More police on way? Safety is focus after shooting

The head of the Cincinnati police union warned last week that an officer might die unless something was done to put more cops on the street.

On Friday, one did.

Now city officials are talking about all sorts of ideas to address police staffing problems that weren't on the table before: A new police recruit class. More overtime pay. More money for the police department.

"We can use this as an opportunity to re-examine what we're doing," said Mayor John Cranley.

It's a dramatic turn for a city government that just one week earlier was struggling to come up with an anti-violence plan this summer with no extra overtime costs for police. Instead of adding to the budget, police were juggling shifts and moving officers from special units into street patrols.

For now, at least, police and city officials don't want to talk much about budgets and staffing. The focus, they say, should be on the family of Officer Sonny Kim, the 27-year-police veteran who was shot and killed Friday morning in Madisonville.

But with 1,000 officers still on the job, and with the city in the midst of the worst gun violence it has seen in a decade, questions about money, budgets and personnel will have to be answered soon.

Would more cops have saved Kim?

The most immediate question is whether more money would have made a difference Friday morning, but that may not be a fair question, or the right one. Could any policy or budget decision out of City Hall have prevented the suspected killer, Trepierre Hummons, from luring police to the scene with 911 calls and then opening fire on the first cop he saw?

Police work is dangerous, sometimes deadly. And drawing cause-and-effect conclusions after a tragedy like this one is near impossible.

Maybe more money would have meant more officers showed up sooner on that Madisonville street. Maybe it wouldn't have mattered at all. Or maybe what happened to Kim is simply a tragic reminder that officers on the street need all the help they can get.

"The outcome would have been different if that man had listened to his mother when she tried to stop him," City Councilman Charlie Winburn said of Hummons, whose mother pleaded with him to go home before he started shooting Friday. "No amount of officers could have fixed this."

The safety of officers and the communities they serve always is an emotional issue. No one, especially politicians, wants to short-change the men and women who risk their lives to protect others.

Kathy Harrell, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, didn't want to talk about budgets following Kim's death, but she has been raising the alarm about staffing for months. Harrell has complained about overall numbers – the city had 1,100 officers 10 years ago, compared to 1,000 today – as well as the way those officers are divvied up between street patrols and special units.

She did so again last week, days before Kim died, when she told The Enquirer the department was dangerously understaffed on some days because not enough were on patrol duty.

"I'm concerned somebody will be killed," she said.

Taxpayers spending more on police already

But public safety is an economic issue, too. City taxpayers will spend $133 million this year on their police department, about $7 million more than last year. That covers pensions, overtime, support staff, salaries and more.

Cranley and others say a new police recruit class and more overtime for officers would put more cops on patrol. They're right, but it wouldn't come cheap. Overtime already is estimated at about $600,000 this year, and every 10 recruits the city adds to the police force costs about $1 million a year in wages, benefits and other expenses.

"Could we use more officers? The answer would have to be yes," said City Manager Harry Black. "We need to determine what is the right number of officers and come up with a plan to get to that number. We have to look at it in strategic terms."

Finding the right number is complicated, though, because the police department needs more than officers. Black said much of the technology officers use, such as their in-car computer systems, needs upgrading, and 80 percent of police cruisers are now past their life expectancy. Some cars have logged more than 280,000 miles.

The recession meant years of delayed spending and budget cuts, so the city, like most local governments, has some catching up to do. More money is available now that the economy has improved, but priorities still must be set.

"When you spend money on something, it means you're not spending it on something else," Black said.

Mayor on cops: 'We need to hire more'

That certainly was a concern a week ago when Police Chief Jeffrey Blackwell and other city officials unveiled an anti-violence plan that boosted the number of officers on patrol by shuffling their schedules, rather than paying overtime. It was touted as an effective and inexpensive way to tackle a serious problem.

Today, though, there is significantly less talk of costs.

"I don't think we have enough cops," Cranley said Friday. "We need to hire more. The sooner we hire them the better."

This year Cincinnati added 57 new police officers, its first new academy graduates in six years. They joined a group of 'lateral' recruits - hires from other departments - who started last July. Another 25 'lateral' recruits are set to join the force soon.

Black said adding money to the police budget is possible, even though council just approved the budget last week. He said an expected budget surplus could help, but he and others say the amount of the surplus is unknown and spending money alone won't make things better.

"I have been an advocate of more officers, but we need to make sure this is done well," said City Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld.

Council members will likely spend the coming weeks discussing and debating whether police need more money and, if so, how best to spend it. Today, though, they and the city's police officers are still struggling with a tragedy no amount of money can undo.

"This is a significant loss of life," Black said of Officer Kim. "He's someone who was a model police officer and a model citizen. It's a life we're not going to be able to replace."