06/17/04  Police Officers Working Part-time Jobs

I will start out by saying, "consider the source". 

In Thursday's DMN, I saw the story about Chief McClain and the Dallas Zoo incident where the gorilla was killed.

Gorilla escape report faults police official As gorilla escaped, commander headed for off-duty job, not zoo 07:19 AM CDT on Thursday, June 17, 2004 By JASON TRAHAN / The Dallas Morning News

The commander of the Dallas police tactical division should have gone to the city zoo March 18 to coordinate the chaos unleashed when a 350-pound gorilla leapt out of his enclosure and mauled two women and a toddler, according to preliminary findings of an internal police inquiry.     He "failed to respond to a major police incident," according to documents released Wednesday.     Deputy Chief Troy McClain, a 34-year department veteran, is accused of rushing out of his office to an off-duty neighborhood patrol job a few minutes before 5 p.m. on March 18, just as word of Jabari's escape and mauling of Dallas Zoo patrons, including a child, began to trickle in to the Police Department. ...

What stood out for me was that we have a senior level officer who makes almost $90,000 a year and was on his way to an "extra duty" job.  I have always contended that if our officers do not have time to respond to 911 calls, then they absolutely do not have time to have extra duty jobs where they are using our uniforms, weapons, badges, and squad cars.  I have no idea that Chief McClain uses any City-issued materials in his off duty job.  If he does, then my point is this: 

When officers sign on to work for the City of Dallas, they know the rules and requirements -- UP FRONT!  Whining about the pay and working conditions once you are on board is not appropriate.

If Internal Affairs seeks to try and sanction Chief McClain, I think he is being scape-gated (but only in this instance).  The problem existed long before he decided not to respond to the call for his presence at the Zoo.  Maybe a major policy revamp will occur as a result of this tragic incident.  Chief McClain is a symptom NOT the cause of the problem.

It frustrates me that this all could have been avoided if our past councils and managers had stepped up to the plate years ago and voted in a series of small to moderate tax increases that would have provided ample funds for raises, equipment, infrastructure and staff to run our city like it should be run. 

Now, based on results, there is so much distrust of the City system that citizens pretty much refuse to trust us with more money when we have made such a mess of the smaller amounts that were entrusted to us.  I cannot blame them either.  But that still leaves all of us in a big mess nonetheless.

Idea --

I would propose that any fee increases or new fees that have been instituted in the past 10 years be eliminated and replaced with new revenues from an increased tax.  Fees and services are HIDDEN taxes anyway.

The City's trust factor is severely overdrawn at the bank right now, but I think that the council needs to hear from the people who regularly check in with DallasArena.com to know there is another point of view in the city and that we care and really do know a lot about how to make Dallas a success. 

I cannot see that this council has a lot of success to point to on their shift.  Listening to us can only make things better!

D