ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, June 1, 1996 TAG: 9606030051
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DIANE STRUZZI STAFF WRITER
Diverting on-duty police officers to patrol Festival in the Park has left night and weekend shifts inadequately staffed, creating a potential safety problem, some veteran officers with the Roanoke Police Department say.
The two-week festival requests up to four on-duty officers to work some shifts. That reduces the number of officers patrolling the city - in some instances by nearly 25 percent, the officers say.
"The only way this will be resolved is if [a resident] has a problem and it takes police 20 or 30 minutes to get there," one said.
The five officers interviewed for this story have requested anonymity because they fear repercussions from supervisors.
Police Department lieutenants say the officers' claims are exaggerated and reflect their lack of understanding of how police work with the festival.
The schedules of at least 13 officers were changed to beef up various shifts during the past two weeks, according to Lt. Reece Ross. He said his records do not indicate that any shift has been, or will be, depleted by as much as 25 percent.
Specialized police divisions, such as the Community Oriented Policing Effort team, and detectives with criminal investigations are not affected by festival duty, Ross said.
Some evening shifts may lose extra patrol cars during the festival, but that's not really a decrease in the shift, he said.
There is a "comfort zone" with the extra patrol cars that officers get used to, he said. "When it's cut, some officers may say, `We're losing people.' But in actuality we're not."
The officers interviewed for this story say that is untrue. Numbers they provided show that evening shifts dropped between 16 and 24 percent, depending on whether three or four officers were assigned to the festival.
"It's an accident waiting to happen," one officer said. "Everyone is reactionary instead of proactive. Nobody will do anything until someone gets hurt."
On the evening shift, officers respond to an average of 100 calls. No call has ever gone unanswered, according to officers and city officials.
But during the festival, patrol units in one district may be pulled off to answer calls in another district. At certain busy times, some neighborhoods are left without patrol or with one officer covering more than one district, the officers said.
On the night of May 25, two of the city's 13 districts - one in Southeast and another in South Roanoke - were covered by only one patrol unit, according to an officer.
"Your response time suffers, and your high visibility suffers," the officer said.
Festival organizers use about 47 on-duty officers during the two-week period and hire an additional 93 off-duty officers who volunteer for the work.
Lt. Ramey Bower, who coordinates the department's coverage for Tour DuPont and Festival in the Park, said about a third of the officers who work the festival are taken off their regular duty for only an hour.
Festival organizers pay off-duty officers $18 an hour to work, which is more than what most patrol officers earn during a regular shift. That disparity raises the ire of many on-duty officers.
Ross said he understands the concern about that difference. But that's the nature of being a police officer, he said. Working the festival is like working any other major function in the city, including Tour DuPont or any of the more than 300 parades that city officers staff.
"It doesn't make it less safe for any platoon," Bower said.
He and Ross say the officers' concerns never have been brought to any supervisor's attention before this.
Some officers who patrol the street say supervisors are aware of it. And while there has been no major incident during the festival, they say, they want to bring attention to the problem before something happens.
"My concern is what could happen - not what did or didn't happen," one officer said. "Someone can get hurt."
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