New Cedar Rapids police team building relationships

CEDAR RAPIDS - One of the tenets of community-oriented policing is building relationships with the citizens officers serve.

As such, Cedar Rapids Police Chief Wayne Jerman made community building a priority when the department formed its Police Community Action Team, a 5-person patrol team tasked with tackling crime trends and quality of life issues in the city. While members of the team are patrol officers, they do not generally respond to regular calls for service, allowing them more time to delve into issues that arise and foster community relationships.

Six months after the team began patrolling the city, those relationship-building efforts are bearing fruit.

'These officers are being called directly by individuals within the city,” Jerman said. '(Citizens) are very willingly calling these officers to talk with them.

'That is huge,” he said.

The team - comprised of Sgt. Doug Doyle and four veteran officers - hit the streets on Jan. 9. Six months later, statistics show the unit has kept busy. Jerman said as of June 10, officers assigned to the team have conducted 260 foot patrols - most of which occurred when the weather became more accommodating - and stopped to speak with people 549 times.

'That's probably on the low end,” Jerman said. 'When they're doing foot patrols, they may encounter people who don't get logged in as a stop.”

Forty-four field interviews have been submitted and team members have responded to 152 calls for service. They've seized four guns and $3,334. The team has served 138 arrest warrants and made 15 arrests for theft, seven for weapons charges, eight for drug distribution offenses and 50 on drug possession charges.

'I think their stats are very, very impressive,” Jerman said. 'What is more impressive, in my view, is the relationships and contacts they are making within the community. They gather information, they share the information with other police officers, they interact and assist investigators with some serious investigations.”

Added Doyle, 'I never want to see crime actually occur, but when it does occur and the victims and suspects are requesting to speak with a PCAT officer, I think that goes to show the relationships we've built with them. It brings a smile to my face to know my guys are doing a good job. They're taking (the PCAT) name to heart, trying to build relationships.”

THREE-PRONGED APPROACH

The PCAT concept is one Jerman imported from the Montgomery County Police Department in Maryland. In 1994, Jerman was the original commander of Montgomery County's PCAT.

'What we did back in Maryland was put it in at-risk neighborhoods and focus directly on crime and quality-of-life issues,” he said. 'It was proved to be extremely successful within those at-risk communities. It took off.”

Jerman said Montgomery County eventually established two community action teams and, as he was leaving to lead the Cedar Rapids Police Department in 2012, the department was in the process of implementing district level community action teams in each of it's six districts.

Doyle and Jerman said PCAT has a three-pronged approach. There are the relationship building and enforcement aspects, but also a deterrence factor borrowed from the Kansas City No Violence Alliance. That model involves identifying individuals who might be at-risk of becoming involved with crime and reaching out to the individual and their families.

'We sit down and explain to the family we have a true desire to keep them safe,” Doyle said. 'We don't want them to cause harm to anyone else.”

Doyle has a list of resources, such as employment opportunities and job training, to which he can refer those individuals in order to steer them away from a life of crime.

'Some of those have gone really well to the point where we've had those sit downs, we've had those talks and we've never had contact with them again,” Doyle said. 'And some of them are people who you're not going to change their outlook on life. We tell them, ‘If you continue down that crime path, you're going to see more and more of us.' They're seeing that's true.”

FOCUS ON GUN VIOLENCE

Cedar Rapids City Manager Jeff Pomeranz praised the work of the PCAT officers.

'The number of citizen contacts and enforcement efforts are a great indication of the success of PCAT in just the first six months of their inception,” he said. 'Just as importantly, they have also made inroads with intelligence information gathering and building relationships with the community. This is one of the primary goals of the team and the entire police department - to further community engagement and cooperation among law enforcement, social service agencies, community groups and others concerned about violence.”

One of the main areas of focus for PCAT has been gun violence in the city, something that historically flares up in the summer months. With that in mind, Doyle said citizens can expect to see even more foot patrols from PCAT officers.

'I see that doubling, if not tripling, over the summer,” he said, adding officers will be out on bikes, as well.

Doyle said the PCAT concept of community building and information gathering won't be limited to just his four officers.

'If you add in the work that the other 202 police officers on the department are doing, we are hopefully on pace to make a difference on gun violence,” he said.

By the numbers

The Cedar Rapids Police Department's Police Community Action Team hit the streets beginning Jan. 9. Here is a look at some of the teams key statistics through its first six months of operation:

5 - Officers on the team

260 - Foot patrols conducted

549 - Visits with area residents

44 - Field interviews submitted

152 - Calls for service

4 - Guns confiscated

$3,334 - Money seized

138 - Warrants served

15 - Arrests for theft

7 - Arrests for weapons

8 - Drug distribution arrests

50 - Drug possession arrests