The red, white and blue lights on the top of the two patrol cars swirled, illuminating the intersection of Walden Avenue and Harmonia Street the night of Aug. 10.
A lieutenant and two patrol officers
walked around. Drivers slowed and peered out their windows. A worker at the
convenience store on the corner stepped outside.
But it wasn't a 911 call that drew the
police to Walden Avenue that night.
Buffalo police officers on duty at a micro hot spot, a pinpoint area where there's a higher concentration of violent crime on Aug. 10, 2022, reported the The Buffalo News.
They were in that precise location
because police identified it as a "micro hot spot." Since June, two
people were shot and another stabbed within about a block of that intersection
– a sign there could be more violence in the future.
The officers' assignment: park their
cars, put on their lights, walk around and talk to whoever is out and
about.
"We're trying to make a
presence," said Officer Ann Devaney, who, along with her partner, Officer
Andrew Moffett, and Lt. Jim Otwell, spent about 15 minutes at the
intersection.
Officer Ann Devaney assigned on post to
a micro hot spot, a pinpoint area where there's a higher concentration of
violent crime on Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2022.
Minh Connors / Buffalo News
The idea: Put police officers in the
places where there has been recent gun violence.
The police aren't there to ticket
drivers and arrest people, although they can if they see a crime in progress or
a traffic violation. But that's not the point.
"Our presence alone will act as a
deterrence for any other gun violence," Police Commissioner Joseph
Gramaglia said.
After two years of near record-high
numbers of shootings in Buffalo, gun violence is on the decline in the city,
even when the May 14 massacre at Tops Markets on Jefferson Avenue that left
10 dead and three more shot is factored in.
Police officers on duty at a micro hot
spot, a pinpoint area where there's a higher concentration of violent crime on
Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2022.
Shootings are down about 36% in the
first seven months of this year, compared to 2021, according to Buffalo police
data. For the month of July, usually one of the busiest for crimes, the number
of people who were shot was down 65%, compared to both 2020 and 2021. Shootings
in cities across the state outside of New York City have overall shown a
decrease in shootings, but Albany and Syracuse have continued to see increases,
according to data from the state.
Basing crime fighting tactics on hot
spots has critics. Advocates for criminal justice reform have raised
questions, saying they lead to disproportionate arrests and ticketing in poor
communities of color. There's a years-long lawsuit pending against the Buffalo
Police Department over traffic checkpoints in mostly minority neighborhoods.
The grid
The Buffalo Police Department began
employing their new strategy about a year ago, amid an increase in shootings.
It was based on an approach used by the Dallas Police Department.
Patrol officers were sent to areas
where shootings had previously been reported to act as a physical deterrent to
more crime.
At the same time, Buffalo police,
working with the Erie County Sheriff's Office, State Police, the FBI and ATF,
concentrated investigations on the "trigger pullers and gun
traffickers," as Gramaglia calls those responsible for most of the gun
violence in the city, roughly 75 people, according to police estimates. The law
enforcement agencies executed search warrants and filed charges, in state and
federal courts, to get some of those accused of violence off the streets.
The violence continued, but seemed to
be slowing down.
In March, after Gramaglia became the
new commissioner, he began fine-tuning the hot spot strategy.
It all begins with a digital map of the
city, created with the help of data from the Erie Crime Analysis Center, a
state-funded center that provides data and intelligence to the Buffalo Police
Department.
First, the city is divided up into a
grid of about 4,700 500-foot-by-500-foot squares. That's about the size of a
small city block, in many cases smaller than a block.
Then, they overlay all of the shootings
on the map – red for shootings with injuries or deaths and blue for "shots
fired."
The dots include data on the date and
time of the shootings, which are used to create a "timed heat map."
The more recent the incident, the bigger the dot. The map is updated in real
time as officers file their reports.
Looking at data over the previous 90
days, the police can pinpoint "micro hot spots."
Once a week, the data is shared and
discussed at intelligence briefings, which are held on a rotating basis at the
department's five police districts. Patrol officers are part of those meetings.
"Who knows more about what's going
on in a neighborhood than the unformed officers patrolling them?"
Gramaglia said.
They discuss which spots to target and
who will go where and when. The aim is to have officers going to hot spots
throughout the day, spending 10 to 15 minutes at each location. The assignments
are called "directed patrols."
Patrol officers are expected to do
directed patrols in between answering 911 calls. Other officers who are on
special details, such as those specifically aimed at reducing gun violence,
spend their shifts going on one directed patrol to the next. The patrols are
largely funded through grants from the state Department of Criminal Justice
Services.
Officers Joseph Walters and Rick Lopez,
both veteran cops with decades on the job, were on Broadway near Sears
Street, an area that's seen some extreme violence this summer. In June, two officers
driving on Broadway heard gunfire and found a mortally wounded man in front of
a laundromat in a strip mall at the intersection. The suspect then reportedly
fired shots at the officers through their windshield. Other officers chased the
suspect on foot through a parking lot to Playter Street and shot him multiple
times. He survived and has since been charged with murder, attempted murder and
illegal gun possession.
Lopez, a 37-year veteran and the second
most senior officer in the department, said he's seen a lot of new initiatives.
The directed patrols, he said, are like a new version of a foot patrol, where
precinct cops would spend their entire shifts walking around their designated
area.
"I started out the walking the
beat," Lopez said. "I didn't see the inside of a car for the first 18
months on the job."
He said the hot spots data give police
officers a chance to interact with the public, letting them get to know people
who live and work there as they return to the same locations. That's a key part
of the strategy, Gramaglia said.
It is not just sitting in a patrol car.
"You're getting out of the car,
engaging with any residents that are out there," Gramaglia said.
"You're engaging in
conversations," he added. "You're asking about problems that are
occurring."
There aren't enough officers to conduct
foot patrols in every neighborhood, he noted. The hot spot approach gives him
"the ability to have smaller doses of foot patrols in a more frequent
manner in the areas that are shown to have a higher propensity for gun
violence," he said.
Across town on the same Wednesday, Lt. Eric Hofschneider and officers Steven Zappia and Brenden Robinson were on a directed patrol on Herkimer and West Ferry streets.
"There have been quite a few shots
fired around here," Zappia said.
They said when they pulled up, they saw
a group of people gathered on a front yard on Herkimer. The people scattered
when they saw the police car approach. As they walked down the block, they
stopped to talk to a woman who seemed a little confused.
Hofschneider said he feels like the
patrols are getting noticed.
"We're being proactive," he
said. "Just our presence deters crime."
The falling gun violence numbers,
Gramaglia said, "speak for themselves." Earlier this month, a week
went by without any shootings in the city. The weekly shoot review meeting to analyze recent shootings was
canceled.
"I absolutely believe that this is
working," Gramaglia said.
To better gauge the hot spot strategy's
effectiveness, Gramaglia is working with Dr. Scott Phillips, a criminologist at
SUNY Buffalo State College. They have produced an initial report outlining the
strategy, and will revisit it as more data become available.
Brown said the micro hot spot strategy
should be a model for other cities, and he recently discussed it with Denver
Mayor Michael Hancock and Little Rock, Ark., Mayor Frank Scott Jr. in a virtual
panel on gun violence and citizen engagement.
"This approach is getting a lot of
attention," Brown said. "But I suspect if it continues to be as
success, as it has been, it will get even more attention nationally."
'A different vibe'
Lt. Mark Cyrek and Officer Kevin
Kindzierski walked up Thatcher Avenue, past a house where there was a fatal
shooting a month earlier. More recently, there was a confirmed "shots
fired" call on the street.
"Hi. How are you doing?" they
said to a woman as she got into her van, looking curiously at the officers and
the flashing lights of their car. A man stood outside in his driveway, checking
out the scene.
"I've been seeing the police out
here every night," sad the man, who identified himself only as Keith and
didn't want to give his full name, given the recent gun violence on his street.
He didn't witness or hear the shootings, he said. "But I heard about it," he added.
Keith said he's lived on Thatcher for
more than two decades and has seen all kinds of police activity over the years.
"They'd ticket you. Pat you
down," he recalled.
He said the recent patrols seem
different.
"They're friendlier. They drive by
and wave," he said. "I think it's better. I don't know if it works.
But I can feel the atmosphere. It's a different vibe."
Visualize Dom Delouise
in Blazing Saddles, yelling through megaphone. If you're quitting based on your
boss being mean and demanding , you probably didn't need the job, or have never
lived outside of academics or theater. People in both industries are known for
overblown drama.
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