There IS a New Sheriff In Town...

...And he's making some interesting changes.

Ken Fries, newly elected sheriff of Allen County has gotten a lot more officers "back in the bag" and got their boots on the ground. And more warm bodies patrolling the county is always good news. But it doesn't stop there. He's also getting TASERS for his department. Sheriff Ken wants to reactivate the METRO SQUAD, and discussions are under way. I confess to not knowing much about when it was formerly deployed (1995-2001), but from what I've read about it, now is as good a time as any to put it back on the streets and roads. This unit will be actively patrolling area "hot spots" as a deterrent to crime (somehow my part of town comes to mind), and let's face it...seeing more cars in certain "badlands" throughout the city (and county) will go a long way to keep the criminal element at bay.

But it's not going to be a smooth ride, according to some people.

The old "racial profiling" thing is rearing it's ugly head once again, with those who just LOVE to sue any law-enforcement agency leading the "parade". Some people maintain that blacks will be UNJUSTLY targeted for carstops, pat-downs, and the like (wonder why not the BURMESE...or the VIETNAMESE...or the CROATIANS..or even the other 40 or so ethnic groups in Fort Wayne? Could it be THEY don't commit the same amount of crime that a small group of BLACKS do? I wonder). And I have to keep stating (for the umpteenth time) that when you have a vast MAJORITY of ANY ethnicity (blacks for example) in one, SPECIFIC area, who the hell is MOST LIKELY to GET STOPPED...? The answer is...all together now boys and girls...blacks (for example). There you go. Simple, eh? You're just not going to find a bunch of lily-white doctors, lawyers, or a ton of asian engineers, or even police officers living in "blighted" areas, are you? At least not in a house worth $7500 and dilapidated as the day is long.

FWPD Chief Rusty York stated that HIS department would basically not be aiding in these patrols although he does support Sheriff Fries' efforts (gee thanks, Rusty...so much for city/county mergers, huh...I guess the whole safety in numbers things is alien to you). Well, Rusty can walk on eggshells all he wants, as is evidenced in recent years (with little success because these people are brought up to distrust the "po-po" anyway), but facts are facts. You DO have a growing problem in Fort Wayne with crime, and no amount of ethnic ass-kissing will make that go away, so better to take a stand against crime now while you still can, unless you want to wind up like Indianapolis (not MY first choice).

I would suppose race relations in general would just be SO much better if every time a black (or any other ethnicity) was CAUGHT doing something illegal, the LEOs just "look the other way", chalking it up to decades of past oppression by long deceased people, right? I think not. That is a crock of you-know-what. EVERYONE is held to the SAME laws, all the time...NO exceptions....can't get much fairer than THAT, can you? No bias there. So everyone gets the same treatment when they BREAK those laws...still fair to me.

Next, Sheriff Ken wants to LEASE the radio systems instead of PURCHASING them to save the taxpayers some money. Since the lifespan of current systems is about 14 years (longer than most computers), the department wouldn't be saddled with obsolete equipment (as in the past). In 1999, the county spent $9 million to get an 800 Mhz system dating to 1996, so it was outmoded from the git-go. The purchasing decision (then) was made due to finances (wow, we can pay for task forces, planners, and studies, but we can't afford to get law-enforcement decent radios...that makes sense).

And along the line of RADIOS...a related story:
Corey Lee Bailey was arrested for illegally possessing a police scanner ALONG with FIVE POUNDS of Mary Jane, and about $30K (cash) in his vehicle. Sorry people, but that's just a little too much chump-change to be lugging around. And this arrest was made by the ACSD...NOT by the FWPD. I guess the "Just holding this for a friend" bull$hit line didn't float too well with the sheriff's department. While residents ARE allowed to keep a scanner in their HOME or OFFICE, permission for portable vehicular units must be obtained from a police chief or a license secured from the FCC. Anything else "just ain't kosher". The perp was released after posting $50,000 bond (I guess his dealer "boss" needs him back on the south side real bad).
So the moral of THIS story would be: If the police stop your ass, and you KNOW you're carrying a $hitload of pot AND quite a few THOUSAND bucks on you...for Christ's sake, turn DOWN the damn scanner (moron)!

Yes folks..here in the Summit City, many live by the motto: "Room For Stupidity".