PAX Centurion - Summer 2017

Page 22 • PAX CENTURION • Summer 2017 617-989-BPPA (2772) From Computers on page 21 they can “muddle through” a basic report, filling in information to satisfy the computer’s requirements (but that may not be available or pertinent), but are completely flummoxed when an arrest or a more complex report is required. With these additional burdens dumped on a short-staffed patrol-force consumed with backed-up radio calls, fixed-post commitments, mandatory Code 19’s, etc. etc.; many harried officers report that they are frequently called off, in the middle of writing one report, to handle a waiting 911 call that engenders yet another report, backing up the process even further. The bottom line is that more and more frustrated and angry officers are spending more time tied to a computer than out on the streets. The BPD admits there were- and are- problems. BPD media relations Lieutenant Det. Michael McCarthy was quoted in the Globe article as saying that “Twenty minutes to complete a report was the norm. Now similar reports can take longer” and “ [The old system] was simply easier to use”, he said. McCarthy said. Commissioner Evans has been soliciting feedback from officers at roll calls. (God forbid that then-Commisioner Ed Davis had such a stroke of intellectual brilliance during his tenure.) But many officers may not be willing to criticize any of upper management’s efforts to “improve” the existing system, for a variety of reasons. Therefore, on behalf of the frustrated and overburdened police officers represented by the BPPA, may we respectfully offer the following suggestions (which will be instantly disregarded once the source is credited, but we’ll try anyways…) 1.) Call screening: we had it years ago, when police officer dispatchers took 911 reports of routine, non-emergency incidents over the phone and later on, after a call-back, sent them to the call- screening unit to be churned into official police reports for record- keeping purposes. Most of these reports were either for crimes which were unsolvable, “stale” in terms of response time, should be directed to the CSO office for a more focused response, or for insurance purposes, e.g.: hit and run/auto damage, etc. There are currently many light-duty/injured and older officers who can use their police instincts and experience to ask the right questions to determine whether a call-in report is sufficient, should be directed elsewhere or requires an actual on-scene police response, investigation and validation. Street officers would remain…on the street. 2.) Make the computer work for the cops, not the other way around: Cops enforce the law and arrest criminals (or they used to, anyway…). Software engineers, on the other hand, love to write cumbersome programs with lots of extraneous information that they can marvel over and tell each other how brilliant they are. Unfortunately, the bells and whistles and emoticons which bring such joy to I.T. people are a source of pain and angst to cops who simply want to obtain and report, in the infamous words of Dragnet’s Det. Joe Friday and his sidekick Bill Gannon, “just the facts, ma’am, just the facts…”. In this day and age, the computer should be working for us, not the other way around. Arrest information should flow seamlessly into a police report and a court complaint application with the click of a few buttons, with all related photos and information needed for a simple report. (Is that a revolutionary idea?) Example: we need not check off the required prompt- button for “cargo theft” as “Y” or “N” every time we arrest a run-of-the-mill scumbag on the Common. (Although when 54 pairs of cargo pants were stolen fromAbercrombie’s and the report writer hit the “Yes” button for “cargo theft” … in good-humored jest…- he entered police-report cyberspace hell, so don’t go there, even for a joke…) 3.) Lost your cell phone? The cell phone companies tell their customers they need a copy of a police report from customers reporting a lost cell phone. This results in thousands of man-hours of police time lost to writing reports of missing cell phones. If no crime is related to the missing cell phone, why are we taking these reports? Simply establish an on-line reporting system subject to the pains and penalties of perjury (which will never be sought by the cellphone companies) or tell people to file reports with their own providers. And tell Verizon andA.T.+T. to stop wasting our officers’ time… 4.) Police officers are not insurance adjusters: Many a police report has NOTHING to do with any crime and is merely another piece of paper required by an insurance company to deny or approve (usually deny) a claim. Recently, BPD officers have been instructed to write reports for all car accident damage above $1,000.00. Not being a claims adjuster, I’m not sure what constitutes $1,000.00 in damage, but I’m pretty sure a paint scratch can quickly become over $1G when labor costs at Bob’s Auto Repair and Diner are fully accrued, therefore, this means that virtually EVERY fender bender or paint scratch incurred by anyone in the City of Boston now requires a police response and a police report, which further ties up the few remaining response units. (Until recently, car accidents of a non-criminal nature were matters of a simple paper exchange between the involved parties, and were “misc-eled” with a “14-Paul” clearance code by the responding police unit.) Insurance adjusters and State Registry record-keepers love the information provided by the police, but don’t recognize or appreciate the time it takes to amass and document each car accident, bumped fender or paint scratch. Again, another task dumped on the police, -quasi insurance adjuster- designed to ease the job of the insurance co. 5.) Some people collect police reports: Yes, there are those people who know the system, play it for all it’s worth, and use the police as their proxy to get whatever they want. There are people who have been told by the pharmacies to report their “missing” drugs to the police so they can get another refill. There are people involved in landlord-tenant battles who use the police to document grievances- real, perceived and imagined- against their landlord. And others use the police to document “incidents” which allegedly occur against them so they can move out of a certain public-housing complex and into a more desirable locale. The “threat” of perjury charges for filing a false police report is virtually nil as most of their allegations simply cannot be proven or disproven, and they know it…. 6.) Climate change will be halted: Increased use of energy from paper copiers has resulted in a rise in the CO 2 levels. Paper usage has tripled and quadrupled since the inception of this new and improved computer program. Simplifying the report-writing process will result in fewer exasperated officers belching their displeasure into the ozone layer and reduce the average police report to one page. (Since everybody else is blaming climate change for everything, I’d thought I’d try, too…) These, and many other outstanding ideas born of experience and high intellect await the BPD for inclusion in the vast panoply of intradepartmental coagulation and “should be implemented without significant modification and oversight of deliverables” (to borrow a phrase from the BPD…Good job, Lt.!). Kindly contact us at 617- 989-2772 for further information…. BPPA demands more complex, time-consuming, frustrating, non-user-friendly computer system…