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ALL of East F.W. is watching
Mr. Moncrief and Mr. Mendoza,
Just a quick note to let you know that ALL of east Fort Worth is watching. We are all feeling the frustrations that Mike and Suzette are feeling and are working very hard to make our side of this great city the best it can be. As a result we expect the same level of service extended to other parts of town.
It is foolish to believe that all is needed is more housing, hot food and a place to make a living and the problem will be solved.
Louis McBee
By Louis
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Write your State Legislators
If everyone would write your State legislators in support of HB 557, we can began to really get at the root of the problem which is irresponsible parenting. HB 557 holds a parent responsible for not showing up at a parent-teacher conference. If one chooses to have children, they need to be held accountable for them......ALL of them! Most, if not all, of the ''homeless'' have come from homes where the parents were not responsible, loving, caring parents. Guess what, here we are backpeddling and paying their way all thru adulthood. To really ''end'' homelessness, we've got to start in the early childhood of ''at risk'' children. Can we please put some of the millions the City received into the children so we can maybe save them from the same cycle as their parents?
Can we put a few million into some type of ''self help jail'' for the ones on the street who only want and choose to live a criminal life? They need to be in jail working for the City for FREE and attending anger management and substance abuse classes! They don't deserve housing until they can prove they can hold down a job and stay clean.
Also, where are the jobs for x-cons and felons? Who is going to hire them? I think the hiring has to start with the City. In other words, walk the walk if you are going to talk the talk and ask us for more tax dollars.
We can't just put most of the money in housing, we have to also put just as much in all the services around these extremely needy and desperate people. Simple ''housing'' won't ''fix'' the problem, it will take much much more than ''affordable housing.''
Yes, let's have some public forums.
Suzette
suzette@riverside-kennel.com
http://www.riverside-kennel.com
By Suzette
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Reply
I believe that the e-mails prove that our officers are working out in
the community to make it better. I will not allow people to bash the
Department unjustly. I do this for your sake whether you realize it or
not. When these officers deal with the many issues you site day after day
and then they hear from you that they are doing nothing it builds the
frustration in them as much as it does in your group. You do not want to
create the impression that you do not care about the work they do
because they to will quit caring and may seek another area of the city to go
work.
Many times I get questioned about why the officers move so frequently
and we have to start all over again. Well if your best is not good
enough and you keep hearing that you are not doing anything then why bother
risking your life for this community.
Our Department will investigate inappropriate action or in-action on
the part of our officers. Your specific complaints need to come at the
time of the incident, not months later. I have sent the message that I
want them to do the order maintenance to help your community. When I talk
about order maintenance I mean to strictly enforce the laws. That means
I expect our officers to get their hands dirty. I expect them to
continually arrest or cite people even if it is the same people day in and
day out. I expect our officers to be very persistent in these problem
areas. I expect our supervisors to keep our officers focused on the
problems. I believe they have done what we are asking. Some of your responses
have indicated that you have seen the improvement.
With the arrival of spring you as citizens come out of your house more
often. The vagrants will also come out of their living quarters more
frequesntly. This will create a perception that there is an increase but
the perception may not necessarily be true. Regardless, as officers our
duty is to continue our enforcement tactics. I want the make shift
tents torn down. We will make this happen which will displace more of the
vagrants and will make them more visible.
In the long run I hope that our tactics will force some of these
individuals to make better choices. It will not solve all of the ills of
society but it should solve some. The longer term solutions are not going
to be arrived at by the Police Department alone. There are many
variables that are affecting this situation. Many times the Police officers are
left to feel as though some want the tactics I have described but there
is another faction that wants to do more for the homeless and do not
believe we should be using the order maintenance tactics.
Our Department is committed to helping solve the problems and are
willing to assist in any manner but our foremost obligation is to enforce
the laws of the City of Fort Worth and the State of Texas. Therefore you
will continue to see the order maintenance philosophy I have mentioned.
I am glad that you are watching, our Department can prove what we do.
We get the complaints of not doing anything from time to time and have
proven again and again that patrol officers, neighborhood police
officers, ZT officers, vice officers, traffic officers and narcotics officers
continually address the concerns. You as a community get your share of
our Departments resources. However, I am also responsible for insuring
that the other communities within our City get their fair share as
well.
In closing, please be aware that our Department is working hard for
you. We bucked the National trends this past year and posted another crime
rate decrease when many other Cities did not. Please work with
Councilwoman Hicks to arrive at other viable solutions.
By Chief Ralph Mendoza
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F.W.P.D. has Helped
Absolutely! The Police Department has helped make a huge difference out here at E. Lancaster and Riverside Dr. A huge difference has been made because of stricter law enforcing in the past 8 months or so. The Neighborhood Police Officer Gus Green and Lt. Weenig have helped tremendously, especially getting the 20 - 40 people who used to gather under the ''drinking tree'' behind the FINA station at the intersection. Officer Suzanne Osborn has been invaluable in helping with the ''little'' ''petty'' crimes that many other officers don't want to deal with which helps the neighborhood's ''feeling of safety'' more than you can imagine. Officer Shaw is awesome and has helped so very much with criminal trespassing and any other calls that have been made.
I think the original big picture complaint was more about us NON-homeless, NON-vagrant, NON-substance abusers, TAXPAYING citizens being treated differently than homeless, vagrant, substance abusing type of people living on ''our'' streets that we pay for by working hard and the law being overlooked more when the individual is perceived to be ''homeless.''
Our complaints are with many of the fractions and/or departments of our City, State and Federal Government, not just the Police Department and certainly not ALL of the officers.
Yes, police officers should to be paid more, much much more, and the computers in the cars need to be easier for the officers to use and understand how to use.
Thank you Fort Worth Police Department for ALL that you do. Some of you really make a huge difference and we appreciate it. I wish those of you got more of our tax dollars and the others got less.
Suzette
suzette@riverside-kennel.com
http://www.riverside-kennel.com
By Suzette
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