INSIDE the Lakeland Police Department

"Don't You Have Something Better To Do?"

I wish I had a dollar for every time someone asked me if I had something better to do than what I was doing at the moment. Such was the situation with a letter we received this week asking if we had better things to do than issue parking tickets at Peterson Park for vehicles parking directly under NO PARKING signs.

Hmmm, let me think about this one for a moment...

As a matter of fact, we do have other things we could be doing. However, none are more important than ticketing lazy drivers who choose to ignore the signs erected to create a safe zone for people to walk on the side of the road.

If you have ever attended a game at Peterson Park and had to park in the farthest lot, you realize there is very limited space to walk up to the fields along the main road into the park. Drivers who choose to ignore the NO PARKING signs and park along the roadway instead of the outer lot end up forcing pedestrians to walk in traffic and dodge cars - not a very safe option.

The signs were installed there for a reason rather than by accident or with the intent to harass people - the signs are there to provide a safe walking path for pedestrians, particularly kids, by keeping them out of the main roadway. We have enforced those no parking restrictions in the past and have every intention of enforcing them this year, too.

In my opinion, this one has an easy fix - help keep our kids safe by obeying the NO PARKING signs. You'll avoid getting a parking ticket and allow us to focus enforcement efforts on other areas that require our attention.

- Asst Chief Bill LePere

Working Together to Solve Neighborhood Problems

One of the key elements to our community policing and problem-solving philosophy is to work in a collaborative manner with neighborhoods and other stakeholders to solve issues that give rise to crime and other quality of life concerns. It's all about building partnerships.

We met yesterday with leaders from the Webster Park Neighborhood to develop strategies to address a recurring problem that area experiences every Easter Sunday. Large crowds of young adults (easily 500 or more is common) typically gather there around dusk on Easter (April 4th this year), with a significant number of cars cruising through the neighborhood or parking just about anywhere they decide to stop. These crowds bring with them complaints from the residents that include extremely loud car stereos, impassable streets, illegal drug activity, drinking alcoholic beverages in a city park, fights, and occasional reports of gun shots.

For all practical purposes, residents feel trapped in their homes - unable to get out of their own driveways because cars are parked everywhere creating absolute gridlock. Suffice to say this is not the type of behavior we want in a quiet, neighborhood park like Webster Park.

We discussed several options and strategies that could mitigate the problem on Easter before it has a chance to develop into another a large nuisance. The group agreed the quickest fix will be for the police to deploy barricades that create one way traffic throughout the area and assign officers to the area ahead of the gathering to keep traffic moving rather than try to get cars moved once they get parked. Such an approach is manpower intensive for the police, but we would rather allocate resources there to prevent the problem from occurring instead of trying to move the crowd once they become entrenched within the park.

Our goal - to work together with all stakeholders in this matter between now and Easter to keep a lawful quality of life for anyone wanting to utilize the park on Easter without the disturbances and other unlawful activity that typically fills the Webster Park neighborhood.

It's what partnerships and collaborative problem-solving are all about.

- Asst Chief Bill LePere

 

INSIDE LakelandPD - A Top Ten Blog

Our INSIDE LakelandPD blog was recently listed as one of the top ten police blogs by CareersinCriminalJustice.com. While that ranking was partially the result of how our blog comes up during keyword searches, it is nice to receive such recognition from the criminal justice profession for the content, open dialog, and flow of information that is the basis for our entire blogging efforts.

We currently read several of the other top ten blogs on the list because they are (in our opinion) the cream of the crop when it come to police blogs - it's rewarding to be listed with these other superior police department blogs.

And as always, we are grateful for everyone who reads our blog and follows us on Twitter and Facebook.

- Asst Chief Bill LePere 

Tweeting DUI Arrests - Good or Bad Idea?

While reviewing my Google news alerts this morning, I came across a blog posting that reported how DUI arrests in Mongtomery County, Texas will be posted on Twitter during the period between Christmas Eve and New Years Eve. If you are curious like I was and wondered where that county is located in the great state of Texas, think just north of Houston (which is in Harris County) and you are there.

The tweets are reportedly the product of the Montgomery County District Attorney, Brett Ligon, rather than any specific law enforcement agency there. A quick visit to the DA's Twitter page failed to show any arrest pics up to Sunday. At least one agency in the area, Denton PD, has mug shots all of its arrests posted on an "unofficial" Twitter page. The same mug shots are available in our local area as well, so this is really nothing new.

Public figures are used to living their lives in glass bowls and realize publicity will follow if they should get arrested. However, some will argue posting DUI arrests, or any arrest for that matter, is an intentional act of "shaming" with no real societal value if the arrestee is not a public figure. Others are quick to respond that such information is a public record in most areas and thus violates no law of confidentiality. I will leave that debate, as well as the argument of presumed innocent until found guilty, for others to join, but I am curious what you think about the concept of a law enforcement agency tweeting pics of specific arrests or all arrests by the agency.

- Asst Chief Bill LePere

Chasing a Laser - Predictive Policing

I am a confirmed cat-lover with three felines currently living in our house. One of the ways I play with them is to take a laser pointer and aim the beam of light on the floor. Watching them eagerly chase after the laser and try to catch the point of light with their paws gives them some exercise after lounging around the house all day (and admittedly is somewhat entertaining to me).

Their futile attempts to capture the disappearing light is also a good analogy to the challenges of chasing crime trends in law enforcement. The cats seemingly always try to catch the light where they last saw it rather than go to where the light will be next. (I know what you're thinking - how is a cat supposed to predict where I will aim the light next, so bear with me here.)

The same concept really applies to crime fighting - we often go to the spot of the most recent crime rather than head to where the next crime is most likely to occur. That is true because predicting crime is a real challenge, but it is an evolving aspect of our profession - something called predictive policing. Chief Casady with the Lincoln (NE) Police Department has written extensively on this subject in his blog.

We continue to look at crime trends on a daily basis, using available technology to identify whatever patterns might exist so as to offer some prediction of where crime may occur next. I offer two recent success stories.

The Winn-Dixie store on Ariana Street was burglarized during the first part of November. We responded to the late night alarm call to investigate further. Our patrol officers and surveillance officers knew of a pattern to these crimes and predicted other Winn Dixie stores were likely to get hit as well that night. Surveillance was established at the store on Lakeland Highlands Road where officers waited in the shadows. The officers patiently watched as the suspects arrived and broke into the store a short time later. Arrests were made at the scene.

Last night our surveillance officers were in a neighborhood where we have been experiencing some home and vehicle burglaries off the North Crystal Lake area. A subject was spotted roaming the area around 1:15 AM this morning, so our officers began covert surveillance. We eventually watched the subject, a juvenile, commit a burglary to an unlocked truck. He was arrested at the scene, and a search following the arrest revealed he was armed with a three-foot long sword, so he was charged with armed burglary.

Now I am not suggesting we are able at this point to accurately predict when and where crime is going to occur, but it is worth mentioning how our use of technology is giving us a real-time ability to analyze crime trends and deploy resources where we think crime is likely to occur.

And as a reminder, anyone can create a crime map of significant events in our community or your neighborhood by going to our online crime mapping data at SpotCrime.com. You can also sign up to receive e-mail crime alerts for what is happening in your neighborhood.

My cats do get tired of chasing but never catching the laser after a while, and our officers get tired of chasing crime as well. Our ability to be where crime is likely to occur and then catch them in the act is very rewarding to our folks. Wonder where the next crime is about to happen?

- Asst Chief Bill LePere

Developing Performance Management Best Practices

The recent Senior Leadership meeting for all City departments focused on performance management, that is the process of measuring what you do and then finding ways to do it better. It's something that LakelandPD has been involved with for many, many years.

This year's meeting, an initial step in preparing for the annual retreat for City Commissioners next year, emphasized not only measuring what you do (outputs) but to also measure what your results are (outcomes). Trying to measure results (particularly in police work) is more complex than it seems, but if done right links outcomes with a strategic plan to report on how well an organization achieves its goals.

This is all very timely for the City of Lakeland as you may have seen or heard about a recent directive from the White House that requires federal agencies to produce systems where government data can be accessed online in a transparent, understandable format.

It seems like performance measures have been a key element of our operations forever at LakelandPD, and we're committed to transparency in reporting both our outputs and outcomes. The challenge is to design a way to accomplish this so the information is succinct and easily understood by the public without getting bogged down in the data.

We publish crime stats on our website and provide access to daily maps of crime in the community or your neighborhood. We also uploaded key performance measures until earlier this year when we changed data managements software and had to begin a lengthy process to change our reports. (We're still working on that one.)

Our goal for now is to create new online reports that will provide the performance data most often requested from the public. (It seems like the current business phrase for all of this is "performance dashboards.") Below are samples of performance dashboards for violent and property crimes we are developing. If all goes well, they will be uploaded later this weekend and will become part of a comprehensive redesign of our website. (More on that another day.)

 

As always, your comments and feedback are appreciated.

- Asst Chief Bill LePere

Should the Police "Follow" You?

One of the many changes we are seeing with the emergence of social media is how virtual and actual relationships are established and maintained. These changes fit well into our community policing philosophy of partnerships with the community, in this case the social media community. We now have hundreds of followers, some from all over the country, who are interested in our media releases and informational blog postings. We are appreciative of their interest in LakelandPD.

But should we be "following" them?

For many people, the thought of the police following them (such as while driving down the road) generally produces panic, fear, and sweaty palms. And to now have the police follow you on Twitter or Facebook or via blogs, well, I wonder where should we draw the line between social interaction with the community and respect of one's personal space?

We follow a couple dozen entities on Twitter, mostly businesses or organizations in our community with whom we have a professional or personal relationship. Of course we follow numerous police agencies also to get ideas and keep up with what our peers are doing, but we do not automatically follow everyone who follows us. Some police agencies follow many more in their community under the auspices of maintaining a more open relationship with residents and businesses. The decision as to who we choose to follow is really on a case by case basis.

Now I realize that privacy is almost non-existent in the social media realm. We put stuff out there knowing others are likely going to see and read it, all with the realization that we can somewhat restrict who sees our posts, updates, and profiles on Twitter and Facebook.

So I ask this question to get a deeper understanding from our social media community - how would you react if you got notice that LakelandPD wanted to follow you on Twitter?

- Asst Chief Bill LePere

Lakelanders Helping Fellow Lakelanders

While I was driving around Lake Hollingsworth at lunch time today, two women were walking around the west side of the lake when one of them twisted her ankle and fell to the ground. Witnessing her fall and not get up, I turned my police car around and drove back to see if I could render any aid or assistance.

In the time it took me to turn around, and I'm talking moments - not minutes, three other cars and two walkers were stopping to see if they could help the woman who fell. I thought that was pretty impressive and really illustrates what makes Lakeland such a great community - people care for each other here in our town.

The woman is fine and will be okay once her twisted ankle stops swelling and begins to heal. In the mean time, I want to take a moment and thank the citizens who stopped to render aid. I didn't have a chance to get their names, but they deserve a pat on the back for being so quick to help someone in need when it would have been just as easy to drive by and not stop.

Well done folks!

- Asst Chief Bill LePere

Lock It or Lose It - Cases from the Weekend

In our efforts to get the word out to folks just how important it is to lock our vehicles and secure valuables left inside the passenger compartment, I thought I might summarize the "Lock It or Lose It" cases from this past weekend.

"The victim stated she parked her car in front of a business in the 800 block of N. Massachusetts Avenue between 1530 and 1600 hours, leaving the vehicle's windows down and her purse sitting on the front passenger side floor board. The vehicle was left unlocked and unsecured. The victim returned to her vehicle and discovered her purse was missing."

Hmmm, wonder why that happened...

"At approximately 1038 hours on Sunday morning, the victim left her vehicle running while she ran into a residence in the 100 block of W. Hancock Street for a moment. When she returned to the vehicle, the victim's purse was gone."

She's lucky the car wasn't stolen as well as her purse...

"The victim advised that between 1920 hours and 1940 hours, her vehicle's driver's side window was shattered and her purse was taken from the passenger side seat."

As in, left in plain view rather than secured somewhere safe like the trunk...

These are three victims from the weekend's crime report who could have prevented the theft of their purses if they had practiced the concepts of "Lock It or Lose It". Two other car burglaries occurred this weekend to locked vehicles and had car stereos taken. While these types of offenses are difficult to prevent, our other victims had a chance to take some simple precautionary measures that would have minimized their chances of becoming a crime victim.

Remember - "Lock It or Lose It!"

- Asst Chief Bill LePere

Celebrating 16 Years of Filling Playgrounds, Not Prisons

Lakeland PAL, the Police Athletic League, this evening celebrated 16 years of service to the youth in our community during their annual dinner at Tigertown. PAL's mission to fill playgrounds, not prisons, is achieved through athletic and academic programs that focus on providing opportunities for youth to engage in wholesome activities rather than less desirable ones.

The keynote speaker for this evening's dinner was retired four star general Lloyd "Fig" Newton from the United States Air Force. General Newton told the audience his story of being a young child from the small town of Ridgeland, South Carolina, and becoming the first member of his family to attend college. He went on to serve our nation as a pilot in the Air Force and eventually became a member of the distinguished Air Force Thunderbirds. General Newton noted how comfortable he was addressing the audience in a hangar where pilots from Great Britain and the United States trained during World War II.

General Newton had a message for the PAL kids in attendance - to dream of what you want to do and accomplish in life and then set specific goals, in fact to write them down, in order to achieve your dreams. He reminded the kids that goals require hard work and dedication if we want to achieve them.

Chief of Police Roger Boatner thanked the many PAL staff members and volunteers who make our program such a success and gave recognition to the Lakeland City Commission who continues to provide funding so Lakeland PAL can carry on serving the youth in our community.

PAL's athletic programs include football, basketball, track and field, baseball, and cheerleading. Academic programs, such as after school tutoring at Simpson Park help students excel in school, while the Youth Directors leadership program shows aspiring leaders the importance of giving service back to one's community.

Congratulations to Lakeland PAL for 16 outstanding years of service and thank you for your commitment to the youth of Lakeland.

- Asst Chief Bill LePere