About a dozen Gilroy police officers told the city council
Friday morning that they have a lot less free time on their hands
than a recent outside audit of their department indicates.
About a dozen Gilroy police officers told the city council Friday morning that they have a lot less free time on their hands than a recent outside audit of their department indicates.
Cutting civilian positions and hiring more officers with longer shifts is also a bad idea, most of them said during a public safety study session that often slipped into small squabbles over semantics.
Richard Brady, president of Matrix Consulting Group, presented his company’s fourth and final report after almost a year of research into the department’s efficiency. He said the first two drafts existed, contrary to statements made by his associate and city officials. Regardless, he said all the drafts promoted “proactive patrolling,” but he did not agree with officers over its exact definition.
Being proactive means when officers are not responding to calls they target known gang areas, address traffic congestion or by their increased presence prevent theft or property damage, according to cops, but Brady said it also includes any follow-up paper work and prisoner transportation.
All parties agreed that police need more time and manpower to prevent rather than respond to crime, but officers said Brady misrepresented the amount of time they spend on proactive patrol because he based his analysis on under-reported data.
Officers do not always log time spent on filing reports and booking evidence and they do not communicate that information over the radio, they said. Many are wary of criminals listening to police scanners and waiting for cops to return to the station to file reports.
“It takes 45 minutes to complete a report?,” Sgt. Greg Flippo asked rhetorically in reference to the study’s portrayal of the time it takes to file a report after an arrest or incident. “We’re spending a lot more time than that on reports.” Up to two hours in some cases, other officers added.
Mayor Al Pinheiro said he welcomed the candor, but after a few back-and-forths between officers and a visibly peeved and eye-rolling Brady, Pinheiro pointed out the discrepancies.
“We’re in this situation where one person’s saying one thing and the other’s saying another,” Pinheiro said.
Despite Brady’s decades of consulting experience, his inclusion of paperwork and travel time in his definition of proactive patrolling is wrong, said Sgt. Kurt Ashley.
Officers considered proactive time to be time spent pursuing crime, not following up on it and doing tasks such as booking evidence or driving prisoners to the county jail in San Jose, Ashley and most officers said.
“What we have here on paper and how we feel in the street is much different,” Ashley told Brady and the council. “We are seeing officers spending a lot of time doing administrative duties … I know the day shift sergeant probably feels like we only have a 10 percent proactive rate because of the amount of calls received.”
The percentage Ashley referenced represents the portion of an officer’s shift spent initiating incidents that result in reports and prisoner processing, rather than the portion of a shift spent reacting to calls. The report found the department’s average 24-hour proactive rate was 53 percent in 2006, but it dropped to 39 percent between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.
Brady said the 53 percent rate was a luxury compared to other departments he’s studied, but he suggested a more even 45 percent proactive rate for Gilroy.
The nearly 25,000 calls for service in 2006 were mostly non-emergency reports of disturbances, suspicious behavior, barking dogs, loud noise or alarms. In addition to these calls, though, patrol officers initiated another 15,264 incidents, ranging from vehicle to pedestrian stops.
But Communications Supervisor Steve Ynzunza said from May 9 to Nov. 7 of this year, dispatchers received 92,780 calls, and 30,218 resulted in response.
“I don’t want the picture painted that the dispatchers are sitting there and only handling 24,000 calls. In the month of July alone, we had more than 16,000 calls,” Ynzunza said, pointing mainly to the Garlic Festival.
Brady retorted that his report took into account all the calls received, though, not just the ones that warranted service.
Councilman Craig Gartman asked Brady if he thought the department’s current proactive rate was adequate.
“You’re about where you need to be,” Brady responded.
But officers continually said that they were not sufficiently proactive because they have to deal with so many calls and then all the associated paperwork. Initiating and following up on an incident like a DUI takes two hours, for example. In addition, if the department follows the report’s suggestion to add officers and cut civilian personnel who usually transport prisoners to San Jose or watch them at the Gilroy station, then that two hours could become into four or five.
“Getting rid of (civilian) multi-service officers would almost make having a jail worthless,” said Sgt. Wes Stanford in reference to the fact that MSOs relieve officers by watching prisoners, an institutional requirement.
Councilman Russ Valiquette said a law enforcement friend of his equated real-life police work to the TV series “Barney Miller”: The vast majority of police work is paper work, he said.
As far as making shifts 12 hours instead of 10, as Brady recommended, Sgt. John Sheedy drew laughs by saying it would be fine if he were still 25, but tired cops are no good.
Callahan reported that about 70 percent of officers would not go for 12-hour shifts, which departments such as Morgan Hill only resort to when understaffed, he said. Councilman-elect Perry Woodward said he expected a resounding “no” from officers about extending their shifts and then asked Brady if any of his staffing suggestions changed since the first draft report.
“None of the recommendations are different from the first to last drafts,” Brady said. “Nothing major changed.”
Police Chief Gregg Giusiana confirmed this. He was one of the only department officials to review all drafts along with Matrix, which received $55,000 for its work.
Throughout the two-and-a-half hour meeting, nobody brought up report data that portrays discontent rank-and-file officers who want louder voices and more accountability for their supervisors. Nor did anyone discuss the secret retirements and re-hirings of the chief and assistant chief that became public in February.
Now it is up to the department and city council to pick and choose from the report’s buffet-style selection of millions in expenses and savings that will allegedly improve the department.
“For me this report was a great opportunity to understand the police department better and start a new day,” Pinheiro said before teasing Brady by pretending to throw his water bottle at him as he left the room.
After Brady left, Councilman Dion Bracco assured officers that the council would take the report with a grain of salt.
“This is not how we’re going to make our decisions,” Bracco told department personnel. “This is just an outside opinion. These guys don’t know our community or our officers, though they tried to learn.”
