Improving safety and quality of life for all

Public safety is one of the most important functions of government. As city manager of Cedar Rapids, I am concerned about the community's perception of crime and the safety of our neighborhoods.

We have not been immune to the national trend in the increase of violence. The number of shots fired incidents is concerning so we have taken a number of steps as a community to address this issue. One important component of recognizing and addressing this concern is the formation of the police department's Police Community Action Team, or PCAT. This is an example, working with our city council, neighborhoods, and police department, that we are taking actionable steps to promote a safer community.

PCAT has been operational since Jan. 9 and has been deployed into neighborhoods to address problems, specifically crime and quality of life issues. Four police officers and a police sergeant are assigned to the highly visible, proactive geographic and group-based law enforcement team. PCAT is using strategies that have been shown to be successful in the Kansas City No Violence Alliance, such as addressing individuals and groups that have been involved in violent crime activity. PCAT officers are not assigned to a specific shifts or police beats, but rather have the flexibility to get at the root causes of neighborhood issues based on crime trends and collection of intelligence information.

Crime prevention is a key component of the success of PCAT. To illustrate, think about how firefighters teach citizens how to prevent fires in the kitchen by making sure that you never leave cooking food unattended and, if a grease fire breaks out in a pan, you cover the fire with a lid to put it out. It is difficult to measure exactly how many fires and injuries have been prevented, yet often we hear about a family that avoided a tragedy because they had a plan and they were prepared.

Similarly, PCAT officers that have already been spending time in neighborhoods where violence has occurred. Officers have been actively engaging citizens. Many citizens who have been frustrated or fed up with violence in their neighborhoods have been sharing information which PCAT officers. This intelligence information has then been communicated among all police officers.

At the same time, PCAT officers have invested significant time and engaged in 55 foot patrols of areas where crime analytics have indicated violence has occurred previously. Through February, officers have proactively addressed suspicious activity by interacting with 138 individuals. Officers have made dozens of arrests involving 109 charges, including 23 warrant charges in less than two months.

Therefore, using the fire prevention analogy, PCAT is making a concerted effort to make sure that potential issues are not left unattended and, at the same time, they have already put a lid on some hot spots. This effort has prevented some issues from percolating and escalating to violence in our community over the past two months.

PCAT is just one strategy that we are using to reduce violence. We will always seek innovative ways as a city and a community to end violence. All the solutions will not and cannot come from municipal government, which is why there are several initiatives that are spearheaded by citizens who want to promote a safer community. Yet, the formation of PCAT as well as other city and police initiatives, demonstrates our commitment to improving safety and the quality of life for all citizens.

' Jeff Pomeranz is city manager of Cedar Rapids. Comments: citymanager@cedar-rapids.org; (319) 286-5080