PRENTISS SMITH
Contributing Columnist
Policing is hard, and being the leader of a police department is even harder than that. Shreveport is a moderate-sized city with a fairly diverse population that has its own set of problems. One of the main problems today is the crime in some neighborhoods, especially predominantly black neighborhoods. The recent change in leadership of the Shreveport Police Department is being watched very closely. Citizens want to have confidence that something is being done to bring down the crime in their neighborhoods.
Substitute Chief Wayne Smith, who was recently appointed to the position by the mayor when former Chief Ben Raymond resigned, has been training for this job for a long time. He has applied for the job in the past, and for whatever reason, he was never given the opportunity to lead the department. Well, now he has the job, and he has the opportunity to put his ideas into action and make his mark on the Shreveport Police Department.
Substitute Chief Smith, who I believe should be given the job permanently, has been on the job for a couple of months, and there is some improvement in the overall crime numbers in Shreveport. In fact, overall crime is down by 16%, with the majority of that drop coming from a drop in aggravated assaults, burglaries and thefts.
That is a good start, but the chief wants everyone to know that it is just a start to what he believes will be a new beginning in the fight to have safe streets and communities in Shreveport. That new beginning will not be a reality until homicides decrease. Everything else can decrease, but people won’t feel safe in their homes until the number of homicides decrease. Perception is reality, and the reality is that too many people, predominantly black people, are dying in these neighborhoods. That is the reality that has to be addressed by Chief Smith, or he will suffer the same fate as previous Shreveport police chiefs.
As Chief Smith recently said, “I have seen our city at its lowest time, and I have seen it at its best of time.” Today, Shreveport has been operating at one of its lowest times in the history of the city, with homicides on a record pace and aggravated assaults still very high. In other words, there is still a lot of hard work to be done to bring the crime numbers down, and Chief Smith has begun to implement his own plan.
One of the things that Chief Smith has done is to get as many of his officers on the street as he can, with an initiative that requires every individual within the police department that has an office job to perform at least some part of the week on the streets. This initiative is primarily to show an increased presence of police on the street. Increased visibility has proven to be a good start in curbing some of the random crime, but it is not just increased visibility, it is also better communication between the police and the citizens of these neighborhoods.
Chief Smith has touted his new program, and is in the process of implementing more initiatives to get his officers on the street, starting with hiring more officers and seeking better starting pay for those officers. Chief Smith is a realist, and he realizes that numbers and statistics don’t mean a thing if citizens don’t feel safe in their homes. He knows that there is still a lot of work to be done, but he believes he is up to the job, and time will tell if he can put his mark on this police department. He will be held accountable. And that is the way I see it. smithpren@aol.com