Thanks Bruce. We addressed this issue at the Westville ~West Hills Community Management Team meeting a few months ago and Rob Smuts told me that we could call in these issues if we did not need an insurance report just so they hit our numbers. It seems he was mistaken. But, I have a neighbor who called in a garage break in earlier in the week and they not only took the report but sent a car out. The inconsistancy is bad for consumer relations as well as crime reporting. NHPD decides which district gets coverage based on crime reports and if these crimes go unreported then those under reported districts don't get as many cars. I don't expect a swat team, I just want to let the PD know.

We have had the same thing happen several times on Forest Rd. (well, except for the Blistex). It makes no sense that we cannot report such events by phone, if that is definitely so.

We had a similar incident a few weeks ago (our fault we forgot to lock up the car). Some one went through the glove compartment and took only loose change as far as we can tell. Short of actual break in's at the very least some one is clearly out checking for unlocked cars, loose change, etc. We live a few blocks away from you on Elmwood Road and did report it to our block watch and police.

Can I ask how you reported it? Did you go downtown and file in person or were you able to call it in?

Talking to the non-emergency number can be a very productive when you get a properly trained individual on the other end. Ihave found that when calling the non-emergency number there are a few operaters that they won't get rid of and they challenge you as to wheteher or not your call is relevant. LAST I CHECKED ROBBERY WAS A CRIME.
I would ask for a supervisor next time and note the exact time of the call and request a copy of the call you made.
Then ask for appropriate training of that operator who refused to take tour report.
The city of new haven website has a direct link to NHPD and dispatch contact numbers.

It is a crime but there are new reporting rules for the city. (They only took a few dollars in change so this is more about being able to report it.) http://www.cityofnewhaven.com/Police/pdfs/Expedited%20Report.pdf We asked Rob Smuts to explain the policy at the Westville ~ West Hills Community Management Team meeting and he said it was driven by the need to prove identities for insurance purposes. He did say that you could call it in of you did not need an insurance report. I also asked for a supervisor and got Patten, not sure of the rank, who told me that he wasn't sure how many times he could tell me the same thing. They could not take a report over the phone. I mentioned Rob Smuts and Marty Tchakirides and he repeated that thier policy is to not take any report over the phone.

I'll chk with Rob in this. Trying for efficiencies and still trying to work out the unintended consequences if the newish policy. The formality of reporting in person at PD hq is based on legal issues with reporting an actual crime. This us also why over the phone technically doesn't cover legally identifying the complainant.
I'm just the msg here. Please know I continue to advocated for these concerns neighbors have.
Rib Smuts did address this new policy at a management team mtg I believe.

Not sure how it was reported... most likely through our local Block Watch police contact (Officer Jodi Novella?). I will confirm and let you know. My main concern is not the loss of change since these are all pretty much petty thefts. But there is always to danger of an unexpected confrontation in which what amounts to a nuisance crime can quickly elevate into an assault situation or worse.

Jodi Novella is no longer involved in block watches. But she is luckily still on the force as a detective with her dog Nia. I miss her and have not had as good a relationship with any other officer at the PD. More officers dedicated to block watches would do wonders for the force and for the community.

I got an email back from Rob Smuts this evening. He knows I am posting his response here and suggested I edit it for brevity but I am going to add the whole thing. We recall his answer at the community management team meeting differently but agree that other options for reporting are necessary and he has implemented a mail option and an internet reporting option is in the works. Any suggestions for an easier way to report if you want to file an insurance claim would be appreciated.

As I recall, I explained the changes we had made and why, and that a report would not be taken over the phone. You could fill out the "expedited report" and drop it off at police headquarters, or, if you requested, they would enter in a dispatch for a police officer to come to you (which could take quite a while, and sometimes be cleared by the officers if they had a lot of higher priority dispatches to attend to). I suggested that the best way of making sure the PD could react to crime trends was (and continues to be) to alert your district manager.

What I did agree at the CMT was that it would make sense to have a separate way of reporting that was easier for people who did not need a police report and case number. After the CMT meeting, I worked out with the 911 Center a plan that would accomplish this goal along with some other planned changes to our phone and online systems, but that has been tied up with some vendor issues. Although our vendors assure us the more permanent solutions will happen very soon, they have been saying for 3-4 months now so we have put in place an interim solution whereby you can mail in the form if you do not need a police report or case number. The website has now been updated, and call takers re-trained:

www.cityofnewhaven.com/Police/pdfs/Expedited%20Report.pdf

I apologize for the delay in making this happen, and thank you for your email that pushed me to put the interim fix in place immediately. The full fix will allow a resident to either report online (not needing to print and mail the form) or leave a voicemail in a dedicated inbox that can be entered into the police computer system when the 911 Center is least busy. While seemingly easy changes, because they involve phone circuits and computer systems for the 911 Center and police computer system, they are taking a long time.

911 centers across the country are facing the critical challenge of peak call volumes exceeding their capacity. This is bad when it means we cannot answer the non-emergency line, but is a crisis when we cannot answer the 911 line either. The long-term solution is bigger 911 centers through regionalization, giving enough staff so when six people call on their cell phones to report a traffic accident, the center is not overwhelmed (thankfully the suburban centers have this even worse than we do). Right now, though, we need to do whatever we can to make sure call takers are not tied up in non-essential functions. The expedited report procedure is part of that, along with several other changes. For instance, we are giving all officers voicemails, so call takers don't have to function as message-takers for them. We are also introducing an automated directory, so call takers aren't serving as the department switchboard. Those changes are, unfortunately, waiting on the vendor issues I mentioned above.

We take our responsibility to the public very seriously on both emergency and non-emergency reporting, and will continue to work to make sure all aspects are effective and user-friendly. While emergency reporting does take priority, it does not mean that non-emergency can be neglected. My apologies again for the delay in getting a more user-friendly fix in place, and I'm committed to improve on this interim solution as soon as possible.

Best,

Rob

I think it is worthwhile trying to work out a system or crime reporting where an officer will not come to the scene. Unfortunately, I have lots of questions about the proposed solutions.

Without case numbers and positive ID I doubt very much ANY of those reports will be included in ANY crime statistics. If everyone is willing to live with that, maybe that is OK. But it would better if they were at least tracked on some level, with public verifiability/accountability.

Maybe they can work out a second tier system: You mail in a report with a xerox copy of your driver's license. That makes it a somewhat more credible claim. It is not positive ID, because someone could use your license of course. New Haven can rigorously track the claims anyway and compile a yearly report of these semi-official, mailed in crime reports as a supplement to their official crime statistics.

Honestly, there is no point otherwise -- the reports otherwise are things that officially don't exist. it is going through the motions and they will end up in the round file as non-entities unless there is this provision to compile reports of them, track them etc. Pointless otherwise

I agree it is preferable if police are willing to come to the scene and take a robbery report. And I agree there is some inconsistency -- the garage break-in as opposed to the car break-in. One got a dispatched cop, the other didn't.

But realistically, there are worse scenarios than the car break in that do not get a dispatched police officer.

Wow.. Earlier in the messages JMS states it was their fault the car was broken into because they had left it open... Sorry to read that. Leaving the car open is not a crime and no one should apologize for that. It sort of sounds like people say that women were attacked because they were wearing provocative clothes...
I hope that police will have a different response around even the smallest infractions. It was NYC PD change in attitude that brought a decrease in crime rates in NYC... I am a firm believer that when you start paying attention to details, the change in behavior will impact larger issues as well.. Start from people riding on sidewalk (and ticket all who do that not just kids in poor neighborhoods) then move from there.

Start with riding on sidewalks? That should be the start? Not littering, speeding, spitting, low grade larcenies etc? Really?

I ride on the sidewalks because I was run over by a drunk driver who ran a red light and the only reason I am alive today is because it was a car and not a truck or SUV, and so it was lower. I am willing to risk an infraction ticket for it because I know how dangerous the road is. I don't terrorize pedestrians and I poke along carefully.

Yes, it's an infraction but I hardly think that is where the big crackdown should begin. And you are wrong - they went out of their way when they began the bike crackdown that started five years ago to hit everyone to avoid accusations that they were profiling. The reason that crackdown started was because of the armed kids on bikes during the summers of 2005, 2006 who were shooting people. they were the target, but they hit everyone in that crackdown. I can attest to that and so can professors and other middle aged people who poke their way around a risk to no one.

We cannot afford to have the NHPD respond to this type of crime. There was no break in or forced entry -as she reported. It was clearly a crime of opportunity. We need to lock our doors and windows, keep alert for suspicious activities, adequately light our home areas and do just as Mary F. did- report it to your neighbors. An ounce of prevention will go a long way.

"Wow.. Earlier in the messages JMS states it was their fault the car was broken into because they had left it open... Sorry to read that. Leaving the car open is not a crime and no one should apologize for that. It sort of sounds like people say that women were attacked because they were wearing provocative clothes..."

DueRuote,

I'm sorry but are you seriously comparing the loss of some center console toll change to rape? Sorry but what planet do you live on? I'm not apologizing for being the victim of what amounts to a very petty theft. I am acknowledging that on this one night I absent mindedly left my car doors unlocked. And since I live in a reality based world where reasonably intelligent people understand that if they leave their car door unlocked while parked on the street in just about any city in America that there is the possibility that things will be missing in the morning. It's not rocket science and it's not defeatism. It's just common sense to lock your car at night. I am happy to have grown up and continue to live in New Haven and I am totally comfortable with acknowledging that there are certain little extra bits of mindfulness that I need to employ in order to retain my center console toll change amoung other things. I reported it (here and to my blockwatch) so my neighbors can be mindful along with me and will remember to lock my car from now on. If you feel very strongly that I should do anything else please let me know (sarcasm). I'm all ears.

I received an email from Block Watch 303 and later from Our Alderman, Greg Dildine, with a letter presented to the public safety committee of the board of alders from Rob Smuts attached. It basically said that the decision to have to report certain crimes in person at the police department has been overturned. The letter is below. Thanks for every one’s input!

CITY OF NEW HAVEN
JOHN DESTEFANO, JR.
MAYOR

CHIEF ADMINISTRATOR'S OFFICE

ROBERT SMUTS
CHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER

CITY HALL

165 CHURCH ST.
NEW HAVEN, CT 06510
(203) 946-7900
FAX (203) 946-7911

September 14, 2011

Dear Members of the Public Safety Committee:

In response to concerns you raised at the September 7th Public Safety Committee workshop, the Department of Public Safety Communication (DPSC) will be suspending the recent “expedited report” change.

As you know, the DPSC has been working on several changes designed to improve service and save costs. Our Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) is facing a set of challenges common to most PSAPs across the country where an increasing call volume is making it more difficult to handle both emergency and non-emergency calls. Take one example to illustrate the challenge: before cell phones became as common, a major motor vehicle accident that might have generated one or two calls now might result in a dozen 9-1-1 calls inundating the PSAP at the same time.

Above all else, the changes that the DPSC is working on are intended to maximize the availability of PSAP operators to answer incoming calls. Tasks that tie up operators that can be automated or done a different way will free them to take non-emergency calls, and it will also increase the ability to make sure that the essential function of answering 9-1-1 calls is not compromised, which is now still a very real concern despite a procedure that is in place to drop non-essential tasks when 9-1-1 calls are waiting.

The DPSC is working on the following changes:
 Cross-training. Four years ago, the police and fire call centers were relocated to the same place. Over the last two years, a new civilian management has worked to combine these two operations and cross-train all staff so that when a crunch hits the PSAP, there is a larger pool of employees available to help out with answering 9-1-1 calls, dispatching or doing whatever is most urgent. All staff are now cross-trained in answering police, fire and medical calls, and cross-training of dispatchers is progressing on track.
 Officer voicemail. A large amount of the operators’ time is consumed taking messages for police officers. As part of a new phone system that will save a significant amount of money, we will soon have voicemail for all police officers. This system will come with a reminder system that will prompt officers to check their voicemail when messages are waiting.
 Automated directory. The new phone system will also include an automated directory on the non-emergency number. A significant number of calls to the PSAP are people using the center as a directory for the police department. The new directory will start with the message to hang up and dial 9-1-1 if the call is an emergency, and then allow the caller to immediately reach an operator if they do not want to use the directory. Callers who are not looking for the directory will spend a very minimal amount of time before they speak with a live operator.
 Street-sweeping tows. When cars are being towed from a street-sweeping route, the PSAP is often inundated with calls. A change in procedure in 2008 reduced the number of street-sweeping tows from over 10,000 annually to half that number by improving noticing, but we are working to: 1) continue to improve noticing, and 2) review the system to make it easier to locate a towed car. This second set of changes is part of a larger review of the tow ordinances and system that is currently underway.

The “expedited report” change that was implemented ended the practice of PSAP operators taking dictation for reports of lost, damaged or stolen property. This change was made both to free up operator availability from the 4000+ such reports done annually (tying up operators for approximately 1000 hours), but also to improve the integrity of the reports. A large portion of these calls are made to generate a police report and case number that can be submitted to an insurance company for a claim. Because all that was necessary to successfully get a case number was to call the non-emergency number, the Police Department expressed concern that the practice easily allowed for fraud or inaccurate reporting (for example: property lost in another jurisdiction reported as lost in New Haven because it is easier to get a case number).

The new procedure required individuals who wanted a police report or case number to come to police headquarters in person; fill out a form describing the lost, damaged or stolen property; sign the form under penalty of false reporting; and show an ID (exceptions were provided to those with a disability). Originally all individuals reporting stolen property had to go to police headquarters, but the policy was amended to allow those who did not need a police report or case number to mail in a description of the theft. These written reports would then be entered into the police computer system during the midnight shift by PSAP operators, when call volume is lowest.

While concerns about tying up PSAP operator resources and the integrity of the police reports remain, this change is being suspended. In the absence of a perfect solution, we had felt that the benefits of this change outweighed the negatives, but the feedback we have received have proven us wrong. I will continue to work with the DPSC to explore ways that we can achieve the goals behind this change without imposing a further burden on recent victims of crime.

I thank you for your interest in our City’s public safety, your support of changes that have improved the effectiveness and efficiency of city services, and your help catching changes that are not achieving those goals.

Very truly yours,

Robert Smuts
Chief Administrative Officer