IFPD…needs to get priorities straight?

HOLY…2008!

I’m glad I don’t live in your neighborhood, race_fan_8_15. Then again, if the community and our peace keeping officers don’t step up to the challenges the couple, and unfortunate elderly neighbor you’ve described as well as yourself live in, we may all live in your kind of neighborhood very soon.

“If domestic abuse, open container, littering and vandalism are simple crimes compared to wrong way drivers, then i must have missed something.”

You missed nothing, race_fan_8_15, but the officer did. He could only chase and ticket the crime he witnessed. That doesn’t make him bad, just human.

Did you tell the officer that you were a witness to the drunk man’s crimes?

Hey there Idaho, good point about the priorities. Traffic crimes produce revenue with little court cost or officer time, domestic crime is costly and time consuming.

If I was running around packing a pistol, pepper spray, a tazer, handcuffs and a belt full of other goodies, as well as having a shotgun and whatever else in my specially- designed- for- detainment vehicle, I would pick and choose who I wanted to mess with, too.

“To Serve and Protect” was taken off the cars a long time ago.

There is still alot of the Livsey mind set in the IFPD. An us against them attitude that needs to be done away with. I think that the Mayor Furhiman and Chief of Police Roos are headed in the right direction in trying to change that. I am hoping the attitude of protect and serve will replace the para-military attitude that some of the IFPD officers have had in the past. I greatly appreciate those who are on the force that have the correct mind set and their heart is in the right place. They are the ones that don’t use their badge and firearms as tools for intimidation and are on massive control/ego trips. They are the ones that truly care and appreciate the public that they serve. They are the ones that treat people like citizens instead of second rate animals that are wasting their time. I truly believe that getting names of officers, or their plate numbers, and then letting the Chief or the Mayor know when they have done something good, or when they are being jerks and acting against the oath that they have taken. Some of these officers are one way around their supervisors and a complete different person when serving the public and the Chief needs to know how his force is acting when working, both the good and the bad.

I’ve met a few good IF police officers, and I’ve met a whole hell of a lot of bad ones. Overall, I think the traffic quotas should go…there are no quotas at the county and state level, and they still have funding to do their jobs.

If I’m wrong about quotas, let me know.

I’ve never lived on the numbered streets, or on the West side of town, Angie. The infrequent times I’ve been in the area it appears well kept and quiet. I guess just like in any area of town, problems to arise. Thankfully, I’ve only had problems anywhere I’ve lived with a couple of cranky neighbors.

In one neighborhood, a next door neighboor hated it if when we watered our lawn, and our water got on his lawn. Weird man. In another neighborhood, when my daughter was about 6, and her best friend who lived down the street was about 5, our next door neighbor had her yard toilet papered. That neighbor was a young, female teacher at the local high school. I wasn’t surprised. My parents were both teachers at my high school while growing up, and even though we lived in the country we occasionally arrived home to little surprises. The neighbor who lived across the street from me called the police and told them that my 6 year old daughter and her 5 year old friend had toilet papered my neighbor’s yard. The police came to my home, and I told the police that the woman was crazy and often times caused trouble in the neighborhood although this was the first time she’d targeted me and my child. I let them know my neighbor was a teacher and that it was most likely her students who’d toilet papered her yard, and that it wasn’t possible that my small child and her small friend could have gathered all the supplies needed to have toilet papered all the huge trees in that yard. The police thanked me for my time and left.

Some people are really, really crazy. I’ve got more stories about crazy neighbors but they might ready here so I’ll not type them.

Did anyone see the IFPD PR shoot on Ch8 a few days ago…Their Tatical Team training in the Civic Auditorium?. IFPD is big on PR, letting the public know they have a SWAT Team and how that SWAT Team operates…just what some potential nutcase needs to see. IFPD, the Chain of Command from the top down, needs to get out with the public, NOT by showing SWAT Tactics, but shake some hands, ask people whats going on in their neighborhood, talk to kids, chat it up with seniors and most of all address the problems brought to their attention!.

Incidents like the drunken husband and wife fight are always hard for the police to resolve well and easily. If an officer arrests one or both of them, it just causes more fighting, and the neighbors get sucked in further. I watched it happen time after time with some of my neighbors a decade ago.

If just the presence of a cop doesn’t cool the situation down, it becomes a judgement call for the officer. The most effective cop I saw let my neighbors know that he had better not hear of another complaint in the next 24 hours, or they were both going to jail, and their kids would be sent to Child Protection. That usually stopped the fight for a week or so. These neighbors didn’t last long- as soon as I talked to the guy who owned the house they rented, they were kicked out.

Boina’s right- if some neighbors step in, the jerks tend to cool their behaviour. The better one knows who’s who on their block, the more peaceful things become. A block party is a great way of introducting yourselves and getting to know each other.

@#14

I think everyone on this board understands the need for Police in a city, and I think everyone on this board also understands that in any group of people there might be ‘a few bad apples.’ However, I think when it comes to police officers, people expect a higher degree of service, being that police are in charge of protecting the city, and preserving the peace, not just in charge of getting me food service, or something trivial.

Just to put a positive spin on the topic, a few of the positive things that have come out of the IFPD recently is the relentless pursuit to knock the gangs down through out the city. About 6 months ago the gang violence, vandalism, and growth was overwhelming. With the commitment of a few officers with the IFPD the gang problem was tracked and the officers selectively harrassed the gang members into submission. You can say you were a victim or you can say it was a positive thing that happened but regardless the community is now a better place that the gangs have been identified and are inactive or in jail.
Not to say the Sheriff’s office isn’t doing its job but the gang problems seem to have moved toward the east side of town especially into Mobile Home Estates. Hopefully they will harrass the gang members into relocating near Blackfoot, SLC, or Las Vegas. Prison would be okay as well.
The IFPD has increased its Narcotics division to combat the drug use in the area and along with the Idaho Meth Project we have seen a decrease in meth use.
Not bad for a city that will let its electrical and fire departments be unionized but not the police department. Red-headed stepchild? Oh well at least people don’t like us. . . that helps too. We should have been firemen.

I think you need to understand what the person, presumably an officer, meant by harassing them out of town. When dealing with gang members its often hard to get them on anything major. Oh you know they are behind many of the major incidents but their “victims” are usually rival gang members who refuse to cooperate with police. Thats why in the rash of drive by shootings this summer, there were ten or so, hardly anyone got arrested because it was rival gang vs rival gang and none of them wanted police involvement.

So the way to get rid of this kind of influence is to “harass” them all out of town by charging them with anything anytime they do something wrong. It doesn’t mean their rights are being violated, it just means they are being shown no mercy or leniency any time they are involved in something. If they jaywalk charge them, if they park illegally charge them, if they drive on a suspended license take them to jail instead of citing and releasing them, basically charge them any and every time you can and soon they’ll move someplace else.

Its not ideal but really the only way to deal with certain types of crime and societal problems is to push it onto someone else. Police cannot solve the societal problems that cause crime, they can only try to manage the crime.

Getting rid of bad apples in a job should be done in a fair and legal manner too. I think #18’s comment apply’s in this situation too. Proof should be needed in any job in order to terminate them.

Bottom line is many people don’t like any police in general when they’re in trouble. Who here is happy about getting a speeding ticket? Who here is happy having the police come into their home when there’s a problem, and having them tell you what to do? And no one likes being in jail.

Comment #17 was funny about being firemen. People love firemen because they don’t enforce any rules. If the fire and police dept. were combined, I’m willing to bet we would hate having to deal with firemen.

I could see why you would want to be a firemen though. Not only because of local perception but that’s pretty much the perception across the nation.

Here we go again another person who knows all the reasons on why police officers became police officers. 

After the cops chase all of the other gangs out of town, who’s gonna to chase the cops out of town?

Oh! I remembered how they worded the ticket when I rear-ended the car in front of me: “Inattentive Driving,” and they were right. See, I was returning from Pocatello after working a 12 hour shift, and I was tired. I had a couple of books on the dash board, was coming to a stop light on Yellowstone and my books started to fall off so I reached up to stop them - BAM! Right into the car in front of me. Thankfully his car wasn’t hurt too bad, and my Toyota just had a little bumper damage. The officer was very nice. The ticket was kind of expensive, but my insurance agent was nice, too.

I hate 12 hour shifts and working in Pocatello.
But I don’t do that anymore, so the police don’t have to worry about me, no they don’t!

Why would you want someone that is suspended to be cited and released. They are already disreguarding a court or ITD order. They have had their warnings and are thumbing their nose at the punnishment. They should go to jail.

Bundy I love the idea of impounding the offenders cars, trucks, motorcycles etc. It would also be a good idea to put liens on their property or garish their pay until they paid their debt to society. I get the feeling that a judges sentence to these offenders is nothing more than words and it will continue to be this way until they follow through on the punishment or find a different way of imposing a punishment on them.

Sounds like “priorities” change depending on which community group or elected/appointed official squawks loudest. MADD shows up to court, writes letters to the editor or speaks to city council, and there’s a push for DUI patrol and maximum penalties. Same thing, I’d suspect, occurs in executive session when they discuss the need to increase city revenues. As a matter of course, all law enforcement agencies deny having “quotas,” and they’ll deny even having a “secret understanding” in the department…but we all know that officers who write the least tickets won’t get as favorable a review or performance evaluation as the gung-ho badge-heavy ones.

Anyone remember 20+ years ago when officers hid around the corner from the seminary building across from IFHS and ticketed kids all day for jaywalking? (actually, 1/2 day - word got out pretty quickly) There was no auto-pedestrian incident precipitating it…it was pure revenuing by IFPD, under the guise of “public safety.”

Remember also when IFPD hid on the numbered streets across from IFHS and radared motorists, then had officers down Holmes in either direction pull over the speeders? That in itself could be justifiable as public safety, BUT…when clever students put “WARNING - SPEED TRAP” on the marquee, IFPD stormed into the principal’s office and demanded it be taken down under threat of charging the responsible students with obstruction! I challenge anyone to deny the revenuing motivation on that one….

IFHS Alumnus,

You really make it too easy to challenge your revenue theory. Did you bother to look where the money goes when you pay a citation? I’ll give you the example when a speeding citation was $62.00:

Fixed Penalty $20.50, Court Costs $16.50, County Justice Fund Fee $5.00, Peace Officers Training Fee $10.00, & ISTARS Technology Fund Fee $10.00.

So, out of all that money the only thing that would go to the law enforcement agency is $20.50. Well that’s not true either. No law enforcement agency gets that money direct. ALL of it goes into either the city, county, or state budget. The city, county, or state designates a spending budget to the agency yearly. So this refutes the need to write a lot of tickets to make the department richer.

Well there’s you’re rebuttal. Don’t make false accusations, based upon false statements, that the police pocket all the money from the tickets they write. If it ever changed to what you’re saying wouldn’t the city police drive something nicer than a ford taurus or crown victorias from the early 90’s?

Sounds like some of you really need to see what goes on in the community you live in. Many agencies across the US participate in a “ride along” program where John Q. Public can ride with an officer and see what actually happens. It is so easy to believe that these officers just ride around in their cars, drinking their coffee, and trying to get their “quotas”. I have done rides with several different agencies. The quotas are a myth. Like a joke I got in an e-mail one time talking about things people believe with police…”sure we have a quota. Two more tickets and my wife gets a toaster.” That’s how ridiculous that theory is.
My question to the original poster is, how do you know the cop running the “speed trap” a mile away was still there while you witnessed the disturbance in your neighborhood? How can you be in two places at once? Also, what was the call volume for that day? Is it possible that all the officers on duty were tied up with other disturbances or calls that if they left, they’d be no different than what you witnessed? And for all you know, that vehicle going the wrong way could have been a suspected drunk driver or involved in an earlier crime and needed to be pulled off the streets. Law enforcement is a difficult job. Not only are you put in difficult situations of varying stress levels and have to make split second decisions to save your own life or that of another, you have to deal with the scrutiny of the public that doesn’t understand your job. I have seen what they do and know I could not do their job. if you think you can, then go apply next time a testing session comes around and try to replace the “bad apples”. Just get out there and see what they deal with. Traffic is run to keep us all obeying the law as well as a sign of officer presence. If once it got dark, every officer just stuck to patrolling neighborhoods, you’d say you never see a cop and that they’re not doing their jobs cause you don’t see them. There’s a lot to be learned from all the comments on this thread. Yes there are a few bad officers out there that make a bad image for all of those who wear the uniform. But there are good ones too who truly care about those they serve, take the time to explain things, and do their jobs properly. If you feel you’ve been treated unfairly or your neighbor does, talk to the officer’s supervisor or the chief of police so they can look into it rather than whining behind a computer to others who can’t do anything about it.

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