Cedar Hill » News

By STEVE SNYDER
Wednesday, May 21, 2008 12:07 PM CDT

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News Editor

Feel safer in Cedar Hill? You should.

For the fifth year in a row, crime was down in the city. That was the key talking point of Cedar Hill Police Chief Steve Rhodes' annual report to the city.

“How safe are we?” Rhodes asked rhetorically during a presentation to the Cedar Hill City Council May 13.

Rhodes said the city's crime index, the number of serious crimes per 1,000 population, was down 9 percent in 2007 from 2006. Also, calls for service were down slightly.

Part I crimes include murder, rape and aggravated assault in crimes against people, and burglary, robbery, theft and motor vehicle theft among crimes against property.

Crimes against people were down more than 22 percent per 1,000 people and property crimes were down more than 8 percent.

Other highlights of the report, he said, included his department implementing 90 percent of the recommendations of a Buracker CBI Police Management Study within four months of getting the consultant's final report in July.

Rhodes said that most of the addressed recommendations had been completed.

Other police statistics for 2007 included a 5:45 average response time, from call to police to arrival at the scene, for the department's top two priority categories, down from 6:05 in 2006.

The improvement was totally due to the faster dispatch time. The time from call to officer dispatch dropped from 1:52 to 1:25.

Non-emergency response time was also quicker.

Related to that was the recommendation of monthly meetings with the regional 911 dispatch that serves Cedar Hill, DeSoto and Duncanville. Rhodes said the meetings likely had a part in speeding response time.

Rhodes said the redefining the boundaries of that police department's five beat areas also was a contributory factor to faster response times.

And, he said, on an experimental basis, the department was going to try assigning officers to regular beats.

In traffic and moving violations work, Rhodes said traffic accidents were down 14 percent in 2007, and down 34 percent on FM 1382.

The city's five red-light cameras recorded 8,338 violations in 2007. The intersection of Belt Line and Waterford Oaks roads had the heaviest volume, at 3,632 incidents.

Rhodes then said the city's implementation of a community service officer program to deal with minor reports was another major addition to the Cedar Hill Police Department's work.

This assists with minor reports and service calls to allow police officers to remain in the community and focus on prevention efforts and more serious crimes, Rhodes said.

The department has also given itself more free time by continuing to reduce the amount of false alarms from residential or commercial security systems.

Part of police work is solving crimes. The city's 35.9 percentage rate of clearing cases was up slightly from 2007. Also, arrests were up to 1,860, from 1,748 in 2006.

Internally, the department handled 31 supervisory complaints, involving 61 allegations, last year. All but one were investigated and half of them substantiated. The department also had two internal affairs investigations, covering 11 allegations. Four of them were not sustained, five were, and two cases were exonerated.

As for 2008, the police department will move to the new Government Center this summer. A second assistant police chief will be part of the staff at the new station. A new police radio system will also be part of the upgrade.

“It has the ability to patch with any other unit, such as Cedar Hill State Park or security at Uptown Village,” he said.

The current police station will be the center of police department community services and storefront operations.

Rhodes will address the council more in the future, as one of the CBI report's recommendations was quarterly reports by Rhodes to the council. The study had found poor internal communications and considered that a matter of concern.

Rhodes explained what the study recommended.

“The most pressing recommendations from the police study were to update the department's policy and procedures, particularly those in our Criminal Investigations Division, and to hire additional support staff (civilian) personnel,” he said.

The new civilian personnel will be housed at the current police station as part of the department's community services operations.

At the end of the report, Rhodes unveiled some sketches of possible new police car designs.

The council then officially accepted the report.

That was not the only police-related item on the agenda.

Later, the council approved the police department pursuing special accreditation through the Texas Police Chiefs Association Foundation. Chief Rhodes said he thought this method of accreditation was less burdensome than the alternative, the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies. DeSoto is accredited through CALEA and Lancaster is in the process of pursuing that status.

Rhodes said he was afraid he would have to dedicate an officer to almost full-time CALEA work, as a program officer, if he pursued that angle. It is also more expensive. The Texas program, on the other hand, beyond general best practices in law enforcement, looks at details of law unique to Texas that CALEA may not cover.

The Texas chiefs' Recognized Agency Program offers a four-year accreditation with an annual cost of $800.

“The Recognition Program assures the city management and citizens that their police department is operating in a manner that reflects the current best practices of law enforcement,” Rhodes said “ It can provide citizens with reassurance and improve community relations and cooperation which also leads to improved performance with the police department.”

The review process takes up to two years to complete and requires one visit by a facilitator.

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