Forum highlights crime, police effort
Too much crime. Not enough policing. That was the takeaway from a public forum held last week that allowed residents to talk about living in Pine Bluff.
Most of what was heard — and seen — reinforced the idea that Pine Bluff can be a scary place to live for many.
This was the second such forum, put on by a group of individuals that had also surveyed the public. That was the survey that found, among other things, that many people cower in their homes at night in fear of going out and running headlong into crime. The survey wasn’t all bad, but it did cause some citywide gasps.
This forum was for people living in the First Ward, but residents came from all over. They spoke about drive-by shootings, drug activity and other crimes. One person said they couldn’t even let their grandchild play in the backyard, much less the front yard where bullets were more apt to be flying.
“I’m tired of falling asleep, rolling over, because the guns are going off right in my back room…” the person said.
A man who lives off East Harding said he counted 27 continuous shots, which he attributed to a rapid-fire assault rifle. That happened at 6 p.m. when people were still out and about.
As these people spoke, others in the audience could be seen nodding their heads as if to say they had experienced the same things. And really, who among us has not heard the rat-a-tat of gunfire on multiple occasions?
If that wasn’t troubling enough, there was the input from officials from the Pine Bluff Police Department. They wanted to give the public a clearer explanation of the Police Department’s operation in the city, but the segment did little to provide comfort.
A spokesperson with the department, Dominique Graydon, said the department should have 145 officers but that it is down 40 positions. If one takes out the higher ups who do not patrol the streets, there are about 30 officers for each of several shifts. By the time Graydon got through giving reasons for why people could be off work, she had whittled the number down to as few as four officers patrolling the streets at any given moment. Four, for a city of more than 40,000.
Perhaps the higher-ups should buckle up and get out on the streets.
Residents also complained that they didn’t feel that the police were doing their jobs. They said that when they called 911, the police might just drive through an area, or if the police did stop, they didn’t adequately look into whatever criminal activity was at hand.
“If the officer did drive by, he didn’t slow down,” said one man. “He would cruise right on by.”
Alderman Joni Alexander said Pine Bluff was suffering from poor leadership provided years and decades ago in a variety of areas, including the school system. But she also said the public was at some fault for putting and keeping these administrations in place.
One specific sector Alexander mentioned was the high number of rental properties in Pine Bluff. She said there are many slumlords in Pine Bluff and that they were hurting the city.
“They are not taking care of the property,” she said. “They don’t upgrade it, they’re not doing background checks on the people living in the houses, and they are wreaking havoc on our neighborhoods.”
Isn’t that something that this administration could tackle? These sessions are a “warts and all” endeavor. It’s good to hear from these troubled residents. They have just as much right to a safe environment as anyone else in Pine Bluff. It’s good for the police to hear what at least some of the public thinks of them, and it’s good for the public to hear how strapped the Police Department is. And it’s good to hear from city leaders whose job it is to make life better in Pine Bluff.
These are the kinds of conversations that every city of any size should be having. As painful as these sessions are, the only way Pine Bluff is going to overcome the problems it faces is to get them all out on the table. And it will be a fine day when our table doesn’t sag from the weight.