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Comments
Jim
I don’t think any money should be diverted from the police budget. Maybe it should be increased. Our local police department does a tremendous job in this community. What needs to be addressed across the entire country is bad police officers that hide behind their unions and arbitration. If our city and others across this nation take away our police we will fall back to the 1800’s and people will be packing guns everywhere they go. I am behind our local police force and those across the nation 100%.
sw
@Jim
I think you are right in that Mac PD does a wonderful job in fighting crime, however there is opportunity to look at moving from fighting crime to preventing individuals sliding in to a life of crime.
In Mac, most of the police calls and problems are to about 100 or so people-usually they will have a history of trauma (abuse, neglect, illness etc). A lot of the police work, ends up as some form of social work, which officers try their best to deal with but they aren't mental health or social workers.
The old saying is an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.
snobrdhideout@aol.com
Watch this one Mcminnviens,
McMinnville has received no serous problems that hasn't been nipped in the bud in it's early infancy, we are a small bedroom community off Portland,
living peacefully with an excellent Police Department that we are proud of and we don't need any of the problems as NY & other States are experiencing. Love our City, Support it and thank an Officer for watching over our City while you sleep peacefully in the night hours. NO DIVERTING FUNDS THE POLICE BUDGET !
MP
While there is room for improvement in every organization, city leaders should avoid taking actions that result in unintended consequences negatively impacting the ability of our police department and other city agencies to deliver essential services to the community. Before any significant budget adjustments are made to the McMinnville Police Department (MPD), it may be time to conduct a formal "capabilities review" of the MPD. This review would identify specific capabilities the MPD must have going forward in time - informed by Oregon state law/statutes, capstone documents like Mac-Town 2032 Strategic Plan, community input, and police department recommendations. With 26 patrol officers covering a population of 35,000, the MPD does not posses the resources to effectively train to and perform an unlimited set of tasks. A capability review would determine which core tasks the MPD should perform, and which tasks should be divested to other entities with more suitable skill sets. My vantage point on this is as a former (now retired) strategic planner for the U.S. Marine Corps. Every 3-4 years, the Marine Corps convenes a capability review group that resets capabilities (e.g., tanks, artillery, aviation, etc) to support the National Defense Strategy. Approved capability changes are then programmed into the annual budget building cycle. Finally, I would like to thank the men and women of the MPD for their dedicated service to our community!
Fancydog1
I agree with you 100% Jim
TTT
The State of Oregon mental health system was defunded long ago. We now rely upon Officers, Deputies, and Troopers to fill this gap; McMinnville is no exception. The Officers at MPD spend too much time dealing with mental health issues which significantly reduces their ability to Patrol and investigate crimes. The Patrol Officers are investigating crimes because there are too few Detectives to pick up these cases from Patrol. The pool of Officers and Detectives is very small for a city with this population. This number includes a small population of mentally ill, chronically homeless, and drug-addicted individuals who consume a disproportionate amount of Law Enforcement resources.
So in response to the person who shouted in the audience, in my opinion if you wish for the police to proactively deal with challenges, fund the areas you see fit before you defund the Police. If you think defunding the Police is a solution to this problem, doing so too quickly will leave a service gap I believe you would find more unacceptable.
RobsNewsRegister
TTT - You are right on. Instead of de-funding the police we should actually be funding mental heath services for the severely mentally ill making them chronically homeless. I still can't believe we force police to take care of them and use our jails for their temporary housing. That is in essence what we are doing.
Rumpelstilzchen
We do not have a lot of the problems here that have triggered the protests elsewhere. But given the attention paid to this across the nation, there is a good opportunity to look at improvements, and I commend the chief for being aware of that.
Sometimes it‘s little things that communicate the wrong message in big ways. Whose idea was the relatively recent new all-black appearance of the patrol cars? A dreadful decision. Together with the almost-all-black uniforms, the friendliest officer presents threat and domination. I understand that in certain tactical situations (which rarely occur in McMinnville) intimidation plumage can be advantageous, but most police interactions with citizens aren‘t that. It sends the wrong messsge, and not to miscreants.
Pedro
I think defunding the police would set us so far back we would likely not recover. The legislature writes laws and statutes (ORS) that officers work in their confines if people are unhappy with the power law enforcement has they need to go to the people giving the power.
tagup
I don’t think the laws are the issue....it’s the application of laws and the procedures used for public contact...
tagup
**by Law enforcement**
Finch
Woke up this morning to the tail end of a news story on the national news that Portland is cutting around $50 million (don't quote me on that) from the police budget. The two idiotic things that stuck out of the short clip I caught was that they will be "sending in counselors instead of police" and that the "protestors wanted them to cut more"!! Inmates running the asylum. This is not the crazy world I care to live in. Police around this country are retiring and quitting right and left. To see the disgrace of Seattle with CHOP and the enablers that are not only giving them a section of the city but sending in supplies and food is nuts.
tagup
Finch- doesn’t it make sense for Police to handle crime, and social workers handle mental health?......
Finch
Actions, consequences, decisions, personal responsibility, enabling, money that falls from the sky, etc.
McMinnville resident
School teachers and policemen have difficult jobs that are easy to criticize. In general I think they need more respect and support.
Finch
I completely agree with you.