A Comment on "Where Does Ellis Begin" by Anonymous

So where do you start? That is an excellent question and not easily answered. First hopefully everyone understands that homicide rates and police departments have little to do with one another. Numerous studies have been conducted and all say police tactics have little to no effect on the crime of homicide. Unfortunelty DeKalb County is going through a very difficult time at the moment. A large percentage of our citizens are unemployed, uneducated, and suffering from generations of despair and neglect. All of these social and economic problems have more of an impact on crime than the police department. The majority of the precincts show an increase in calls for service, citations, and arrests. Again this reiterates that simply writing more tickets and putting more people in jail will not solve your crime problem. Again alot of people need to start reading because numerous studies have been conducted in this area.

To put it bluntly the police department is in shambles. The only thing holding it together is the patrol officers, detectives and sergeants that show up everyday. The lieutenants are too busy generating piles of useless and redundant paperwork/reports to please someone in the command staff who most likey has already recieved the information from another source. Examples include the regurgitation of crime analysis numbers. One certain precinct, lets call it Tucker, has become so ridiculous if you asked for transfers I'm guessing that most supervisors would leave. Also, lets not forget that threats and attempts of intimidation department wide have become the preferred leadership style. Another fine example is the redundant use of so called significant activity reports. Let me get this straight, uniform responds, writes report, and supervisors are verbally notified and usually on scene. Then you go back to precinct and fill out significant report and forward to chief of police. Detectives respond, verbally notify supervisors, put on daily report and fill out significant report and forward to chief of police. Huh?? Again more duplication of needless paperwork. Can't speak about the so called "paperless" report writing system. I'm convinced the ozone depletion has to do with the loss of trees our paperless system has required.

Mr Ellis your work is indeed cut out for you. Hopefully you'll hire a new chief who is qualified for the position. The last 8 years have not been kind to this department. They are coming into a department that is on the brink of a total shutdown and mutiny. Our officer's morale is at an all time low. Our critical equipment (guns, vests, radio system, car laptops, tasers) are in need of upgrade or replacement, training facilities should be condemned and replaced, your command staff is considered by most to be grossly incompetent and/or appointed cronies. Funny how salary wasn't mentioned.