Robert Rogers of the San Bernardino Sun previews a story to run this weekend in the Sun about San Bernardino crime up year over year, while arrests are down.

Through the first ten months of the 2007, serious crimes number 1,842 versus 1,734 during the same period of 2006.

Rogers fails to provide any details or numbers with respect to arrests.

Frankly, arrests and crime are an interesting discussion.  Ideally, you want arrests to be down, I mean nobody wants to see arrests rise, do they?  However, you also want to see that crime is going down.

Additionally, there have been some concerns and frustrations expressed over the recent crime statistics with more than one person suggesting that Chief Bildt and the brass within the department have aggressively massaged the classifications of crimes into lower level offenses that are not "Part 1" crimes and are thus not reported.  Chief Bildt is accountable to Mayor Morris and obviously there is a vested interest in reporting a decrease in crime in the city.

As I understand the City Charter, and I may be mistaken, Bildt can only be fired by Mayor Morris.  Even if the council unanimously agreed to remove Chief Billdt, they would be unable to do so.

Regardless, it is puzzling to see crime up and arrests down.  What are the explanations?

Perhaps, Chief Bildt has failed to develop an adequate plan to address our crime problem.  Is rank and file morale diminished to the point where it is having a direct impact on work output?  Are our police officers spending too much time reacting to crime, instead of proactively preventing it?  Do our police officers feel as if they are left unprotected and abandoned by our elected officials when they find themselves in dicey situations?

I have heard repeated tales of highly trained and highly paid police officers wasting their time responding to cold calls like burglary, vandalism, etc.  Instead of actively "patrolling" for criminals and being on the look out for things and persons out of the ordinary, our officers are driving all over town and treated like glorified paper pushers.  Why aren't we using other personnel for these particular situations and freeing up our officers to actively seek out criminals, crime and mischief?

Lately, especially on the Westside, whenever a police officer attempts to do his job and keep our community safe, our elected officials trip over the tongues and drool all over themselves to appease some malcontents who are never satisfied with the performance of our police officers.  Officers are left to hang out to dry by our mayor and the brass, denied legal representation, etc.

Thus, officers are discouraged from doing what it is that we want them to do...

I do not know the root cause for why arrests are down and crime is up.  Perhaps, it is time for some tough questions and time to demand real answers.