Fortunately, I’ve never needed to call a cop for help. I’ve never been in a dangerous situation in the dark of night. I’ve never been accosted by anyone wielding a weapon. There are others who face these situations every day-the officers on the beat. Would you believe that, in and around the nation’s capital, there are Haves and Have Nots when it comes to equipping the police with even the most basic of communications gear?
It came to light recently that Washington, D.C. cops assigned to the most crime-ridden area of the city-the 7th District-have patrolled the night shift there on more than one occasion without access to portable radios. Departmental excuses varied from “no money for new equipment” to “can’t get spare parts” to “we have more officers than we do radios on this shift” to “radios not kept in the communications room but in another room to which no one has the combination.” It all boils down to the fact that no arrests were made in that high-crime area on the nights when as many as 26 officers went radio-less. Why? Because they all congregated in one block to keep safe.
Rob Robertson of the Fraternal Order of Police told me the cops were ordered to “take to the streets whether they have radios or not” by the city police chief, who is under fire here already for a host of other public safety-related problems.
“Radios are used not only for the officer’s safety but also to assist others in trouble. Most officers would rather go without a gun than without a radio,” he said. “It’s going to take a miracle to get us to a place where we will be safe in the city.” One officer did tell me the D.C. government contacted Motorola in hopes of begging some donated units.
Robertson harbors a secret wish that the District some day will revert to federal jurisdiction and his constituents will be able to afford the stuff they need. “We would have all the equipment and the best services in the world,” he concluded.
What a difference fewer than five miles makes. The Alexandria, Va., police department, just over the Potomac river, last week showed off 29 newly equipped cruisers (ramping up to 90) that sport Fujitsu ruggedized laptops that allow officers to check nationwide priors, file reports and transmit to other public-safety vehicles via Bell Atlantic Nynex Mobile’s cellular digital packet data network.
According to Lt. John Crawford, his is the first department nationwide to go online with portable computers. And officers didn’t have to yank the radios out of the cars or trade in the portables to do it.
Too bad … I know some cops who could use them.
