Another homicide last night in MoCo

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^MCPD has 1,803 full-time positions and 205 part-time positions. Add to that the municipal police forces (Rockville, Gaithersburg, Takoma Park, etc.), the M-NCPPC park police, the US park police, the WSSC police, etc.

Whatever the issues in Montgomery County, they don't include a shortage of funded police-officer positions.

They number of applications are way down, the class size of the most recent class was the smallest in 20 years and they can't keep up with the retirements. You can have all the positions you want but if they are vacant positions they are worthless.

https://wjla.com/news/local/montgomery-county-police-graduate-14-new-officers-in-2021-lowest-number-in-20-plus-years

If the positions are vacant anyway, then cutting them does not make any difference in the number of actual police officers in the county.

This is dumb. If people retire and you don't replace them, yes there are fewer offices on the streets.

The point is that there are not any fewer officers on the streets (i.e., in their cars). Therefore the reduction in police officer positions did not cause the increase in homicides. Which makes sense, because it's happening everywhere in the US, not just in Montgomery County.

So that makes it ok? There’s crime everywhere so it’s fine that it’s increasing in MoCo too?

Nah. I care about my county and crime needs to be addressed.

There’s a national shortage of cops. That is part of the reason crime has increased nationally. It’s not the only reason. But there are decades of evidence that more police save more lives. And they disproportionately save black and brown lives. Because guess who is most often the victim of violent crime? https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/04/20/988769793/when-you-add-more-police-to-a-city-what-happens

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^MCPD has 1,803 full-time positions and 205 part-time positions. Add to that the municipal police forces (Rockville, Gaithersburg, Takoma Park, etc.), the M-NCPPC park police, the US park police, the WSSC police, etc.

Whatever the issues in Montgomery County, they don't include a shortage of funded police-officer positions.

They number of applications are way down, the class size of the most recent class was the smallest in 20 years and they can't keep up with the retirements. You can have all the positions you want but if they are vacant positions they are worthless.

https://wjla.com/news/local/montgomery-county-police-graduate-14-new-officers-in-2021-lowest-number-in-20-plus-years

If the positions are vacant anyway, then cutting them does not make any difference in the number of actual police officers in the county.

But you can be certain those positions will never be filled now.

Why should they be?

Because a shortage of qualified applicants does mean you don't have a need for qualified applicants. But you knew that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^MCPD has 1,803 full-time positions and 205 part-time positions. Add to that the municipal police forces (Rockville, Gaithersburg, Takoma Park, etc.), the M-NCPPC park police, the US park police, the WSSC police, etc.

Whatever the issues in Montgomery County, they don't include a shortage of funded police-officer positions.

They number of applications are way down, the class size of the most recent class was the smallest in 20 years and they can't keep up with the retirements. You can have all the positions you want but if they are vacant positions they are worthless.

https://wjla.com/news/local/montgomery-county-police-graduate-14-new-officers-in-2021-lowest-number-in-20-plus-years

If the positions are vacant anyway, then cutting them does not make any difference in the number of actual police officers in the county.

But you can be certain those positions will never be filled now.

Why should they be?

Because a shortage of qualified applicants does mean you don't have a need for qualified applicants. But you knew that.

Why does Montgomery County need more police officers?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

So that makes it ok? There’s crime everywhere so it’s fine that it’s increasing in MoCo too?

Nah. I care about my county and crime needs to be addressed.

There’s a national shortage of cops. That is part of the reason crime has increased nationally. It’s not the only reason. But there are decades of evidence that more police save more lives. And they disproportionately save black and brown lives. Because guess who is most often the victim of violent crime? https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/04/20/988769793/when-you-add-more-police-to-a-city-what-happens

There is general agreement that the police are both underpolicing and overpolicing. Maybe address that issue, instead of hiring more police officers to keep on doing more of the same?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^MCPD has 1,803 full-time positions and 205 part-time positions. Add to that the municipal police forces (Rockville, Gaithersburg, Takoma Park, etc.), the M-NCPPC park police, the US park police, the WSSC police, etc.

Whatever the issues in Montgomery County, they don't include a shortage of funded police-officer positions.

They number of applications are way down, the class size of the most recent class was the smallest in 20 years and they can't keep up with the retirements. You can have all the positions you want but if they are vacant positions they are worthless.

https://wjla.com/news/local/montgomery-county-police-graduate-14-new-officers-in-2021-lowest-number-in-20-plus-years

If the positions are vacant anyway, then cutting them does not make any difference in the number of actual police officers in the county.

This is dumb. If people retire and you don't replace them, yes there are fewer offices on the streets.

The point is that there are not any fewer officers on the streets (i.e., in their cars). Therefore the reduction in police officer positions did not cause the increase in homicides. Which makes sense, because it's happening everywhere in the US, not just in Montgomery County.

So that makes it ok? There’s crime everywhere so it’s fine that it’s increasing in MoCo too?

Nah. I care about my county and crime needs to be addressed.

There’s a national shortage of cops. That is part of the reason crime has increased nationally. It’s not the only reason. But there are decades of evidence that more police save more lives. And they disproportionately save black and brown lives. Because guess who is most often the victim of violent crime? https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/04/20/988769793/when-you-add-more-police-to-a-city-what-happens

Women.

[Anonymous]

Bottom line, the picture the economists' data sketches out is complicated. On the one hand, Black communities generally appear to benefit from larger police departments when it comes to lowering the homicide rate and the rate of other serious crimes. But their data also shows these findings don't seem true for cities with the largest Black populations. And throughout the country, they find significant racial disparities in low-level arrests, with lots of Black people getting prosecuted for low-level crimes, resulting in many lives damaged without necessarily improving public safety.

"We're getting plenty of policing, but it might not always be the type of policing that keeps people safe," Williams says regarding these findings. And that suggests one way we could reform police departments: get them to use less manpower to arrest people for petty crimes and use more manpower to fight and solve serious crimes.

Now there's an idea. It takes a long time to arrest someone and book them. Free up some of that time to focus on violent crime.

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/04/20/988769793/when-you-add-more-police-to-a-city-what-happens

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Violent crime, in particular, is out of control. This article was a couple of days ago, and there has since been another murder in Silver Spring.

https://wtop.com/montgomery-county/2021/12/montgomery-co-sees-rise-in-violent-crime-confronted-by-fewer-police-officers/

It’s interesting that the article did not give the total number of homicides. I think a couple years ago it was 17 for a county with a million people. A 20% increase would change the total number from 17 to 21. I’m not trying to downplay the increase in crime because it’s a concern, but context can be very important, particularly when the baseline is so low. And there’s a reason why the article provides these numbers as a percentage increase providing the numbers or benchmarking in a per capita basis. So I’m not too worried about homicides. Property crime is a whole other matter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Violent crime, in particular, is out of control. This article was a couple of days ago, and there has since been another murder in Silver Spring.

https://wtop.com/montgomery-county/2021/12/montgomery-co-sees-rise-in-violent-crime-confronted-by-fewer-police-officers/

It’s interesting that the article did not give the total number of homicides. I think a couple years ago it was 17 for a county with a million people. A 20% increase would change the total number from 17 to 21. I’m not trying to downplay the increase in crime because it’s a concern, but context can be very important, particularly when the baseline is so low. And there’s a reason why the article provides these numbers as a percentage increase providing the numbers or benchmarking in a per capita basis. So I’m not too worried about homicides. Property crime is a whole other matter.

It was 30 homicides through november 30 this year. the most the county ever had was 34 in 1994. which was all discussed at the briefing on Monday. It's on youtube.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Violent crime, in particular, is out of control. This article was a couple of days ago, and there has since been another murder in Silver Spring.

https://wtop.com/montgomery-county/2021/12/montgomery-co-sees-rise-in-violent-crime-confronted-by-fewer-police-officers/

It’s interesting that the article did not give the total number of homicides. I think a couple years ago it was 17 for a county with a million people. A 20% increase would change the total number from 17 to 21. I’m not trying to downplay the increase in crime because it’s a concern, but context can be very important, particularly when the baseline is so low. And there’s a reason why the article provides these numbers as a percentage increase providing the numbers or benchmarking in a per capita basis. So I’m not too worried about homicides. Property crime is a whole other matter.

It was 30 homicides through november 30 this year. the most the county ever had was 34 in 1994. which was all discussed at the briefing on Monday. It's on youtube.

For reference, the population of Montgomery County

1990 761,766
2000 873,341
2020 1,062,061

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Violent crime, in particular, is out of control. This article was a couple of days ago, and there has since been another murder in Silver Spring.

https://wtop.com/montgomery-county/2021/12/montgomery-co-sees-rise-in-violent-crime-confronted-by-fewer-police-officers/

It’s interesting that the article did not give the total number of homicides. I think a couple years ago it was 17 for a county with a million people. A 20% increase would change the total number from 17 to 21. I’m not trying to downplay the increase in crime because it’s a concern, but context can be very important, particularly when the baseline is so low. And there’s a reason why the article provides these numbers as a percentage increase providing the numbers or benchmarking in a per capita basis. So I’m not too worried about homicides. Property crime is a whole other matter.

It was 30 homicides through november 30 this year. the most the county ever had was 34 in 1994. which was all discussed at the briefing on Monday. It's on youtube.

For reference, the population of Montgomery County

1990 761,766
2000 873,341
2020 1,062,061

30 is not good and clearly the wrong direction, but compare with DC (211 to date) or PG County (98 to date).

The council should heed the warning though and stop promoting policies that encourage crime in this county.

[Anonymous]

I think MoCo really needs to end bail and defund the police.