An Expert Opinion

My favorite continental LE blog is currently View from the Cop, written by Lt. Steve Rose (Sandy Springs P.D.) for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I sought his opinion on the parking meter theft epidemic slashing through the city of Atlanta, and in classic form, here’s what he had to say:

“It’s a crime and you shouldn’t steal the parking meters. What are you going to do with it anyway? It might look good in the basement bar or maybe you could move it around to various streets for some easy mad-money. Oh well, it’s stealing.”

Thanks, Lou!

Not Exactly Incognito

Time for a quick hit on another “Celebrity Justice” case. Most people will recall Mel Gibson’s DUI arrest and subsequent anti-Semitic tirade in 2006. A recent study concluded that Gibson was given unwarranted preferential treatment by the Sherrif’s Department. The interesting part about the whole thing is this bit about his sentence:

“After pleading no contest to a misdemeanor DUI charge on August 17, 2006, Gibson was given three years’ probation, ordered to pay $1,400 in fines and attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.”

Anybody else see the problem?

Ride-along Recollections

For many officers, a police ride-along is what first opened their eyes to the world of cops and they loved what they saw. I had already decided on this myself when I did my first ride-along, but it was a very enlightening experience none-the-less. Here’s a brief excerpt from a write-up that I did after that evening.

November 12, 2007

“At 4:11am we stopped a suspicious person on a D. Avenue street corner. This one was a male prostitute named “Santy”. Santy claimed to be waiting around for the bus to give him a ride home. We confirmed his identity and that he wasn’t wanted for anything then made ourselves scarce. The idea of male prostitutes didn’t sit right with Officer Q., who remarked several times on how wrong the idea was. This was interesting to me, coming from a guy who worked the Vice squad for six years. Vice is basically working prostitutes and drugs all day long. I made a stupid comment about how it was possible that Santy was trying to get chicks – chicks, Officer Q. replied, don’t go to D. Avenue looking for sex.”

The Perfect Crime?

The city of Atlanta is losing 39% of its parking meters every year to thieves. This is the first I’ve ever looked into the crime of parking meter-theft, even though I’ve often found myself sticking coins into the things wondering to myself exactly how much money you can stick in there before it gets full and furthermore, how many unsavory types hadn’t wondered the exact same thing and decided to unlawfully acquire a number of parking meters for themselves in the name of dubious pecuniary advancement.

What can be said is that parking meter theft is undoubtedly a trend in Atlanta and the city should thus make at least some attempt at curtailing said thefts. Atlanta’s city council claims the thefts are no big deal because the cost of replacing a stolen meter is “only” $500. The math in the linked article above is somewhat curious. 500+ stolen meters this year at $500 a pop adds up to more than $250,000 (plus the loss of the money in the meters themselves) in sunk cost replacing the meters. Chump change? I wouldn’t think so.

The city also rationalizes their lack of interest by claiming that the “parking meter program pays for itself”. It took me a moment or two to process this statement. So more than a third of meters being stolen is factored into the program budget every year? If nothing else, Atlanta needs to start being more optimistic about their population’s respect for parking meters.

Just Do It

Being the idealistic, starry-eyed police recruit that I am, I get up at 6am every day to go running in preparation for the Academy. This is not just so that I can endure the months and months of PT coming up, but also because I believe that it’s important for police officers to take care of their bodies. Chalk that up to my youthful exuberance and lack of experience if you want, but I would wager that most out-of-shape cops would grudgingly agree that they “oughta be” doing something similar but just don’t have the time these days. 20-30 minutes a day of some kind of cardiovascular exercise can make a huge difference, and I personally think that departments should either require it or at least offer legitimate incentives for those who do it.

The lack of a continuing physical training requirement in the vast majority of U.S. departments has always puzzled me somewhat. Nearly every police academy will run the crap out of its recruits, which would lead most people to believe that being in top physical condition is important for the job. Start talking to officers with enough years of experience, though, and they’ll tell you that it’s not that important after all. Out-of-shape officers can still be very good ones. So much of policing has nothing to do with how far or how fast you can run that in reality one’s level of athleticism seems insignificant.

The real benefit of continuing physical requirements isn’t just to help officers do their job. It’s to help officers in their general well-being and healthiness. Being healthy improves your quality of life, which means on the job and off the job. It’s proven that you feel better, think more clearly, are happier, and have more energy when your body is in good shape than when it’s not. Most patrol work in my region of the world is tough on the body because you don’t get much sleep (12 hour shifts are the latest fad), your eating habits are terrible, and you spend many hours a day on your butt just driving around. With that in mind, the dividends of staying healthy out-weigh what it would cost you to make time for exercising every day.