  Garrick Member Username: Garrick Post Number: 3 Registered: 01-2009 |
If misery loves company, please enjoy this story from another city dweller struggling with bureaucracy in crumbling urban America: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02 /07/nyregion/07light.html?part ner=permalink&exprod=permalink I like the journal-keeping idea; an online publicly accessible version would be even better. | ||
Eastsideal Member Username: Eastsideal Post Number: 271 Registered: 10-2007 |
I lived in NYC for many years. The level of city services there, frustrating as they are sometimes, are outstandingly responsive and lightning fast compared to the City of Detroit. And the police response is a whole different world. I had a simple residential break-in in which I lost a small old laptop and my girlfriend lost 2 not terribly valuable pieces of jewelry. My 911 call got 5 police cars within 8 minutes, 2 detectives, an evidence team, and within 3 days an arrest and a follow-up visit by another detective to gather information and evidence for a possible prosecution. | ||
Lombaowski Member Username: Lombaowski Post Number: 134 Registered: 11-2004 |
5 police cars within 8 minutes in NYC? Are you Bloomberg? I find that story to be pretty hard to believe. | ||
Eastsideal Member Username: Eastsideal Post Number: 272 Registered: 10-2007 |
No, not me. Just a regular citizen in a lower-middle-class neighborhood. Actually, it's not an uncommon response in the lower-crime sections of Queens. Particularly when they think they have a decent chance of catching someone. | ||
Professorscott Member Username: Professorscott Post Number: 1776 Registered: 12-2006 |
In NYC they figured out a long time ago that property crime was one of the things driving people out of the city, so they have made a very aggressive effort to reduce property crime. In Detroit - and sadly, the Prof is speaking from a good deal of direct, personal experience - nobody gives a running shit about property crime. The City government here does not focus on the things which really matter to residents, and has not for at least the past thirty years, which is how long I've been around here. I'm not sure why the City government exists at all. | ||
Bigb23 Member Username: Bigb23 Post Number: 3683 Registered: 11-2007 |
Does anybody in the Detroit City Government read any of these posts ? Or ala George W. Bush, what you don't see won't hurt you ? | ||
Mikeg Member Username: Mikeg Post Number: 2190 Registered: 12-2005 |
quote: From all appearances, the city government in Detroit exists for the benefit of its employees, not its citizens and taxpayers. The same can be said about the school district. Add in the high tax rate and it should be no surprise that there is a declining number of businesses and residents. The only way for Detroit to pull out of its death spiral is for its government and school district to close the gap between the level of services provided and the costs to its taxpayers. | ||
Sumas Member Username: Sumas Post Number: 673 Registered: 01-2008 |
As a city dweller I have to concur that Police response is erratic at best. A few examples: We saw a home being stripped, called police and we were told we couldn't make a report because we were not the owners??? A neighbor witnessed a similar event, she didn't get that excuse but no one came. They stole an entire kitchen and bathroom but the police never came. She made three calls in all. In a separate situation, a neighbor called our local community hotline and police response was about five minutes. You can bet the next time something happens, I'll call our community hotline because they can get action. It is sad you have to be an important entity to get the police out to a scene. Fortunately, I live in a "low" crime area but it is disturbing that the police will not come out when the illegal activity takes place and then when it after the fact, you have to go to the station to make a report. My favorite of course is that if your car gets stolen, you have to go to the station to make a report. How the hell are you supposed to get there? I have lived in the city in the fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties and left in the nineties and came back about 2005. It is hard to weigh the difference in police service over that time frame because they went from thugs to slugs. | ||
Crash_nyc Member Username: Crash_nyc Post Number: 393 Registered: 08-2004 |
Lombaowski: 5 police cars within 8 minutes in NYC?...I find that story to be pretty hard to believe. That's a pretty standard response here. I think too many New Yorkers take the NYPD for granted in this sense. A few weeks ago a friend of mine here in Brooklyn was the victim of a brutal home invasion/burglary, and within 10 minutes of calling 911, she heard, then spotted, a NYPD helicopter circling low over the vicinity of her residence, moments before numerous squad cars (at least a half-dozen) arrived on-scene. In contrast, we experienced a similar home invasion in Detroit some years back when I was still living with my parents, and my father, a DPD Lieutenant, phoned either 911 or the local precinct (not sure which), and it still took 20 minutes for response to arrive (2 squad cars). In fact, an off-duty officer (a friend of my father's) heard the call on a police scanner at his house more than a mile away, and beat the on-duty cops to the scene by 10 minutes. Not to be completely negative about the DPD, they did do a great job of apprehending a guy who robbed and temporarily kidnapped me in a pretty terrifying incident in Rivertown when I was a teenager. I picked the guy out of a lineup in a matter of seconds, but when it came to court, the pathetically incompetent Prosecutor completely blew the case, and the guy walked. Problems from one end of the spectrum to the other... | ||
Gralr Member Username: Gralr Post Number: 69 Registered: 12-2008 |
Another reason not to move to Detroit. So very Sad. I agree the city government is just there to keep themselves employed. | ||
Lilpup Member Username: Lilpup Post Number: 5234 Registered: 06-2004 |
Is NYPD short staffed? DPD is down at least 1,500 officers from where they were just eight years ago. | ||
Crawford Member Username: Crawford Post Number: 477 Registered: 10-2006 |
Police, fire and EMS response in NYC is pretty good, at least in my experience, and what I have heard from others. I called 911 because there was an old man lying unreponsive on the street, next to a dropped bag of groceries (it looked like he had just had a heart attack or something). The ambulance was there in about three minutes, no joke. They had him loaded up and were off within four minutes of arriving. As for whether the NYPD is short-staffed, it's true their numbers are down, but crime is also way down, and the per-capita officer count is still much higher than most American cities, including Detroit. | ||
Crash_nyc Member Username: Crash_nyc Post Number: 394 Registered: 08-2004 |
Lilpup: Is NYPD short staffed? DPD is down at least 1,500 officers from where they were just eight years ago. NYPD will probably be down at least 1000 cops by next year (out of about 38,000). Mayor Bloomberg's recent "Doomsday Budget" proposal is calling for the elimination of 23,000 city jobs in NYC, including 15,000 jobs in the public school system. He's called for the cancellation of one or more monthly police academies, and a whole slew of other public service cuts. Several major community hospitals are now slated for closing, as well as numerous firehouses. It's pretty grim all around here. |
