A couple of weeks ago, I got in late one evening at Hobby after being out-of-town for the day. I had missed dinner so I decide to grab a burger on the way home. About 9PM, I stopped by a fast food restaurant near Hobby. It was located in a somewhat less than desirable neighborhood and in an area where gang activity has regularly been reported. As I pulled into the parking lot, I noticed a HPD cruiser was also parked in the lot. I parked next to it and headed inside. About the time I reached the door, a young, lady HPD officer exited the restaurant. She did not have a partner with her. She was only a few feet away from and our eyes met. I asked her, "Do they have you patrolling this neighborhood by yourself?" "Every night," she responded with a grim smile. As I watched the young officer drive away, I wondered what dangers she might face that night. Would she have to confront a gang alone? Would she have to break up a family violence situation by herself? I also wondered what family was at home waiting for her to return, worrying that she might not. I wondered if that family included any children.

Officer Timothy Abernethy – Killed in December attempting to apprehend suspect alone.

I also thought about HPD officer Rodney Johnson being shot in the back while making an arrest without backup. I thought about HPD officer Timothy Abernethy who was gunned down in cold blood after pursuing a suspect into an apartment complex alone.

The scene I witnessed would have been unheard of twenty years ago. Then almost all night patrols were manned with two officers. However, over the last two decades, HPD has adopted a strategy in which 90% of the patrols have only one officer. The theory behind this change was that it allowed HPD to project a larger "presence" in the community by having more patrol units on the street and thereby deterring crime. While this theory makes sense intuitively, as far as I have been able to determine its actual effectiveness in reducing crime has never been empirically demonstrated.

Some officers I talked with argued that it is actually less effective. They contend that patrolling alone alters the behavior of the officers, making them less aggressive for obvious reasons. Several cited incidents where they had waited for back up after arriving alone at the scene, resulting in the perpetrator escaping. The new Crime Reduction Units (CRUs) introduced by HPD in the last year have gone back to two-officer patrols with apparently good results. Of course, these accounts are anecdotal and do not necessarily prove that the one-officer strategy is ineffective. However, any doubts about the effectiveness should be weighed heavily against the clearly increased risk to the officers.

But respective of whether this is a more or less effective strategy; I have a problem with my city sending our young men and women out alone to protect me and my family. I do not think there are many of us who can get up in the morning and look at ourselves in the mirror and believe in our hearts that this is the right thing to do. My purpose here is not an indictment of the current HPD administration or previous administrations under which the policy was originated and grew. The one-officer patrol policy is the result of the inconsistent demands we, as citizens, have made on the City and HPD to simultaneously reduce crime, respond within minutes to hundreds of thousands of calls each year and still control costs.

To go back to having two officers in patrol cars we are going to have to either increase the number of officers (thereby increasing the costs) or reduce the number of patrols or some combination of the two. Regardless, it is going to cost us as citizens in one fashion or another. But it is a cost that I believe we are morally compelled to pay. I do not want to get up one day and read in the paper that a young lady officer that I met by chance one evening has been gunned down by a gang near Hobby Airport because she had no back-up.

[Note: When my wife and a friend read this blog they told me they thought I was being sexist by identifying the officer I saw as a being a woman. That is not my intention. I believe having men or women officers patrolling alone at night is unsafe and I think if the officer that evening had been a young man, I would have had a similar reaction. Both of the officers that were lost in last year while patrolling alone were men. I will have to confess that a sense of chivalry-tinged guilt probably caused the sight a young woman driving off alone probably had a greater impact on me than if it had been a man. However, regardless of whether that is politically correct by current standards, it does not change the fact that officers patrolling alone, particular at night, are vulnerable . . . whether they are men or women.]

I recently obtained HPD's FBI crime report for 2008 and compared the numbers to the period 2000-2007. While crime continues at an unacceptable level, there has been significant improvement in most areas and particularly in robbery and burglary which had been growing at an alarming rate. A copy of the 2008 reports can be found here*. The total number of violent crimes for 2008 was virtually flat, increasing only slightly from 24,574 to 24,786. Murders were down significantly from 353 to 295 and robbery declined from 11,479 to 10,603. Rape and aggravated assaults both showed increases. Major property crimes showed a significant drop with burglaries down from a record 29,044 in 2007 to a more typical level of 26,947 (-7%). Thefts were down from 74,817 to 68,598 (-8%). Auto thefts dropped a whopping 22% from 19,465 to 15,214. All non-violent crime was down by a little over 10%. The crime rates, i.e., the number of crimes committed per 100,000 of population are even more encouraging. The violent crime rate dropped from 1,127 to 1,104. This marked the third year in a row that the violent crime rate has declined. In fact, the crime rate decreased for every major category except rape and aggravated assault. What I found most encouraging in the numbers were significant improvements in the clearance rate for most crimes. The clearance rate is the percentage of offenses in which HPD has arrested and charged a suspect. There were significant improvements in violent crimes, increasing from 25% to 34%. This was the first notable improvement in the violent crime clearance rate since 2000. The clearance rate for robberies increased to 23% after posting very poor results for 2005-2007. One of the few disappointments in the reports was that clearance rate for burglaries continued to be problematic at an abysmal 7.28%. For all reported crimes, the rate improved significantly from 21% to 32% after three years of very poor results. Notwithstanding the troubling increases in the rape and aggravated assault statistics and the continued inability of HPD to come up with a strategy on catching burglars, the report shows significant progress. It is always dangerous to attribute increases or decreases in crime to any specific causes. However, there are several recent initiatives which have probably played a part, to-wit: » HPD has devoted substantial resources to over-time, providing enhanced patrol and investigative activities, and is gradually increasing its regular compliment of officers, including a squad devoted to robberies; » HPD has created special Crime Reduction Units ("CRUs") that aggressively patrols high crime areas; » HPD has brought its real-time crime center on-line although it is still in the implementation phase; and » Perhaps most significant, numerous private and community groups have become engaged in crime prevention. For example, the East End Chamber of Commerce has established a Crime Awareness Committee that meets with the community and local law enforcement officers monthly. There is a similar meeting in the Brays Oak area and many other neighborhoods are initiating such efforts. In areas where the community had become actively engaged, there has been even greater improvement. Also, there have been renewed efforts by other private groups such as Crime Stoppers and the Houston Police Foundation. Houston still compares unfavorably to most other major U.S. cities. Crime has been steadily declining nationally and at faster rate than we have seen in Houston. And we are still confronted on a daily basis with horrendous and senseless crimes such as the recent ambush murder of HPD Office Tim Abernethy. We and HPD must redouble our efforts and capitalize on the current trends and not allow this progress to be lost. Please consider helping one of the organizations below. You can make a difference. [ web site ] [ web site ] [ web site ] * Some critics of the HPD have asserted that the reports HPD files with the FBI systematically understate the actual number of crimes committed. There is little from the face of the reports that sheds any light on the accuracy of the statistics. For the purposes of this analysis, I am accepting the reports at face value.