Metropolitan Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey today issued the following statement on his plans to re-allocate police resources to better match demands for service.
On November 7, the Metropolitan Police Department begins a new deployment system that will substantially increase the number of police officers on the street during evening and weekend hours, which are busiest in terms of crime and calls for service. This represents a one-month delay in my original plans to roll out the new deployment plan. I have listened to the concerns of officers and command staff about how the plan would be implemented. The majority agree that changes have to be made in our deployment of resources. The question is how we go about implementing those changes.
The plan itself is not negotiable. I am in no way backing down from my commitment to have more officers on duty during the days of the week and the hours of the day when the demand for police service is greatest. A recent analysis by our Department found wide disparities under our current system between the deployment of our resources and the demands for our services. For example, while 42 percent of the priority calls for service occur during the evening shift (4 pm to midnight), only about 31 percent of our officers are currently assigned to that shift. And while more calls for service occur on Saturdays than on any other day of the week, we currently have far fewer officers working on Saturdays than we do on either Tuesdays, Wednesdays or Thursdays. It is not surprising, then, that the most frequent concern I hear from District residents is, "Where are the police?"
This question has serious implications for officer safety as well. Policing remains a very dangerous profession, particularly during those same high-crime, high-call periods. If one of our officers is threatened or injured, it is essential that there be officers available to provide swift and decisive backup.
Our new system of assigning shifts and days off will address the imbalances that have been allowed to develop over the years. In the future, more of our officers will be working during those time periods when crime and calls for service are greatest: the evening shift and a new "power shift," which runs from 6 pm until 2:30 am. More officers will also be working on weekends—particularly weekend evenings—and fewer on weekdays.
These new standards for allocating resources across days and shifts are non-negotiable. However, I have decided to provide each of my seven district commanders with the flexibility to decide how to implement their shift deployment schedule, as long as the districts meet the overall standards for allocating personnel across shifts. Over the next week, district commanders will be distributing an opinion poll to officers seeking their input on whether to have fixed or rotating shifts, or a combination of the two. The commanders will take the members' opinions into consideration in determining the most appropriate shift deployment approach for the needs of their district. But the bottom line remains the same in all districts: having officers on the street during the days of the week and the times of the day they are needed most.
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