Jenna Pizzi

The News Journal

The Wilmington Police Department in June launched a new community relations unit.

Chief Bobby Cummings has said officers will be shifted to patrol high-crime areas.

Community groups have raised concerns about losing their law enforcement contact.

A move to break up a 7-month-old Wilmington police unit formed to improve community relations is being denounced by groups that saw the officers as a vital link to law enforcement.

"Community-dedicated officers build relationships that yield trust and bring about a sense of safety – something that is desperately needed in Wilmington," said Ben Cohen, public safety chairman for the Midtown Brandywine Neighbors Association.

Police Chief Bobby Cummings on Monday told the City Council Public Safety Committee that 16 officers of the Community Policing Unit will be reassigned to patrol high-crime areas. The change is part of an effort to examine how resources are being used to combat violence in the community, he said. It was determined all officers in the department should take on the role of community police officers, rather than through designated officers, Cummings said.

“It is a philosophy that has to be fostered throughout the police department and not as a unit,” he said.

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The Community Policing Unit was rolled out in June, when Cummings announced a new policing strategy to combat shootings and violence. The idea was to designate a group of officers who would act as liaisons to residents by attending community meetings and strengthening relationships at the neighborhood level.

“By working closely together, the community and police are standing up against senseless acts of gun violence,” Cummings said in September.

Unit officers were given cellphones and provided numbers to residents. They also handed out books and toys, flipped pancakes at a breakfast event and worked to install streetlights after some complained it was too dark. The program was lauded by civic and political leaders – and was credited with helping increase the number of homicide arrests.

Unit officers had been the first line of contact for many community members and a lifeline for civic associations, which Cummings said will not change. Officers will continue to have cellphones, and all contact with the civic associations or community groups will be made through police captains.

Cummings said he was evaluating the police department and its deployment last month when he decided on the change. The officers will be assigned to a unit called Dealing with Issues of Stabilization through Respect, Understanding, and Promoting Trust, or DISRUPT. The unit is tasked with addressing quality-of-life issues in high-crime areas and is directed in their patrols by an analysis of crime statistics.

Moving officers from community policing to DISRUPT will help the department focus on bringing the violent crime rate down, Cummings said. This month, three shootings have occurred in the city, injuring seven people, one fatally. In 2015, there were 131 shooting incidents injuring 151 people, including 26 who were killed.

“We need a component to address those issues, so the complaints that the officers would have responded to would have come from the community anyway, so our entire department has the philosophy that everybody as you see individuals, you should treat them with fairness, kindness and respect. That is across the board,” Cummings said.

The announcement comes as the city hired former Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey as a consultant, in part to improve community policing.

"As Chief Cummings and the department will begin working closely with Commissioner Ramsey, the police department will explore new ways to improve police-community relations in Wilmington," said Alexandra Coppadge, a spokeswoman for Mayor Dennis P. Williams. "Currently, the department is looking to increase the uniformed presence of officers on the streets to reduce violent crime in hot-spot areas throughout the city."

A special commission formed by the Delaware General Assembly and Gov. Jack Markell to address crime in Wilmington last year made 141 recommendations for how the agency needs to reform operations. One of the suggestions was to assign community policing officers under the command of sector captains to “allow for greater accountability.”

The report also called for community policing to be “expanded into hotspot areas,” saying “the Wilmington Police Department lacks a community policing strategy that provides a roadmap to effectively engage the community while performing law enforcement functions, and that puts community oriented policing officers into hotspots over sustained periods of time.”

The same report found demand on manpower and overtime for the DISRUPT program was unsustainable.

Wilmington officials this winter have been at a standoff with state budget legislators over $1.5 million for overtime foot patrols requested by Attorney General Matt Denn to fight violence in the city. Lawmakers want Wilmington police to provide deployment data detailing how many officers are on patrol and how many are assigned to desk duties, but city officials say they won’t provide that information if the state continues to have on the table a threat to take over control of the department.

Denn said he was not aware of the decision to disband the unit, until his office was sent a one-sentence memo.

"We hope that the city provides more details as to how it is deploying its officers and we hope it is a deployment that includes both officers patrolling in cars and specifically assigned community policing officers," Denn said in a statement.

In other area police departments, community policing is at the center of operations. New Castle County Police Chief Elmer Setting said Tuesday he relies on strong ties with the community to thwart crime.

The department has been focusing on community policing efforts since at least 1989, Setting said. In order to reach and better serve the community, police officers have to be visible and present in high-crime communities, he said.

“Our constituents regard the department as largely the best in Delaware,” Setting said, referencing various surveys conducted by police. “And those are their words, not mine.”

But some civic leaders said they do not believe that the new deployment will fill the void of the officers they knew by name.

“I am disappointed with Chief Cummings’ assertion that every officer is a community officer,” said Cohen, who attended the council committee meeting. “It is a nice piece of rhetoric, but it’s out of touch with the reality of living in Wilmington."

Denison Hatch, president of the Highlands Community Association, said he and residents have had excellent contact with the two officers assigned to their community and their proactive and responsive interactions were valued.

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“We had one person to go to with whom we could communicate, and it was very comfortable,” Hatch said.

City Councilman Bob Williams, a retired Wilmington police officer, said he thinks the move away from the Community Policing Unit indicates a lack of direction in the police department and its leadership.

“They are just throwing anything out there and saying, 'Let’s see what sticks,’ ” said Williams, a member of the council's Public Safety Committee. “You have to sustain a project and show you are committed. That is how you get buy in.”

Councilwoman Loretta Walsh, interim chairwoman of the committee, said she also is disappointed in the change, saying she has heard complaints from community groups.

"I think you are going to have to sell this to the community," Walsh warned Cummings.

Members of the 40 Acres Civic Association confided in their community policing officers as a string of burglaries tore through the neighborhood and again when items went missing from front porches, said Tracey Schofield, an active resident of the association.

“If there was an emergency, you called 911, but if there were other issues, we could call or email,” Schofield said. “We are hoping that [the community police officers] will eventually be brought back.”

The Rev. Sandra Ben, pastor at Praying Ground Church at 41 E. 22nd St., said even though her assigned community policing officer is no longer deployed to her neighborhood, he will still come around for her weekly community walks.

“They told me they are going to try to keep that happening,” Ben said. “I’m a big advocate for keeping police in the community, and they should try to somehow work that out so they can do that in all the neighborhoods.”

Because her neighborhood off of Vandever Avenue is a high-crime area of the city, there will still be many officers patrolling there. Ben said she is glad to have the officers looking after her community, but said other neighborhoods deserve the same.

“There should be consistency everywhere,” she said.

When the officers are reassigned, the DISRUPT unit will grow from six to 22 officers. The new deployment will become fully effective on Monday.

Staff reporter Brittany Horn contributed to this story.

Contact Jenna Pizzi at jpizzi@delawareonline.com or (302) 324-2837. Follow her on Twitter @JennaPizzi.

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