Truly Stupid Idea

(Long post - read it all to get a feel for what's going on)

Once again, reinventing the wheel, but reinventing it stupidly. Our comment section is alive with some truly asinine policies invented by downtown:

• God help the 011 district. McGoofs newest idea is going to get a copper killed. If you are on a beat car that has a violence zone, you must stay in that box the whole tour. You must have a PDT in the car, and ask for a relief for lunch and personals. You only take calls that are in your box.
  
  If you are a beat car with no zone, you run your ass off all night, running all over the district ,working off the backlog. 6 beat cars right out of roll call are not taking jobs.
  
  [...] NOW they want a FIXED FOOT POSTS IN THE VIOLENCE ZONE!! Further curtailing the cars responding to jobs and providing backup! Original idea was to have a car drop them off to STAND in 011 for their entire tour. Each a block from each other. And on all watches!!! How insane to expect any copper to stand by themselves on a damn block in a violence zone in 011 on any watch (1st watch- really???)
  
  The first night they were allowed to have cars (must have a working PDT aka GPS) but how long will that last? Also the troops were ask to curtail their requests for time off in roll call.
  011 is not the district to have 4 to 5 cars answering jobs. Back up is non existent and now fixed foot posts. The situation just gets worse and worse for the officers in 011. The bosses have put the 011 coppers in a very dangerous situation , that will only get worse!
  

Another comment on the same subject:

• Last night in 011 on first watch, 9 out of 18 cars were either in a zone or or a fixed posts-responding only to calls in their assigned zone. That's 9 cars remaining for a busy district to pick up the slack.the zone cars have to get relief for lunch and personals. Nothing like asking permission to pee! Mc Goof is an asshat. This strategy is dangerous.

And another:

• I'm surprised to see that no one is talking about what that piece of New York Shit told the 11th district commander. Besides the whole time due thing. He was told to have a police officer posted 24/7 at drug spots that the police shut down. [He] wants a copper standing on the street by themselves (like a lame duck in the middle of the ghetto) without a squad car or partner. [He] was grandstanding when he asked the room full bosses if anyone wanted to challenge him on this great idea. There was NOT one boss in that room that had the balls or even an ounce of courage to stand up to [him] and tell him what a stupid idea that us and that it will jepordize the safety of all officers assigned to that detail. This department has truly turned into a joke. Now I know why they made all the exempt ranks under 50 years old , because they are all to scared of loosing their spots by speaking up and the bosses over 50 are just scared little people that don't even belong on this job!

And e-mails:

• Today we were visited in roll call by Commander Washignton and Captain Bay (XO). They informed us that now IN ADDITION to these ridiculous zones that tie down 3 primary beat cars and 6 rapid/06 cars a night, we will now have 4 fixed foot posts, each manned by a 99 officer on all watches. On third watch today, 1125 and 1131 were removed from their beats and put on these foot posts, which are on 1112's beat. We were also advised that the p/os on said foot posts will not have a car, because according to McCarthy, if you give them a car, they will sit in it. All of this coming less than a week after 3 p/os in 011 went on IOD from having to wrestle with shitheads, and bricks were thrown at the police while they tried to pursue an agg batt offender.
  The REAL kicker though came when Cmndr Washington informed us that time due will be restricted. The number of people allowed to take off on any given day will be greatly reduced, especially on the weekends. If we wanted to discuss these issues with the Commander, we were told we had to wait because he was going out of town with his family (this is before my slip for Easter Sunday that I put in two months ago got denied). Apparently 011 and 007 are experiencing some kind of emergency situation that requires the Department to deny time due??
  Then we were told by Bay and Washington that they aren't looking for more arrests, but more contact cards because if you get out and contact card these people "they won't come back." (These are our "leaders" that actually believe this)
  The backlogs are literally hours long in 011. All priority 1a jobs have an avearge of 30 to 60 minutes on them because there is nobody that can come out of a zone or off of a corner to answer them. We are told that we need to ask permission to use the bathroom because we can't leave our "zone" or corner without a face to face relief. This is such a fucking joke and someone needs to fix it before, God forbid, somebody gets killed.

Another:

• ...twelve cars held down every single shift on all watches. The shift starts in backlog and hands off a backlog --twenty-four hour straight backlog! Downing beat cars to cover violence zones means entire square miles of the district have no police coverage.
  

One person complaining might be just someone with an axe to grind. Two might be a sympathetic ear for the first. Three people with the same basic complaint makes us sit up and notice and think there's something to this after all.

We've gotten a few dozen complaints along with at least that many e-mails, all relating the same thing:

• 011 is holding down three violence zones with 8 cars every single day, all shifts
• 011 is covering four fixed posts with 4 cars, every single day, all shifts
• manpower hasn't changed, but the bosses are restricting time due to three people on some days
  

That's 12 cars down every shift and almost no time due granted. Downing multiple beat cars is the dumbest thing we're heard. We have officers alleging that the backlogs are running 24 hours straight and we are starting to believe it.

We don't have any solutions for the 011 people. We did notice the FOP is making noise to address the time due restrictions but that isn't going to make up for missing holidays, birthdays and family events in the short term. Readers?