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Charles Ramsey can't be too jealous of his former protégé and now D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier. After all, he's got good numbers; she doesn't. In his first year as Philadelphia's Police Commissioner, the District's former top cop saw a 15 percent decline in homicides, handing Mayor Michael Nutter a substantial victory in his pledge to reduce citywide crime. Lanier, on the other hand, had to deal with a second straight year of increases in the District's homicide tally, the first back-to-back jump since 1990-91. Lanier and Ramsey did rely on similarly controversial police tactics to clamp down on crime though, with Lanier resorting to police checkpoints outside of Trindad and Ramsey allowing officers to more aggressively stop, question and frisk Philadelphia residents.
Former D.C. Police Chief Fares Well in First Year
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We went to the Macy's at 12th & G this morning for the Black Friday morning specials. There was a sh
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I don't envy anyone handed that Sisyphean task. Chief Lanier is doing as well as anyone could be expected to.
You'd hit it.
Is it that his numbers are truly "that good" or is he once again hiding stats to make himself look better?
It's kind of difficult to fudge murder statistics, eh?
It really gets old listening to city police departments and their chiefs taking credit for trends in crime stats, especially when there is little to no policy change within their departments. City crime state are 99% regional and cyclical. If crime and murder spike in Cinncinati, then you'll see a rise in Cleveland, then you'll see a rise in Gary, then you see a rise in East St. Louis, etc., etc,... Murder down in Philly? Then it'll be down in Baltimore too, then Richmond and so on and so on. All of these cities recieve drugs from the same sources. If new sources of drugs come in or if old sources get cut off from a big fbi arrest, then you start to see bodies drop in your city as well as that city 100 miles down the pike.
All the while everyone is pointlessly pointing at police chiefs for no good reason, and when the numbers go up, policemen unions blame lack of overtime hour$$$. It's all crap.
Your comment is really quite odd. First you say that police have no effect on the numbers because they never change policies. Well, that's not true, as mentioned in the blurb. Then you say the numbers will all go up/down on a regional basis, and that is also untrue in this instance.
Actually, i didn't say that. Policy has no effect. Police can change policy or not change it all they want. Any change to crime stats will occur due to market forces, not local police policy.
Police will still take credit when the numbers go down, even though no policy change has occured, showing that policy and leadership isn't even the issue.
So D.C. is experiencing a spike? Wait a couple of months. You'll see the same spike in Richmond and Baltimore. Philly is experiencing a drop? That must be the same drop in Baltimore, which is over, by the way. Murder is way WAY up in Baltimore the past 2 months... forget the 2008 totals. It must be that same trend occuring in D.C. der.
Police do take credit when it's not due.. but that doesn't mean that they never deserve any credit. That seems to be the stance that you're taking.
To say that they deserve absolutly no credit would be going to far, but to say they deserve almost no credit would be hitting very close to the mark.
I'm not saying that Charles Ramsey is bad or good at his job, but I am willing to say that he was incredibly fortunate in his timing when he was the D.C. police chief, at a time when real estate forces were pushing D.C. poverty into its own suburbs. He was also equally fortunate in his timing when he took his job in Philly, at a time when Philly and its metropolitan neighbors Baltimore and Newark were all experiencing an inexplicable drop in their homicide numbers.
To say that they deserve absolutly no credit would be going to far, but to say they deserve almost no credit would be hitting very close to the mark.
I'm not saying that Charles Ramsey is bad or good at his job, but I am willing to say that he was incredibly fortunate in his timing when he was the D.C. police chief, at a time when real estate forces were pushing D.C. poverty into its own suburbs. He was also equally fortunate in his timing when he took his job in Philly, at a time when Philly and its metropolitan neighbors Baltimore and Newark (and probably Camden) were all experiencing an inexplicable drop in their homicide numbers.
oops. Sorry for the double post.
I'd lay even odds on Lanier being defenestrated by year's end, as Fenty gears up for next year's mayoral election.