by Tom Queen

My wife is trying to save our yard. We have three big dogs and over the last year they have managed to kill just about every blade of the grass on our property. This year she has spread grass seed around and blocked our dogs’ access to the front yard in an attempt to have something for me to mow on hot summer days.

She has been successful in the rejuvenation, so far. I have seen the fledgling grass shoots popping up through the dirt and reaching their pale green tendrils towards the sky. Unfortunately, I am not the only one that has observed this rebirth of our lawn. There is a fluffy gray rabbit that has been sneaking into our yard at night, when he thinks no one is around. He (or she) has decided to turn our lawn into its own private salad bar, chewing up the succulent leaves of grass in the dawning of their lives.

You can imagine my wife’s reaction when she saw the unwanted bunny eating away all of her hard work. She ran outside yelling at the rodent and it scurried away under the fence into the dense foliage of our neighbor’s yard. When my wife came back inside our house and sat down, the rabbit returned to our domain and continued its feasting. Again my wife ran outside and escalated her attack by yelling and tossing a pinecone at it. Again it retreated under the fence, until she left the yard for the house. Hippity, hoppity, the cotton-tailed menace returned and was munching on the grass within fifteen minutes. My wife continued her efforts to chase the rabbit away and I was getting a good laugh. I even went so far as to imitate Elmer Fudd calling out, "I’ll get you, you wascally wabbit!" This, of course, didn’t win me any points with my wife.

When my wife finally gave up for the night and we retired to our room, I lay in bed and thought about her confrontation with the rabbit, chuckling to myself. It then occurred to me how similar my wife’s problem with Bugs Bunny was to the way our department addresses the gang problem in Omaha.

We officers cruise into a neighborhood and shoo the gang members away from the street corners, then we leave to take the next call holding. Almost as soon as we are out of sight the gangsters return to their posts and resume their activities.

We escalate our efforts, doing "hot spot" assignments, special attentions and zero tolerance. This drives the bad guys into hiding again, until we stop the special effort. Once our presence is no longer felt in the area, back they come to ply their trade and terrorize the neighborhood.

As with Mr. Cottontail, the only way to keep the gangs from returning to the lush pickings of a neighborhood is a constant authoritative presence. I know and you know with the way our department is staffed and funded this is an impossibility. We would need twice as many street officers and some of those officers would have to be exempt from radio calls so they can stay in the neighborhood.

Right now, with this department’s knee-jerk reaction plan to combating the gang and other problems in neighborhoods, these dilemmas will not be solved. When we do get a chance to take an innovative approach to combating neighborhood problems it is usually short lived. Interest is lost or something "more important" comes up.

The Omaha Police Department, The City of Omaha and the community leaders have to take a long look at the problems the common citizens face in their neighborhood. We need to take a different approach to how we are staffing the streets and implement new ordinances and tactics to aid in the taking back of those neighborhoods. Some cities have even implemented ordinances that make it illegal for gang members to loiter on street corners. Chicago is one of those cities and it is working.

Policies are being made by OPD upper command that affect the street officer and the citizens. Rarely are the front line officers consulted and the citizens are forgotten when it comes to the drafting new orders and policies.

District officers need to have the time to work their areas. Right now we are going call to call being sent clear across the precinct and even the city. We seldom have time to stop and talk with people in our district. We have little opportunity to take care of the quality of life issues these areas suffer from. Isn’t that why we are assigned districts in the first place? Are we not supposed to be concentrating on that area? Shouldn’t responding to the needs of the community, before they call 911, be a priority?

Here is an idea I had for addressing community problems: on every shift, assign an officer to a district. That officer shall be held responsible for that district, the report calls, disturbance calls etc. That officer shall not be sent from that district, unless it is a true emergency. At the end of their shift the district officer will complete an "overnight" for the other officers who work the district to keep all informed as to what is happening in the district. The officer will also attend neighborhood meetings and address the citizens’ concerns and relay them to upper command.

To assist the district officer there will be "at large" cars. These shall be two officer cars that are sent with the district officer on disturbance and other priority two calls. They will also back-up the district car on traffic stops and checking parties. The "at large" cars will be used to answer calls when the district officer is busy.

What I see as the major flaw in my proposal is that it would probably mean having crews of about 18 officers. This of course means, WE NEED MORE POLICE OFFICERS IN THE CITY OF OMAHA! No surprise, we have needed more officers for years now. Since Omaha annexed Elkhorn that need is paramount.

This whole article started with my wife chasing a rabbit around our front yard. The nice thing about that problem is that there is a simple solution. I’ll just catch the bunny in a live trap and release it somewhere it can be free to munch on all of the grass it wants to. The solution to our gang problem isn’t that simple. It will take innovation, time, and money. Most of all it will take commitment from The City of Omaha’s elected officials, the police department’s command, the patrol officer and the citizens of the community.

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