Opinion: Misdirected criticism at police

Plenty of people can complain about the lack of support they've received from Tampa Mayor Dick Greco, but the city's police officers aren't among them. In his last seven years as mayor, Greco has given the police everything they've wanted -- take-home cars, a stolen-car chase policy, 140 new officers, a new headquarters and a 30-year tax to buy new equipment.

But now a memo from a police lieutenant to Chief Bennie Holder, a mayoral appointee, criticizes the department as understaffed. "All we are doing is responding from call to call," Lt. Lynda Milana wrote. She said the tactic of deploying officers into specialty units was "certainly not deterring crime," and warned it was "a matter of time" before officers would be hurt "because of this unsafe and dangerous environment created by the staffing shortage." The police union said the memo reflects the sentiment of "the overwhelming majority of the uniformed officers."

Two things are wrong with this picture. First, this may be an assignment problem, but it's not a staffing problem. No one has shown that the force levels of the Tampa police are, by any measure, inadequate. The city's ratio of police to residents far exceeds the state average. To suggest that force levels are dangerously low, and to inject into the debate the image of an officer getting hurt, is inflammatory. No one -- certainly not this mayor and this chief -- can be characterized as insensitive to the dangers police face. And there is no way, even by doubling or tripling the present force, that officers will ever be spared from danger. The real issue is that patrol officers believe the specialty units draw away too many cops who could otherwise help them answer calls.

Which raises the second problem: What do these critics think the specialty units do? Does the antidrug QUAD squad not curb the spread of crime by getting narcotics, guns and violent criminals off the street? Does the DUI squad not help the patrol officers by getting drunken drivers from behind the wheel? Much of the criticism is aimed at the so-called "firehouse cops" -- the officers stationed in the neighborhoods to deal with each community's problems. These officers handle many calls that might otherwise get dumped on patrol.

In a bid to keep the peace, the department announced Friday that 40 firehouse officers, two-thirds of the unit, would begin their shifts earlier in the afternoon to handle more daytime calls. The other 20 firehouse officers would be used more often to back up patrol. This reveals that Holder's problem is really one of competing philosophies in the department. Many cops have never supported the concept of community policing. They believe preemptive tactics are less effective than a mass force ready to react. With elections for a new mayor and City Council only eight months away, some in the department are trying to make their agenda a campaign issue. They have partly succeeded. How the department functions is a legitimate issue, but we should at least expect an honest debate.

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