Dwindling of police hinders plans for relationship building

President Barack Obama’s push to mend relations between police and struggling communities faces a challenge: Cities like Jennings have fewer officers around to create goodwill.

The community of 15,000 near Ferguson, where racial animosity toward police resulted in rioting last week, has cut its force 10 percent since 2009. Officers have less time to patrol on foot and meet residents. Instead, they patrol the four square miles in cruisers with the windows rolled down.

“We would like to have more police, but the budgets are a challenge,” said Lt. Jeff Fuesting, who runs the Jennings Police Department. “We’d love to have police officers on foot patrols. We just don’t have the luxury.”

The thin blue line of America’s police has grown thinner since the recession. Cities slashed budgets as federal grants faded and tax collections tumbled. That left 390,000 police officers by 2013, 14 percent fewer than four years earlier, according to FBI figures.

“The number of police do matter,” said George Kelling, a fellow at New York’s Manhattan Institute who has been a law-enforcement consultant. “They go from serious problem to serious problem and they don’t have the opportunity to be meeting with the decent citizens in the community. That begins to change the attitudes of police officers.”

Sclerotic Congress

Those attitudes have become a matter of national debate since looting and conflict erupted after a grand jury declined to charge white Ferguson officer Darren Wilson in the August shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black 18-year-old. Demonstrators marched nationwide, saying the episode reflected tactics both heavy handed and long resented.

On Dec. 1, Obama met with civil-rights groups, police and mayors to focus on what he called “simmering distrust.” The president promised tougher oversight of police purchases of military equipment, whose use inflamed tensions in Ferguson, and will ask Congress for a three-year, $263 million package that includes money for body cameras for officers.

Support for local law-enforcement has waned as Congress descended into political paralysis.

The Justice Department’s main law-enforcement grant programs dropped to $1.24 billion in the 2014 budget year, down from $2.12 billion in 2010, according to Nick Jacobs, an analyst with the Washington-based Federal Funds Information for States, which tracks the payments. Among them are programs for community-oriented policing, which dropped to $214 million from $792 million in 2010.

Jim Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police union, said keeping feet on the street is crucial.

“Building trust in the community is very labor intensive,” he said. “Good intentions won’t get it done. Only police officers will get it done, and that takes money.”

While the recovering economy and rising real-estate prices have allowed some cities to hire in the wake of the 18-month recession, local governments as a whole have yet to replace lost jobs. In October, they employed 473,000 fewer people than in mid-2008.

In 2012, three years after the end of the economic contraction, 40 percent of law-enforcement agencies were still cutting budgets, according to the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington group.

Painful contraction

Tucson police reassigned crime-prevention and school-resource officers and stopped attending some neighborhood watch meetings after losing 111 officers since 2009, Chief Roberto Villasenor said.

“You can’t suffer that type of cut and not have an impact on your community-policing efforts,” he said.

The Montgomery County Police Department in Maryland redeployed its entire outreach unit, which hurt its ability to connect with Latinos and other minorities, said Chief J. Thomas Manger. Securing money for community policing can be hard if residents believe it comes at the expense of direct crimefighting, he said. “That may change with what occurred in Ferguson,” he said.

Oakland, California, dismissed 80 officers four years ago, eliminated most foot patrol, scaled back investigations and stopped enforcing routine traffic laws, Chief Sean Whent said last month.

While a federal grant will increase ranks to 722 officers, that’s still 53 fewer than before the cuts.

“The recession hit the country hard, but Oakland was hit very hard,” Whent said. “There still is a higher volume of need than what we’re able to handle effectively.”

Troubled Department

In Missouri, such drawdowns have been widespread. About one-fifth of city departments had fewer officers in 2013 than in 2009, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigations data.

Jennings, a St. Louis suburb where 22 percent of the residents live in poverty and 89 percent are black, illustrates the difficulties.

Officials there handed control of the department to St. Louis County in 2011, after a review found financial misconduct and tension between the largely white force and residents.

Jennings, which still must pay for operations, has faced budget shortfalls for five of the past seven years. Its police contingent shrank to 35 officers in 2013, four fewer than in 2009, even as the population grew, according to FBI data.

To balance its books, the city relied on court fees and fines exacted from citizens. Such revenue increased to $1.1 million last year from $413,443 in 2008, making it the city’s second-largest revenue stream after sales taxes.

Brown’s shooting three miles away strained relations between police and residents, said Rodney Epps, a member of the City Council.

“We used to look up to police officers,” said Epps, who is black. “Now you see the protesting around this country.”

Fuesting, commander of the force, said the city has the bare minimum to keep the peace. In addition to having more officers patrol from their cars, he also relies on volunteer neighborhood watches.

The number of serious crimes in the city has declined by almost 30 percent since 2011, he said. Yet Jeremy Smith, a 19-year-old who lives blocks away from the department, said relations remain fraught. He has mixed emotions whenever cruisers drive by.

“It’s good to have police around,” he said. “I just hope they wouldn’t think about harassing me.”

With assistance from Tim Jones in Chicago, Chris Christoff in Lansing, Alison Vekshin in San Francisco and Henry Goldman in New York.