Proactive, targeted policing of crime hot spots across Cincinnati will be the priority of the police department’s new “roving task force,” Police Chief Teresa Theetge said in an interview with The Enquirer.
A dedicated task force of 30 officers, equipped with the department’s newest crime-fighting tools including remotely-piloted drones, will use data to address what Mayor Aftab Pureval described recently as an “unacceptable rise in crime” across the city, particularly in urban core neighborhoods.
The majority of the department’s roughly 950 officers are on uniformed patrol, responding to “calls for service” across Cincinnati based on 911 calls and other day-to-day occurrences. Given the perennial issue of being short police officers, Theetge said uniformed patrol can’t keep up with groups of people committing crimes. That’s where the task force comes in.
Theetge said the task force, operating through at least October, will be proactive, focused on preventing crimes before they occur, rather than solely reactive. Officers will be covert and respond in numbers to address criminal activity.
“There’s definitely demand for it,” Theetge said. “People in our city shouldn’t have to worry about coming downtown to have dinner and come back to their car to find out it got broken into.”
There has been increased attention on crime in the city since the killing of Patrick Heringer during a burglary of his Over-the-Rhine home June 4 and a spate of killings citywide that have followed.
The task force is a direct response to calls for additional police presence and resources in areas such as Downtown and Over-the-Rhine, where there have been nearly double the number of burglaries, breaking-and-entering incidents and thefts from cars so far this year.
Theetge said much of that crime is driven by youths, who she has said roam around neighborhoods, breaking into cars and looking for guns.
While violent crime is a focus for the task force, which has the majority of its officers from the city’s violent crime squads, Theetge has said property crimes such as car break-ins are a priority.
Police proactive task forces not a new thing for Cincinnati
It’s not the first time Cincinnati police, or other departments across the country, have established a task force to respond to an uptick in crime.
Cincinnati police operated what was called the “Vortex unit” for several years in the ’90s and 2000s. That unit conducted sweeps through high-crime areas such as Over-the-Rhine before criticism over its “zero-tolerance policing” strategy led to its disbandment.
Theetge said the roving task force is not the return of the Vortex unit but acknowledged the two share some similarities.
“Vortex did more drug investigations. They were a bit similar in that they addressed hot spots,” Theetge said. “This is more focused on the data driving us where to be and why. We did not have that capability to the degree that we do now.”
Following the data, Theetge plans to measure the task force’s success based on reversing the recent uptick in crime.
Task force to focus on stretch of Over-the-Rhine north of Liberty Street
Heringer’s widow, Sarah Heringer, has made public calls for proactive policing in her neighborhood of Over-the-Rhine off East McMicken Avenue. Theetge has indicated those calls are being answered.
North of Liberty Street, and for years surrounding a Shell gas station in between Vine and Walnut streets, has been a hot spot for criminal activity. Now, that stretch of the neighborhood will be one of the focus areas for the new task force, Theetge said.
As an example of one landmark in the area, 10 years ago, Cincinnati police were stopping at the Shell an average of 2.5 times per day. While that average has improved, officers still make an average of two visits every day to the gas station, according to an Enquirer review of calls for service.
Earlier in June, two people were shot, one fatally, on Walnut Street near the Shell station. The other man who was shot told The Enquirer – on the condition of anonymity because he fears retaliation – he is a rideshare driver who was struck as he was driving by. A bullet came through his windshield and hit him in the shoulder, he said.
Theetge’s 30-plus-year career with the Cincinnati police has followed Over-the-Rhine’s continued redevelopment up toward and beyond Liberty Street. As it continues, Theetge says the roving task force will continue to address pockets of crime and said police are an integral part of pushing that development forward.
“It’s a slow process. It’s slow progress. But it’s absolutely doable,” Theetge said. “Whatever the police can do to facilitate that development, we’re committed to doing that.”
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Here’s the top priority for Cincinnati’s new police task force, according to Chief Theetge
Reporting by David Ferrara, Cincinnati Enquirer / Cincinnati Enquirer
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
