admit that they are screwing the taxpayers by not consolidating admin services with the city. Consolidation of those functions would free up money for more cops and salary increases. Of course, no one at KCPD wants to discuss that. Those admin people may actually have to work if they consolidated.

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  5. Wow. Lemmon took a deep breath and sighed when asked if he thought Forte was doing a good job. That's telling. If you ask the Mayor... That's very suspect given all of the soundbites and co-signing each of them has been doing for one another. Glad to see KSHB asking tough questions. It's an irregularity when it happens. They had lost a lot of credibility with Cynthia Newsomes coverage of the City, and it's Black officials. I guess there's bias both ways but people deserve the organic news, now fluff and filler.

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  6. KSHB 41 ought to learn a few things about police and fire protection before they go running off making stupid comments. Coverage gaps have taken place in Kansas City and in fact over the complete metro area ever since that first officer or fire company went in to service. Coverage gaps increase and decrease during certain times during the day. If you have six fire stations and say three of those are out on a call at the same time you have a coverage gap of over fifty percent of the area depending on the locations of the units on call.

    Calling for mutual aid from other surrounding departments at times when needed depending on the situation has gone on for many years all over the country. Overland Park Fire just this last week was asking for help from as far away as Lawrence in that large fire they had.

    There will never be a police officer on every corner nor a fire station on every street.

    If you want to blame anyone for police coverage gaps blame all the crooks and thugs running around causing the real shortage of officers to be able to respond to say real emergencies. Start ripping the penal system apart and asking why are these who have proven beyond all doubt a life of crime is all they want to do and therefore should be locked up for life, not just a few months then turned loose again.

    But at the same time cities shouldn't allow shortages of officers to be taking place. If it is deemed there needs to be 1400 officers on a department at all times to give adequate public protection then that is the number that should be on staff with preparations already in place to replace up coming retiring officers. That part alone is nothing but bad leadership by both the city and department personnel.

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    1. @10:15, you meant to say bad leadership by the STATE, right? Everyone seems to forget the City has no oversight of the police department. It reports to the State. The City just provides the money.

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    2. All of the police commissioners are KCMO residents. Your argument is foolishly uninformed.

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    3. The BOPC are KCMO residents but they are appointed by the governor. 4:44 is correct, KCPD is under the control of the state not the city.

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  7. KCPD is a giant mess.

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  8. Nope it's the local joke.

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  9. How embarrassing for those who work there.

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  10. McGruff the Sly Dog3/25/17, 12:05 PM

    Kansas Shitians need to grasp that the police are not their protector and have not been for decades. Given that most crime goes unsolved there are few situations where fast responses from police help. Perhaps in cases of some guy slapping his girlfriend around, but the fact is you are pretty much on your own when it comes to protection of your life and property.

    Police almost never stop burglaries, assaults, robberies, car thefts, arson, murder or a ton of crime. What they do is show up after you are a victim, take a report, usually inform you that your chances of getting justice are slim to none, file their report and the detectives (if they get the case) will shuffle the case file around for weeks or months and, as stated, nearly never solve the crime.

    The advent of new technologies really wont help as the technologies we do have, like DNA, are generally deemed to expensive or time consuming for silly crimes like burglary, larceny and even in many shootings. Most metros in this country have not even began to embrace DNA testing of shell casings. Police never take fingerprints, recover evidence like tools, or do lab work when a stolen car is recovered and anyone thinking modern technology is putting a major dent in crime obviously can't read crime statistics.

    It is not particularly the fault of police that things are this way, but it makes little sense pumping shitloads of money into police departments when the most successful thing police do is raise money for the local government and spend a great deal of time involved in activities that support the government and not the citizens.

    If you want protection you need to get your ass down to a training gun range and get a gun for personal protection. That is as good as it is going to get until someone a lot smarter than us develops a plan that actually works. Don't hold your breath.

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  11. Nobody with half a brain would ever call kCPD.

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    1. That's right. Call your local crack dealer the next time you can't find your way home...no wait, you sound like a meth-head...Anyway, police yourself and let us know how that works out for ya. What kcpd needs is some actual leadership, not political panderers who hide in their offices and are afraid of their own shadows.

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  12. Not enough cops



    And even with enough cops it's called the Ferguson Effect!!!!


    Thanks Mayor Bullhorn, you asked for it, you got it.

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  13. We already police ourselves genius.
    The cops are useless.
    Get it.

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  14. Fake news story as reported by someone who told me they read it somewhere... chief forte once commented to a group of people..ive been hired as a zoo keeper not a cop.. white people do that..

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  15. Slow down their response time? Ha ha ha. When they don't even bother to respond, you can't get any slower than that. If people think having more cops on the street (riding around in their cars) will make us safer, they don't know anything. A guy with a gun could walk right up to you and blow you out of your socks with a cop standing right there.

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  16. The police are tied up with mostly domestic violence and disputes they show up it takes time to do the paperwork have no time to patrol looking for the bad guys If you're spouse is kicking your ass, get the he'll out they need to be out there hunting the bad guys

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  17. I wouldn't expect Forte to give a straight answer, he never has. I also wouldn't expect Higgins to say anything, she never has. The surprising thing was that lemon did not say anything. Forte has run the department so far into the ground it's just sad. It's really telling when the FOP president is afraid to say anything.

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  18. Pay for a staffing study? What do the commanders do?

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  19. the problem w/ the PD is not the overall number of police. that doesn't tell the whole story. Look at where those officers are deployed and compare that to the past. there are far too many officers assigned to secret squirrel units like NOVA where nobody really knows what the do and more importantly the have almost no effectiveness. the front line officers are getting short changed.

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  20. How about that useless Media Unit or Research Unit.
    Some of those officers have not made an arrest in 10 years.

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  21. KCPD needs the new police chief to come from outside of the department. There are no current deputy chiefs qualified to lead the department, this includes recently retired command staff that want to give it a shot. The BoPC must hire a leader whose blood isn't already tainted by the likes of Forte, Harvey, Zimmerman, and Hundley.

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  22. I would like to know who is going to compete this "staffing study". I have a hard time believing that the chief really had the intention to hire and unbiased, independent reviewer. also, forte always plays dumb when he makes
    Comments like "the officers would rather have a pay increase than another officer hired"
    The dept. wouldn't be so short of officers if he would stop promoting people. This is the only organization where it seems the management (command) staff to worker (officer) ratio is nearly 1:1. And is there really a need for any captain position? Sargeants could report
    To majors and cut out a whole section of this staffing and budget crisis.
    Maybe I should get paid 130k for a staff I study. I think I've already addessed more than any agency Forte hired will.

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  23. An RFP was issued, and a firm selected through that process for the staffing study. I don't think KCPD is going to like what they hear. Too top-heavy with management. Do they really need all those deputy chiefs and captains? No wonder they keep asking for more money.

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