3 in 1 hodgepodge
Memo to chicago city council re "alleged cop set up costs city 195k" as reported in chicago sun times 05 Feb 08: Please. Please. Please. Just because it is not your money does not give you all the right to toss it to any joe shmo. If you, the city council finance committee, have issues with the alleged "victim" of police misconduct how about refusing to approve the payout? How about saying NO? How about sending it back to corporation counsel for a full explanation and further investigation? You, dear finance committee, have just set another precedent for lying phonies to claim anything for a buck and receive a payout (which by the way, is about equivalent to the starting salaries for 4 rookie police officers) with no proof. In so doing, you have removed the burden of proof from the claimant and simply taken the easy way out by approving said settlement with no conditions or explanation. Shame on you for not having the guts or the backbone for refusing this shameful case and just rubber stamping it.
Memo to the dear reader (taxpayer) expressing frustration and incredulousness at the overtime: Blogmaster feels your pain. Really. As a taxpayer, resident, and citizen Blogmaster is incensed at ANY inefficiencies operating in city agencies. Sadly, however, that is more the rule than the exception and it's even more sad that the public and the employees accept inferority and mediocraty as normal. But the reality, at oemc anyway, is that we have enough hard working, good, really dedicated pcos who pick up the slack. If its you, your family, or a friend, your calls DO get answered and are serviced, even the stupid ones. The ones about the barking dogs, the teens congregating on the street, the cars running the stop signs--even when you and they wish to be anonymous and when WE all know you have almost no chance of actually seeing cpd. It says alot more about how well the oemc is run IN SPITE OF the suits not because of them.
Memo to spcos: Hang in there and hang tough during your negotiations and force the city to respect you. You have a lot of support from the rank and file here--we understand you are only one layer above us in the dung heap. And while we have issues--many issues--with the suits and with management, we by and large respect you
(mostly) and dont blame you for this messy morass. We appreciate the fact that you have no incentive, no support, and no inspiration from YOUR bosses--we know because we feel exactly the same way. Good luck to you.
posted by CPDDispatch @ 12:00 AM
7 Comments:
respect the spco's? lol thats a good one....almost 85 percent of them don't have a clue. you ask a question and they have no answer and no intentions of finding one. i don't know how many times i have asked for help with a certain situation which a supervisor should make the call on and get nothing but a blank stare and "well maybe you should ask so and so"......you want me to get up and go ask another fellow employee about a job sent to my board? how bout do you job and stop being lazy! or when they come over and clearly see that you are extremely busy only to tap you on the shoulder and be able to answer that oh so stupid question in the middle of chaos......"do you have a backlog in?" i completely understand the questoin but don't they have the sense to see your busy and pull up the LIQ screen punch up the dist and low and behold find out if a backlog is sent though yet.......i mean come on!!! and that goes for the dispatcher who can be used for um i don't know dispatching that is being wasted on cw4 to check for jobs going over the time and letting the supv. know if they need to come over and ask that stupid question. i do admit we do have a few excellent supervisors, but very few....the others are either lazy or dumb i don't really know yet haven't made up my mind
3rd watch supv DM is such an asshole that if u ask him a question, he makes fun of you for asking. it's obviously his defense mechanism in avoiding answering any questions. because 99% of the time he does not know an answer.
Blogmaster, while I do feel honored that my comment was addressed, I do not agree with all that was said. "...your calls DO get answered and are serviced, even the stupid ones..." The calls may get taken, but as for serviced, that's where the problem lies. You even helped my point with this line, "...WE all know you have almost no chance of actually seeing cpd..." I couldn't agree more.
I had a problem over the summer, and did call MULTIPLE times over several hours, and my calls were deemed bovine refuse. Nobody came. It wasn't until the situation severely escalated the cpd showed up, (with 14+ units, and bomb and arson). Now, what gives you the right to deem what is bullshit, and what is not? Had the call been treated appropriately, one or two units would've solved the problem.
Yes, there are hard working people at OEMC, but why should they have to work harder, and pick up the slack, because some of these overtime pillaging pcos are there to just collect a check? What a great morale booster, you know?
to 935
the problems that you seem to be referring to appear to be from the CPD end. As blogmaster says, we at oemc take your calls and send them over for dispatch. They are given out to field units once they are created and its anyones guess what happens next. Sometimes they are coded wholesale by the field supervisors (barking dogs, teens on the street, dope calls w no complainant); sometimes the field unit is on a more pressing assignment; and sometimes the field unit is lazy and just fails to respond.
But the bottom line that is something that oemc cannot control. We can only answer and process the calls and that is what the public needs to understand. WE may THINK a call is stupid, but by and large we send for everything, even the stuff that we really really know we is not a police matter. Because no one backs us up up there for NOT sending.
15:07, I thank you for answering my comment like an adult. You could've easily attacked me, like many normally do, so to see an honest, intelligent response is quite refreshing.
As you can probably tell, I'm not a pco, so therefore I really didn't know how the system all works. I have an idea, but it's not my department, so... Thank you for clearing that up for me. I just figured my event was pushed to the back of the pile because it didn't seem like a pressing issue.
The whole system needs an overhaul, honestly. There are issues that management should be backing up the pcos, but there are also issues where there needs to be some sort of disciplinary action taken. And with the overtime issue, fixing that issue should be a priority. Either hire more people, or equally spread it out, so that not just the select few are getting it all the time.
Now, in regards to the OT, like I've said before, there are people who truly work. But the others who do nothing, there should be something done about it. But, we both know that nothing will be done about it, there's too much "loyalty" with the various cliques.
--Now, what gives you the right to deem what is bullshit, and what is not?--
I won't presume to guess which police district you live in, but there are times where its not just a right but a duty to deem what is bullshit.
There are times, particularly in the summer, where the calls for service far outpace the availability of field resources to handle them. See secondcitycop if you have any question as to the shortage of POs assigned to districts to handle calls.
So on a Friday night with numerous low priority calls hours old on the board (numerous meaning "hundreds" sometimes), a dispatcher may every once in awhile receive permission to bury the low priority calls.
This does not happen frequently, and I doubt its what happened to you seeing as how it seems you called on multiple different occasions (if I'm reading you right).
But this is not an issue for the OEMC.
First and foremost, its a policy issue. Your calls compete with calls from every other citizen in the city, and some of your fellow citizens have a habit of calling the police for ANYTHING. Policy is to send the police on far more than the police should be sent on.
Second, its a manpower issue. Your calls need police to be available for assignment if they are to be answered. There are police districts in a perpetual state of backlog, so if its not of the highest priority, its gonna sit on the backburner til 4 in the morning until someone is available.
Finally, its a procedural issue. The last people in the police department I blame for this problem are the lowly police officers humping around in marked district units. Yet, the possibility exists that sometimes these lowly oppressed workers misunderstand the call, or fail to appreciate how serious the situation is that you have called about.
Sorry if its not the answer you want to hear. But it starts with that policy issue first, and then the manpower issue second, and then a procedural issue last.
Dear Mildly Agitated,
A huge part of the problem is CAPS, and the lack of manpower available in the field. CAPs empowered the citizens to play police. To dictate how much time allowed for dispatch and the importance and priority of certain crimes etc.
At caps meetings, everyone is told to request to be annonymous, which is really quite a problem since we have no names, we have no victims and therefore most the time no crime and if a crime was obviously committed, no witness for prosectution purposes. Your "disturbance" call has up to 1 hour to be dispatched per CAPS policy. Also per CAPS we can stack 3 dist calls on a car to get too in order. It could take a unit 2-3 hrs to get to your call if they had 2 previous jobs to go too. Here's the stickler to that. Per CAPs I must dispatch the job in the ordered that it was received per priority. Now you might be having a disturbance with your neighbor over a garbage can.. it's a heated discussion.. that has the potential to escalate to a fist fight. But 20 mins prior,,anonymous caller's neighbors dog is barking for 3 hours and disturbing his sleep..
Per CAPS I must dispatch the barking dog ticket first before your call for service. Though common sense would dictate,,wow this could really blow up and we have a complainant, and I use common sense and disp you a car first. And now God forbid the anny caller on the dog barker goes out and shoots the dog. I would get a complaint number put on me for not dispatching police per caps policy and common sense could not be used as a defense. Hello suspension time. CPd manpower shortage is a whole bigger problem, an elaborate game of smoke and mirrors. Believe me, we are the one's who have to shift the mirrors around. Sorry you couldnt get the service you needed as fast as you wanted. A minute is a very long time when you have a crisis. But it still doesnt change the dispatch times and the fact your call may not be first in line , or that there just might not be a car to send, or that the unit sent has to travel miles in some cases to get to you. Take care of yourself neighbor. The truth shall set you free as they say.
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