The Three Wise Men and IMPD

Indianapolis City-County Councilors William Oliver, Vernon Brown, and Joe Simpson asked some very strange questions during the September 18^th, 2012 Public Safety Committee meeting.  They wanted to know the number of officers that live in their respective council districts.  William Oliver claimed he never observes any police vehicles parked in residential driveways in his zip code “46218”, indicating officers don’t live within his council district. Vernon Brown stated that a vast majority of IMPD officers live in Franklin, Perry and Decatur Township and requested the number of officers living in those council districts as well.

While I’m always impressed with the vast knowledge and speaking ability of these 3 “road scholars”, I question the purity of their motives regarding this information request.  The context of this information request came at a time in the budget hearing when the Public Safety Committee was discussing the IMPD take-home-car policy and a November 1^st fuel surcharge implementation.  In addition Joe Simpson “eloquently” criticized the common practice of off-duty officers working part-time jobs while using departmental resources.  Chief Hite actually admonished Simpson and reminded him that the part-time officers are a “force multiplier” for our over-burdened police department.

Why the information request and criticism of part-time work by these 3 “Wise Men”?  Officers should probably brace themselves for a Democrat push to have their take-home-cars restricted or removed simply because Brown, Oliver and Simpson don’t have a comparable number of officers living in their council districts.  What the 3 Wise Men don’t realize is they have inadvertently proven the FOP’s long-standing argument that off-duty officers driving take-home-cars and working part-time is a crime deterrent and has a great public safety value; if even to project the perception of a large and robust police force.  However, if Oliver, Brown, and Simpson can’t have it in their districts then no one will.  William Oliver actually asked an IMPD official during this meeting if he could get an old, non-functioning, marked police car to park in his neighborhood to help prevent crime.  Not to worry Mr. Oliver, if you and your Democrat friends continue to try and remove this valuable community asset of police take-home-cars, officers just may give you want you want.

Oliver, Brown and Simpson’s three council districts get a far greater number of on-duty officers than the entire townships of Franklin, Perry and Decatur combined; and yet those three townships pay vastly more in taxes to support police services.  Is Councilor Oliver actually ignorant of why officers don’t live in his district!?  Why would any officer want to live in a community that doesn’t value the same things they do?  Most officers want their families to live in neighborhoods where there are actual families with mothers and fathers raising youth that respect authority and the Christian principle of doing to others as you would have them do unto you.

The 9/18/12 questions and comments from these three councilors typify the problem with many of our inner-city Democrat elected leaders; they are selfish and looking for handouts; and if they don’t get what they want, they punish everyone else.  IMPD is noticeably short on manpower and The 3 Wise Men would have no problem trying to remove or change a policy (take-home-cars) that is a force multiplier for an over-burdened police department simply because officers don’t live in their district.  Indianapolis-Marion County politics at its best!