Pro-Active policing needs to be a major part of Community Policing

As politicians and community activists discuss Community Policing and how to effectively implement those types of policies, there is always a major component that is left out, the law enforcement component. As I have previously stated in other columns, Community Policing is a means of bringing the police and the community together in a team effort — to combat crime. While much is said or written about walking posts and interacting with the community in an effort to build trust, the point of any community policing policy is for that trust to be created as a means of ensuring the public that officers will work with them to eliminate crime from their neighborhoods.

As a young Pro-Active Officer, it was instilled in me that pro-active policing must play an integral role in community policing. Pro-active policing is the mindset of focusing and targeting high crime areas and violent criminal individuals. This type of enforcement is willing to confront known violent offenders and gang members in an effort to remove the threat they pose to the law-abiding individuals that live in those neighborhoods. Utilizing any means at their disposal, officers will utilize long term investigations as well as special operations to eliminate that threat.

Even as community activists, decry pro-active policing, those that live in those crime-ridden areas understand the importance of that type of policing. Somehow, these activists believe that the community is served best if we do not take an honest assessment of the situation and state the facts. The facts being that there are bad guys out there willing to kill, shoot, rob and assault innocent people and sadly, that those bad guys come from our communities.

The bad guys know who they are and do not hide that fact. They go about their “business” causing chaos and mayhem in the communities in which they were raised.

The communities in which these bad guys come from, know them and have watched them grow into the thugs they are. These innocent people are intimidated into silence and are fearful of any repercussions. The street cops who serve those communities know who the bad guys are, either through interaction or through tips of information provided by the community. But their efforts are limited as they must continuously respond to calls for service especially in a situation like Trenton. That is why any public safety plan that is instituted must always contain a pro-active policing component to attack and target those that are willing and able to cause the aforementioned “chaos and mayhem”.

Since 1981, the Trenton Police Department has had such a component. Initially, it was called the ProActive Unit. This unit took the fight to those willing to openly break the law as drugs began to overrun the city. Their reputation was built on aggressively targeting hot spot areas throughout the city and arresting lawbreakers.

They were not tied to service calls and freely roamed the city in search of bad guys.

They are the reason the gang problems growing around the country during the 1980s and 1990s did not take hold in the city at the time. As technology began to expand, the techniques used were expanded to include more long term investigations and special operations. By 1994, the Pro-Active Unit also became the SWAT team for the department.

Over the years, this unit has been eliminated and then reincarnated. In 2001 the Pro-Active Unit was disbanded. A similar unit, the TAC Unit, was created in 2006 after the record gang violence and homicide record was broken at 31 homicides in 2005.

This TAC Unit existed until the end of 2012. The elimination of the TAC Unit created a vacuum that was quickly taken by gang violence and the homicide record being broken again in 2013 at 37 homicides. The new unit that was created in 2014 is the current Street Crimes Unit.

While ensuring that such a unit is part of any Public Safety Plan, the pro-active mindset should be a part of any and every officer. Patrol officers should know their areas and the people who live and work there. They should know the bad guys and deal with them regularly, to impress upon them that they are known and are being watched. And they should be willing to arrest them when they do break the law because to do so leaves an impression that the officer will protect the community.

I recently watched a video where an officer was confronted by an individual who outwardly threatened his authority and attempted to intimidate the officer. That individuals actions placed the officers in danger as this individual’s behavior caused for other individuals to gather around the officer and his partner. It was a high crime area and these officers were by themselves in this confrontation. While the primary officer conducted himself admirably and detained the individual, he was well within his rights to arrest that individual for improper behavior, at the minimum and leave the rest knowing that he is pro-active. But that is a mindset that must continually be taught and enforced.

Knowing the current leadership of the police department and the fact that many of them are former Pro-Active Officers, I believe that whomever is chosen to lead the department will come to understand the importance of maintaining such a unit.

Trenton needs officers willing to fight for it and its citizens daily. We have already seen what happens when that type of unit is eliminated. Let’s make sure that never happens again.