Patrolling Alone

A couple of weeks ago, I got in late one evening at Hobby after being out-of-town for the day. I had missed dinner so I decide to grab a burger on the way home. About 9PM, I stopped by a fast food restaurant near Hobby. It was located in a somewhat less than desirable neighborhood and in an area where gang activity has regularly been reported. As I pulled into the parking lot, I noticed a HPD cruiser was also parked in the lot. I parked next to it and headed inside. About the time I reached the door, a young, lady HPD officer exited the restaurant. She did not have a partner with her. She was only a few feet away from and our eyes met. I asked her, "Do they have you patrolling this neighborhood by yourself?" "Every night," she responded with a grim smile.

Officer Timothy Abernethy – Killed in December attempting to apprehend suspect alone.

As I watched the young officer drive away, I wondered what dangers she might face that night. Would she have to confront a gang alone? Would she have to break up a family violence situation by herself? I also wondered what family was at home waiting for her to return, worrying that she might not. I wondered if that family included any children.

I also thought about HPD officer Rodney Johnson being shot in the back while making an arrest without backup. I thought about HPD officer Timothy Abernethy who was gunned down in cold blood after pursuing a suspect into an apartment complex alone.

The scene I witnessed would have been unheard of twenty years ago. Then almost all night patrols were manned with two officers. However, over the last two decades, HPD has adopted a strategy in which 90% of the patrols have only one officer. The theory behind this change was that it allowed HPD to project a larger "presence" in the community by having more patrol units on the street and thereby deterring crime. While this theory makes sense intuitively, as far as I have been able to determine its actual effectiveness in reducing crime has never been empirically demonstrated.

Some officers I talked with argued that it is actually less effective. They contend that patrolling alone alters the behavior of the officers, making them less aggressive for obvious reasons. Several cited incidents where they had waited for back up after arriving alone at the scene, resulting in the perpetrator escaping. The new Crime Reduction Units (CRUs) introduced by HPD in the last year have gone back to two-officer patrols with apparently good results. Of course, these accounts are anecdotal and do not necessarily prove that the one-officer strategy is ineffective. However, any doubts about the effectiveness should be weighed heavily against the clearly increased risk to the officers.

But respective of whether this is a more or less effective strategy; I have a problem with my city sending our young men and women out alone to protect me and my family. I do not think there are many of us who can get up in the morning and look at ourselves in the mirror and believe in our hearts that this is the right thing to do. My purpose here is not an indictment of the current HPD administration or previous administrations under which the policy was originated and grew. The one-officer patrol policy is the result of the inconsistent demands we, as citizens, have made on the City and HPD to simultaneously reduce crime, respond within minutes to hundreds of thousands of calls each year and still control costs.

To go back to having two officers in patrol cars we are going to have to either increase the number of officers (thereby increasing the costs) or reduce the number of patrols or some combination of the two. Regardless, it is going to cost us as citizens in one fashion or another. But it is a cost that I believe we are morally compelled to pay. I do not want to get up one day and read in the paper that a young lady officer that I met by chance one evening has been gunned down by a gang near Hobby Airport because she had no back-up.

[Note: When my wife and a friend read this blog they told me they thought I was being sexist by identifying the officer I saw as a being a woman. That is not my intention. I believe having men or women officers patrolling alone at night is unsafe and I think if the officer that evening had been a young man, I would have had a similar reaction. Both of the officers that were lost in last year while patrolling alone were men. I will have to confess that a sense of chivalry-tinged guilt probably caused the sight a young woman driving off alone probably had a greater impact on me than if it had been a man. However, regardless of whether that is politically correct by current standards, it does not change the fact that officers patrolling alone, particular at night, are vulnerable . . . whether they are men or women.]