Much done, much to do Charlotte-Mecklenburg's focus: Initiatives, feedback, planning From this month's uptown melee to police staffing levels to a rise in homicides, public safety in Charlotte-Mecklenburg has been the talk of the town...
(Latin Kings, SUR-13, MS-13, gangs, crimes, laws, city government, drugs, security, terrorists)

6/17/2005
CHIEF DARREL STEPHENS ON CRIME
Charlotte Observer

In letters to the editor, talk radio and neighborhood newsletters, people are asking: Is Charlotte still a safe city?

Reporter Kytja Weir spoke with the man in charge, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Darrel Stephens. Some of the questions she asked came straight from readers.

The 58-year-old chief will start his seventh year here in September and hopes to be on the job at least five more years. He plans to continue working on community policing.

He says uptown is safe, regrets the damage done in last year's academy cheating scandal, and urges the public to lobby state leaders to boost court resources. The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Q. What are your top three priorities for the department?

We've been working on a strategic plan for community policing that we hope will help us better build partnerships with the community. That is actually the top priority for us in the next couple of years.

Secondly, we have the addition of 48 new police officers. We want to get them through recruiting and training and onto the street as soon as we can.

Thirdly, our focus on crime. We have seen increases in property crime over the past two years, particularly auto thefts and burglaries. And this year, we've seen a pretty good spike in robberies. Homicides have increased.

Q. What can the people who live and work in Mecklenburg County do to help ensure that the people committing crime are prosecuted?

The state of North Carolina does not adequately fund the court system anywhere, but particularly in Mecklenburg.

The senior property crime prosecutor told us that he has 44 days a year that he can try property crime cases. Property crime accounts for 85 percent of the crime that is reported in Charlotte-Mecklenburg. There is a significant number of arrests that are made for property crime, but the outcome is going to be plea deals.

So one of the things that the community can do is to really impress upon our legislative delegation and the people that represent us on a statewide basis in North Carolina to make the kind of investment in the court system that is needed to ensure that both the victim and the suspect get their day in court. Which is not the case right now.

Q. Homicides and armed robberies are up more than 40 percent. What specific steps is the department taking to reduce that?

The robberies, we've had a significant initiative on a department-wide basis for two years. We saw a reduction in robberies of 7 percent. And that carried through 2004 until we got to the last five or six months and then we started seeing what we're still experiencing today. So we've been working on that problem.

Our street crimes folks are predominantly being used to target areas where we have experienced robberies. We've been doing prevention work on the commercial side. We're hoping that we're going to see better results from that. As we did in 2003.

On the homicide picture, the biggest difference that we've seen this year is domestic homicides. That's an area that has been troublesome for quite a number of years. But we've got some good programs that are in place, working with non-profits in the social service sector.

But there are times, and there are years, when that problem just jumps up and the numbers are greater than the year before. I think sometimes there are things that people do to each other that are beyond the control of somebody else to stop.

Q. You all have made efforts to prevent kids from joining gangs. But what specific steps are you taking to eradicate the gangs in Charlotte that already exist?

Any kind of crime that gangs are involved in we investigate, try to identify them and put the cases before the prosecutor.

Particularly the Latino gangs where people are here in this country illegally, we enforce and work with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement federal agency. In the past two years, there have been 141 Latino gang members deported from Charlotte-Mecklenburg.

And I think we've seen some positive outcomes from that. The number of homicides and the violence that the Latino gangs were involved with in 2003 have declined in 2004 and 2005. Eliminated? No, it's not been eliminated. But I don't know if we'll ever eliminate these different groups and gangs entirely.

Q. In the wake of the Fourth of July melee (in which police called in all available units to control a crowd of 2,000, then arrested 17 people), what specifically is the police department doing to ensure that people are safe when they come uptown for the next big public event?

Center city is a pretty safe place for people to be. Special events, there's hundreds of them. We have very few problems. We haven't had anything like the July Fourth event before.

It did get out of hand. We did not have adequate staffing that night. But based on that experience, future July Fourth events we're going to staff accordingly based on our most recent history.

Events that we have downtown, we try to make judgments based on our history and our experience with that type of event, what types of staffing and police presence we need to have. That is something that we will do in the future like we have done in all events in the past.

And I think July Fourth needs to be put in the larger context of what people come and do in the center city day in and day out throughout the year. When one takes into account the number of people that live and work and come to center city for recreational activities and for other things. When you take that into account, the center city is a very safe place for people to be.

Q. If police weren't prepared for 2,000 people on the Fourth of July, how well are you prepared for homeland security threats?

I think people are talking about apples and oranges when they compare homeland security to 2,000 people showing up in the square on Fourth of July. Our homeland security initiatives are among the best, if not the best, in the country. Charlotte-Mecklenburg is recognized for the work we have done prior to 2001 and since 2001.

Q. We have recently heard from readers complaining you do not take a vocal stance against crime. Have you ever held a public forum to hear concerns, solutions, opinions, etc.?

Absolutely. Just less than a year ago, we had a retreat at the police academy that involved people from the department and probably about 100 representatives of people throughout the community. In fact, that has informed and strengthened our community policing strategy.

Q. That was by invitation. Have you had anything that was open to the general public?

We have probably 150 community meetings a month. I attend some of those. I attend the council when they have the forums that are open invitations to everyone. I don't think I've been shy about talking about crime.

Q. If you could go back in time in those six years, is there anything that you would do differently?

The thing that has probably been the most difficult for me and the most challenging was the academy situation (when police officials discovered last year that recruits had been using unauthorized copies of old tests as study guides at the training academy since 2001). But I didn't anticipate it. When we discovered it, we dealt with it. It was not a good experience for me or for the department or the community.

Q. If you were to rate yourself on a scale of one to five (with five being highest), what score would you give yourself for the job you have done?

I'd say a four. If we had not had some of the difficulty with the academy, and if we'd not seen the increases in the property crimes that we have seen in the past year or so, I would give myself a five.

Q. Why?

I think I have strengthened the ties and the relationships we have with the community. The trends began before I came here, but I think I have contributed -- to the extent that police can contribute -- to the continued decline in violent crime in Charlotte-Mecklenburg. I feel like I have provided good leadership and I've done a good job for this department and this community. I've represented it with dignity and integrity.

Q. What is your top priority for the next five years?

I would like to significantly expand the active engagement of our community in the work that is designed to create a safer community. That's what our community policing strategy is expecting to accomplish. I think it contributed to -- not exclusively -- to the crime declines we've seen over the past 10 years.

I think we've lost our focus a little bit and that we need to work harder to engage people to work with us and others.

SOURCES: N.C. Governor's Crime Commission and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department

The Numbers

Police investigated more robberies in the first five months of this year than the same time last year -- especially armed robberies. SOURCES: N.C. Governor's Crime Commission and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police DepartmentThe central police division reported 138 violent crimes in the first five months of the year -- a fraction of the more than 2,800 across the department. But that's more than the 119 cases in the same period last year.

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