The Village of Friendship Heights is considering hiring off-duty Montgomery County police officers as private security for its neighborhood, as rising crime persists in the Bethesda-Chevy Chase community. Mayor Melanie Rose White and the Village Council will discuss and vote on the proposed hiring plan at its public meeting this coming Monday, February 13, 2023 at 7:30 PM at the Village Center. It is one of several ideas to tackle crime generated by Mayor White's ad hoc Public Safety Committee last month.
Another proposal from the committee was the installation of new security cameras around the Village. This Monday night, the Mayor and Council will vote to approve the installation of cameras at Red House at 4608 N. Park Avenue. These cameras will provide a video surveillance field covering the area around the house, parts of N. Park Avenue where several crime incidents have recently occurred - including assaults and a robbery - and the bus stop at 4620 N. Park Avenue. The committee has also suggested encouraging all property owners in the village to install additional cameras on their buildings.
Hiring private police may be a trend we see increase in neighborhoods with the means to do so, if County elected officials continue to prove unable - or unwilling - to address the rise in violent crime countywide.
25 comments:
You got exactly what you voted for. Congratulations. The Montgomery County Police Department is significantly undersized for the population and needs of the County. This policy can be placed squarely at the feet of the One-Party Democrat Leadership of MoCo. Don't believe me? Here's the report on it.
The size of the MoCo Police Force is less than half what it should be for a County this size. This Report speaks for itself: https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/council/Resources/Files/agenda/cm/2022/20220131/20220131_PS2.pdf
"The Committee has received regular updates on Police staffing and is well aware that while the Department’s staff has historically been lower than the average for similarly-sized jurisdictions, Montgomery County continued to have relatively low crime rates. After taking significant budget cuts during the great recession, Police staffing increased slowly over the past 10 years, from 1,159 authorized sworn positions in FY12 to a high of 1,306 in FY21."
............
"For FY22, MCPD has an authorized sworn complement of 1,281 officers. This number reflects 1.2 officers per 1,000 residents. It is significantly lower than the average 2.8 officers per capita reported for counties, and the 2.5 officers per capita reported for suburban areas. While per capita staffing is just one measure of police department strength, it is important to note that MCPD’s per capita staffing has remained about 1.2 for almost 20 years."
It's a deliberate policy of the County Leadership not to sufficiently increase the size of the force to address the current crime issues. In fact, it was a deliberate decision by County Leadership to disband the Auto Theft Unit during a stolen car wave due to FY 2021 budget cuts: https://wtop.com/montgomery-county/2021/10/montgomery-co-man-recovers-his-own-stolen-car-from-dc/
"Montgomery County Police Department’s auto theft unit was disbanded earlier this year because of FY 2021 budget cuts."
The current one-party Democrat Leadership won't increase the authorized size of the Force enough to address the rampant crime in MoCo, and so that's why you have the wealthy privileged of MoCo willing (because they are able to afford it) to pay for off duty MoCo Police to patrol due to the rampant crime. Everyone in MoCo deserves public safety from the police, not just the wealthy privileged who can afford to pay extra for off duty officers.
The biggest hypocrisy here is that these wealthy people are overwhelmingly Elrich voters and they're paying to fund for "private" police for them when they voted to defund the "public'' police for everyone else.
7:59 is correct. Now think about those neighborhoods that can't afford private security, (not that these liberals give a rats about poor people unless they move onto their street).
7:59 AM has it exactly right. These wealthy people who can afford to pay for extra off-duty police patrols in their own neighborhoods are doing so because the MoCo police force is too small to do the job. So these wealthy people feel the need to have more police on patrol than there would normally be at the County's current staffing level for MoCo PD.
These wealthy people wouldn't have to fork over the money if the county had leadership/leadership policies which staffed enough officers on the MoCo police force to begin with. As 7:59 AM said, these people most surely voted for Marc Elrich by a large margin instead of the stronger public safety Democrat Candidate David Blair or the Republican Challenger Reardon Sullivan, both who would have ensured that MoCo had a police force which was appropriately funded/sized for the needs of all residents, not just the ones who have the wealth to pay for adequate police coverage.
I challenge any Elrich supporter to come out and excuse/justify the wealthy paying for extra police patrols for themselves instead of having the County hire enough police to benefit everyone. Bring it.
"The current one-party Democrat Leadership won't increase the authorized size of the Force"
Einstein doesn't even know there are over a hundred funded but unfilled positions already. What, you want to expand that to two hundred funded but unfilled positions? Wow, that'd be so useful! Big government advocates don't know their ass from their elbow, unfortunately. MCPD literally has millions of tax dollars more than they can even spend, already.
Yeah, we need more guns on our streets to protect us from the guns we already have on our streets. Makes perfect sense.
driving thru Bethesda on most nights between 2 and 4AM you don’t see any police anywhere around and we wonder why crime is on the rise in Bethesda in the middle of the night……….why should criminals be deterred when they don’t see police anywhere.
Unfortunately it is too late, there is no big magnet up in the sky, unless the Chicoms are planning that to suck up all the guns around us.
I travel quite a bit and happen to spend lots of time in Constitutional Carry states of which there are now 25.
They are far more POLITE! Crime is way down, people are nicer, they respect police.
Guns save people, it's not the other way that our media wants you to believe.
Maybe they can't get police recruits stupid enough to work in a sanctuary County that invites crime and mayhem.
2:56 Once again fails to understand the difference between legal and illegal firearm possession and makes a flippant liberal comment that ties both together.
Guns are illegal on the Metro. How did that work out?
shanel @ 2:56 PM - It is nice to see a sane "Orange B" for a change. :)
@ 12:59 PM - Police officers have apparently stopped doing their jobs, and potential police officers have stopped applying for those jobs, because they are no longer to kill with impunity those whom they have sworn to "serve and protect".
@12:59 PM: Genius over here doesn't seem to realize that he/she's only further proving my point. The police aren't even at their authorized strength, which means that the ratio of officers to 1000 residents is even worse than the last report indicates.
See here for the most current report: https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/council/Resources/Files/agenda/cm/2023/20230213/20230213_PS4.pdf
Staffing Summary
- Resignations and retirements increased 64% in 2022.
- The sworn vacancy rate is 10%, with 129 vacancies out of 1,281 authorized positions.
- The civilian professional staff vacancy rate is 18%, with 136 vacancies out of 763
authorized positions.
- More than 30% of sworn officers are eligible for some type of retirement.
- The 911 Emergency Communication Center (ECC) has a 36% vacancy rate.
- Recruitment applications have fallen 38% since 2017 and continues to lag behind
staffing needs.
- There are operational impacts in several areas due to understaffing.
Read the full thing again and ask yourself why you believe what you do.
As 2:35 AM said, there's a reason MoCo can't hire enough officers to work here to fill the authorized ranks, much less hire an increase above them. Applications have dropped almost 38% since 2018 (Page 3) and it's because MoCo is a sanctuary county with leadership and residents that are outright hostile to police, and which doesn't pay enough for officers to want to work here.
Patrol District Staffing (2023) (Page 6)
1D/Rockville --> 100 of 106 positions filled --> 5.7% vacancy rate.
2D/Bethesda --> 100 of 119 positions filled --> 16% vacancy rate.
3D/Silver Spring --> 151 of 168 positions filled --> 10.1% vacancy rate.
4D/Wheaton --> 142 of 172 positions filled --> 17.4% vacancy rate.
5D/Germantown --> 122 of 137 positions filled --> 10.9% vacancy rate.
6D/Gaithersburg --> 118 of 131 positions filled --> 9.9% vacancy rate.
So that's a total of 733 out of 833 positions filled, for a vacancy rate of 12%.
The average call response time is now up to 9.2 minutes, which is significantly higher than it used to be. (Page 7-8)
Furthermore, If the Department cannot improve hiring and retention rates, it faces a staffing shortage of up to 229 positions by the end of calendar [year] 2025. (Page 3)
Everything in this report is a damning condemnation of the one-party Democrat MoCo Leadership which has overseen this occur. It's a monumental policy failure and the entire community is endangered as a result.
2:56 PM isn't interested in a serious conversation. Having enough armed police to get illegal guns off the street is the whole point. Some unarmed social worker isn't responding to an armed carjacking or a robbery. Who are you trying to fool here with that?
It's entirely deliberate on your part to conflate legal guns with illegal guns. You know you're doing it and you're expecting it to fool others. It's not fooling me.
People like you are the reason there aren't enough police in MoCo and why the crime rate has skyrocketed here. You voted for the people who don't want enough police because that's what you want too. Own it.
"Crime is way down"
This is factually, quantifiably wrong. Try this: go talk to any cop - ask them if they think the public having easier and easier access to guns is a good thing or not. Anyone with eyes and basic common sense already know the answer.
2:56 PM: In the absence of sufficient armed police protection, people will necessarily resort to legally carrying legal guns to protect themselves in self-defense. Similarly, in the absence of sufficient armed police on patrol to deter and arrest them, criminals will be able to illegally carry illegal guns to commit crimes against MoCo residents without fear of arrest or consequence.
Question for you and let's see if you answer.....
Whom do you hold the most contempt for?:
a) MoCo Police Officers who carry guns legally per their duty;
b) MoCo residents who legally carry legal guns for self-defense; or
c) MoCo Criminals who illegally carry illegal guns and commit crimes with them?
Go ahead. Pick one.
@4:25 AM: It's an intentional conflation of the plain meanings of "legal" and "illegal" by 2:56 PM to obfuscate and sabotage the conversation.
There's actually a pending lawsuit (Angelo vs DC) against DC's Carry Ban on Metro --> Read more here: https://thefederalist.com/2023/02/06/d-c-gun-ban-didnt-stop-a-deadly-metro-shooting-just-stripped-commuters-of-the-best-way-to-fight-back/
NOTE: If you have the requisite permits, you are allowed to carry on the Metro in VA and MD, but not DC.
It's a completely indefensible position for anyone to justify what the wealthy MoCo residents are doing here in hiring extra off-duty police to patrol their own neighborhoods. These residents don't actually support having the same levels of police protection provided to all County residents that they can afford. They're just glad they can afford to pay for these extra police to be in their neighborhood so that there are enough of them to address the crime.
In fact, it's a total admission by these wealthy residents that there aren't enough police officers on the force to deter/arrest criminals who are engaging in criminal activity in their own neighborhood without doing this, but it's also an admission that more police patrolling in neighborhoods is what's needed to address the crime wave across MoCo.
What you're seeing from 2:56 PM and 7:35 AM is a combination of non-sensical, regurgitated talking points combined with purposeful cognitive dissonance. It's boring.
What I actually find most conspicuous here is the sound of silence: the inability and unwillingness of any Elrich supporter reading/commenting on this fine Blog to effectively defend how wealthy Montgomery County residents are flexing their privilege by spending substantial sums of their own money to employ extra off-duty police officers for their own neighborhoods.
These officers are brought on to specifically patrol these wealthy neighborhoods because the crime problem in MoCo has gotten so bad and has been so incompetently addressed by the County's all Democrat leadership, that these wealthy residents feel the need to do it themselves.
I think it's hilarious you Elrich supporters won't call out the obvious use of wealth and privilege they're using here to protect only their neighborhood with privately-employed off-duty police instead of affirmatively supporting County-Wide public safety by backing leaders and policy initiatives that would ensure an appropriately sized police department to benefit all Montgomery County residents... Not just the ones who have deep pockets for themselves.
Left leaning agenda and image trumps citizens' needs and safety. Then when it all implodes they blame someone else. Textbook.
Right on!
The guy in the tent right around the corner on Wisconsin Ave now has a popup canopy over his tent. Next will be a grill and hammock.
None of the Elrich-supporting regular commenters here have anything to say in response to what 12:17 AM commented?
Because these leftists are contemplating how to duplicate in Montgomery County the math proficiency scores in Baltimore:
https://jonathanturley.org/2023/02/11/report-23-baltimore-schools-had-zero-students-proficient-in-math/
This is liberal chickens coming home to roost from a lawmaker who directly supported the defund police movement. Unfortunately this is what it takes for a democrat to have an epiphany.
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3857851-rep-angie-craig-calls-out-dc-over-handling-of-alleged-assailants-previous-assaults/
Rich liberals of Montgomery country w I’ll keep voting democrat until their home values start falling…which is starting to happen
They vote liberal and crime rises
They can afford people
But the poor people cannot afford police
Rich Karen’s worst thing to happen to the poor
They can't stay in their little enclave forever.
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