Editor;
The Dublin City council and Mayor have ignored Public safety. The Mayor told viewers at the November 7TH council meeting we have the right amount of officers to keep Dublin safe. This is just not true! We have a population of 72,000 and only 62 police on our force. The FBI table 71 calls for a city of our size to have 1 officer for every 1,000 citizens so that would be 72 officers that we need to keep Dublin safe. Besides the that 62 officers only 58 or 57 go on the street to protect Dublin.
Just recently we had a high end Wig shop get broken into and vandalized 15 times in Dublin. The police finally did something about this after the 15th time. 14 other break-ins they didn’t do reports or go looking for the guy. This is not the fault of the police but the city management the Mayor, council and city manager Linda Smith who ignores the public requests!
Retail theft is up in Dublin like every place across the bay area but our city leaders are in denial.
Mike J. Grant/Dublin
They’re not the only ones. Most department struggling to meet staffing levels. For a lot of different reasons.
Public sentiment is slowly coming around but it’s a hard hire and qualified candidates are hard to find.
People have always wanted a cop on every corner but we’re way past that.
Got your flash on the Ulta stores. That’s what we’re up against.
We’re back to where we were in the early 2000’s when I started in Law Enforcement. Those who are qualified don’t want to do the job and, most of, those who do want the job aren’t the quality of officer the public wants/needs/deserves.
We’re smack dab in the middle of a cycle where it’s going to take another 4-5 years before you see the staffing levels come back to where they should be. Probably not what anyone wants to hear but it’s the reality of the situation.
For those of you who supported “defunding the police”, be better next time around.
If you understand incentives, you understand behavior. Our police officers are demoralized by DA’s and local politicians who hamstring them from doing their job. If you make the arrest you may be first questioned why or a DA may not prosecute your arrest for political reasons. Why stick around if the system you work in undermines your day to day work?
Tough job that requires special people with special skills and training. Unfortunately they don’t come rolling off a assembly line. I am for transparency and more oversight in policing and believe public support for a new style of policing is coming.
Today I was in Dublin to run errands. I saw one squad car parked in front of Safeway, another assisting a motorist or pulling them over, and then a third passed me that appeared to be just be out patrolling. All in under an hour. I felt pretty darn safe. Not sure OPD even has 72 officers right now.
I have never found police useful. I once owned a business that catered to the gay community. In a two year period, it was broken into 5 times. The police did nothing. No increase in patrols. Not one burglary solved.
They made it very clear that they simply didn’t care what happened to a gay owned business.
The final straw came with the 6th break in. After waiting 4 hours for police to arrive, I gave up and opened for business. When officers showed up two hours later (so 6 hours after we called), they yelled at me, saying they couldn’t investigate since I had contaminated the crime scene by reopening. I told the officers to suck on a doughnut.
I hired a private security firm. I never had another break in during the next 5 years I owned that business. You have to rely on yourself. Relying on the police was a fool’s errand in my case.