You Tell Us: Do Neighborhoods Receive Equal Police Protection?
Patch wants to know whether readers feel neighborhoods are treated equally by the police.
Baltimore City police at the scene of a shooting at Whitridge Avenue and Barclay Street in Harwood last year.
Photos (1)
Photos
Following the robbery of two women near the Roland Park Shopping Center last week the police responded by placing an officer and a car at the shopping center for large portions of the day. After a spate of burglaries in Guilford the Northern District assigned two foot patrol officers to that neighborhood in the fall.
But after a murder on Halloween night at the Yau Bros. Chinese Carryout in the 2900 block of Greenmount Avenue, some merchants bitterly complained about a lack of police presence enabling crimes like that to happen.
So Patch wants to know what our readers think.
Do neighborhoods receive equal police protection? Tell us in comments.
Ed
11:39 am on Thursday, February 9, 2012
Nope. Roland park has been crawling with cops after a purse snatching, but an entire bridal party gets mugged in Bolton Hill and there no response.
Dave Stahl
2:06 pm on Thursday, February 9, 2012
Of course not. Police protection, like most things, follows the money.
John
6:19 pm on Thursday, February 9, 2012
Everyone knows all the crime comes from the bad neighborhoods and everyone who lives in the city knows where those neighborhoods are. It comes from not caring about where you live. If they cared I wouldn't see trash strewn all over Greenmount Ave. Ask yourself, why don't you see trash all over Roland Park? Because most of the people who live there actually CARE about where they live. There's nothing the police like more than to see someone who cares about their own neighborhood. Don't always blame the police, blame the thugs and idiots that take over the neighborhoods.
Jon
9:23 pm on Thursday, February 9, 2012
No, neighborhoods do not receive equal police protection. The police tend to focus on areas where there's a lot of crime. Areas that have little crime, like Roland Park, get minimal police coverage until a high-profile crime occurs, at which time police briefly flood the area to let their presence known. And then things go back to the way they were.
Bill Miller
2:37 pm on Friday, February 10, 2012
Police coverage is primarily driven by the 911 system. So police coverage moves around, for the most part, after crimes occur. This means that low crime areas get relatively little coverage compared to higher crime areas. When a high profile crime occurs in a well to do area, then there is a show of force to help reassure people, but it is largely a waste of police resources that could be better utilized. Most Police Districts have a few discretionary officers that can be moved around to deal with crime patterns and complaints, but the majority of police manpower is controlled by a computer, not by District Commanders. Very little time is allocated to preventive patrol because cars are running from job to job and being pulled from quiet areas to busy areas on a regular basis.