Several times a year, the Chief of Police here in Tallahassee, Walt McNeil, has a breakfast and a forum to which all the neighborhood groups are invited and anyone who has a question or issue to discuss with the police is welcome to attend. I went for the first time on Saturday, and was impressed with both the range of issues and the responsiveness of the Chief and his managers.
Most of the speakers from local neighborhoods had two primary issues, noise from university student parties and traffic speeding through the neighborhood. There were comments from other citizens that we should be happy that these are our problems, since serious crime rates are down. But at the beginning Chief McNeil read from the crime statistics for March of this year, and there were 39 car thefts last month, and that was higher than I would have guessed.
We also heard from a representative from Wilson Green, which is Ali Gilmore's neighborhood. Ali is a young woman from that neighborhood, who was four months pregnant, who was a state worker and worked part time at Publix, who just disappeared in February. People in her neighborhood don't know if they are next. I hadn't thought about the aspects of a single crime creating fear in everyone in a neighborhood. The Police Chief assured the representative that currently Wilson Green was the most policed neighborhood in the city, and that the construction sites had been gone through, and that the police force was truly working the case.
There have been search parties out for Ali Gilmore, and signs posted around the county. I am pleased to see this effort by the community, and to see the expression of concern for our loss. I know that her family wants resolution, I would want resolution. It's also been two months, and most crimes are solved within 24 hours. Although I had a niece who was raped by a stranger, and they didn't find him for two years, and then he was arrested and incarcerated for the crime.
A tailor spoke about his weariness with the prostitution in his neighborhood. He said his sister says that they are there even when she goes to church on Sunday mornings. The Police Chief said that the police arrest them with great regularity, and they make bail within hours. The Police Chief is clearly frustrated by this issue, he said that he has tried to talk to the judges and prosecutors about it without result.
The Police Chief said they'd have another breakfast in a couple of months and let people know what progress they've made on the issues raised. Here's a link to the newspaper's advertisement of the breakfast.
http://www.tdo.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060414/NEWS01/604140332&SearchID=73241929465603
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I went to the TPD Chiefs Breakfast too and also for the first time. First thing I observed is that "Renter" seems to be a derogatory term and is used derisively; indeed the term "renter" as used by many of the Neighborhood Association leaders was an epithet...I was very displeased by that.
Second, I wanted to ask Chief McNeil; 1) Did ol' Willie Meggs get an invite (He should do his own breakfast...he'd get an earful.)? 2) Would it kill the Chief to crack a couple of eggs and warm up some sausage for breakfast?!?!
In the end the breakfast did not meet my expectations instead it was a PAM session [Pitch a Moan] or a B&M session [Rhymes with Pitch & Moan].
Other things that I failed to ask the Chief publicly and should have is: What were the results of the TPD 'Stop Red Light Running' campaign? How can a citizen get License plate information to TPD when they witness a driver running red lights?
I was able to speak privately with the Chief briefly mentioning that I think the TPD numbers on vandalism in NE Tallahassee are low and under represent the actual vandalism that is taking place there.
I'm happy there was free food!
It was junk food. Nothing but sugar and carbs...yuck. Though the Blackberrys were tasty.
Post a Comment