Operation Albatross
Posted by: Joseph Turner | 05/08/2007 10:58 AM
The San Bernardino Sun ran a story recently proclaiming a significant reduction in crime throughout the city of San Bernardino. Obviously, since the Mayor and the brass within the San Bernardino Police Department have absolutely no vested interest in seeing crime rates plummet, I am sure we can take these numbers provided in the just released annual report as the gospel truth.
Regardless, there was a peculiar addendum to the story with the following information:
The crime rate citywide dropped over 21%. However, the crime rate in the 20 block Operation Phoenix area only dropped 30%.
Mayor Pat Morris and company repeatedly trumpet the success of Operation Phoenix. But, at what cost? Our city is spending untold thousands of dollars on this project area and appears to only having a marginally greater impact.
This 20 block area is the "worst of the worst" and we are pumping resources and manpower into this tiny area. Yet, the crime rate is only slightly outperforming the city as a whole.
I think it is fair to ask if the return on investment warrants another look.
This is why many sports ban the use of performance enhancing drugs. Another form of doping is blood...
The real credit to the crime rate drop is owed to the County of San Bernardino and Sheriff Penrod who is loaning SB City more than a dozen deputies that do not play games and know how to clean up a city...look at Adelanto.
If Penrod wanted he could take over the whole SB City PD.