LRPD CHIEF SAYS HIS DEPARTMENT CAN'T DO ANYTHING - PLACES BLAME ON LACK OF PARENTING

The Showdown at City Hall turned out to be an ass kissing session for the Little Rock Board of Directors.

A manic-sounding, fast-pace talking Buckner rattled  on for over an hour on what he had accomplished in his tenure as chief.

Bottom line from Buckner was that LRPD can't do anything about the crime that occurs in Little Rock, he placed all the blame on parents, citing a "lack of parenting."

Buckner always stresses that his officers are part of "our community", but that is hard to swallow when over half of the uniformed officers of his department choose to live outside of Little Rock.

We suggest that LRPD is a huge contributing factor to crime in the city. Officers that choose to live anywhere else but Little Rock have little connection to the community they get their paycheck from.  They are not neighbors, their children do not go to go to schools in the city.

If LRPD officer actually had a presence in Little Rock neighborhoods as residents, that presence would go a long way in creating an atmosphere of protection.

Why do you think Little Rock apartment complexes give sweet deals to officers to live in one of their complexes?  They like having a police car parked on  property and in exchange for reduced rent, the officer agrees to act as a security officer for the complex.  

One of the first statements that Buckner made was to urge citizens to follow LRPD on social media sites to be able to have instant communication with his department. 

Buckner said that disagreement is a sign of healthy communication.

We call bullshit on that, the publisher of this blog called out  LRPD on Facebook for posting false information and they blocked him from the site.

So much for Free Speech.

Buckner touted that his department was being proactive and had created a Violent Crime Apprehension Team three months ago.  That group has yet to be put into service due to scheduling conflicts of team members.  Buckner stated it would go into service the next weekend.

Buckner claimed that LPRD is the only city that provides accurate data about crime to the FBI and that is why the crime stats for Little Rock look so bad compared to other cities in the US.  Buckner offered no evidence to back up that claim. 

Director, "Where's Ken" Richardson arrived late and asked the most questions and took an inordinate amount of time making incoherent statements. Richardson questioned why the meeting had been called several times.

http://badlittlerock.blogspot.com/2017/03/ward-2-city-director-ken-richardson-has.html

http://badlittlerock.blogspot.com/2017/04/ward-2-director-ken-richardson-finally.html

Director Doris Wright asked questions of the chief that residents of her ward had communicated concerns about to her.

Wright question the interview process for LRPD officer candidates.  Buckner stated that the interview was tough and several of his command staff could not pass it if they had to do it.  Maybe his command staff shouldn't be on the force if they can't pass the entrance requirements.  Don't lower the standards or rig the process to accommodate unqualified candidates.

Buckner admitted that changes to the hiring procedures have to go slow due to lawsuits unsuccessful candidates may file. Current procedures are expected to change in 2018, Buckner stated.

Director Joan Adcock  expressed concern that community oriented officers in her ward were once again being removed and transferred to other units.  Adcock stated that those officers had helped lower the incidence of crime in her ward.

Director Lance Hines, who blasted the Little Rock Fraternal Order of Police in a story that appeared earlier in the week in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, did not display the same intensity at the emergency meeting.  Perhaps the all the armed uniformed officers in the audience made him skittish.

The public was not allowed to make comments or ask questions.  Mayor Stodola stated that the meeting would be reconvened next week (regular scheduled board meeting) and that citizens could participate at that time.

Maybe Mayor Stodola can provide information about what the task force he created over two years ago to address crime has been doing at that meeting.

EMERGENCY MEETING CALLED AT CITY HALL - LRPD CHIEF SUMMONED TO APPEAR AT A SPECIAL SUNDAY AFTERNOON BOARD MEETING TO ADDRESS SKYROCKETING VIOLENT CRIME

In an unprecedented move, Little Rock's elected officials have scheduled an emergency meeting Sunday afternoon with police chief Kenton Buckner to discuss the spike in gang violence. 

The meeting is set for tomorrow at 3:00 P.M. in the board room at city hall. The meeting is open to the public. 

According to a story in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, there have been 12 more homicides so far this year that in the same period last year, with 19 recorded as of Thursday.

The story also reported that there were 71 people who received nonfatal gunfire injuries  as of Thursday, a 92% increase compared with the 37 recorded in the same date last year.  Officials stated that at least 16 of those shootings involved a victim who was participating in gang activity, a drug deal or some kind of crime.  One in five victims refused to cooperate with police.

Both LRPD and Bruce Moore the City Manager have used the term "rival parties" instead of gangs in interviews.

As we reported last Tuesday, at the March 21st city board meeting, Director Dorris Wright asked City Manager Bruce Moore to have the Little Rock Police Department provide information about what was behind a rash of shootings in the city, especially in her ward which encompasses  parts of central and west Little Rock.

The report, which by the way took LRPD a month to create and forward to Moore, did not have much to offer.

Then to throw fuel on the fire, the Little Rock Fraternal Order of Police posted this on their Facebook Page.

The LRFPO  blames Moore and the city board for not filling roughly 70 officer vacancies and not keeping officers equipment updated.

We guess that the approximately $400k that the city spent on riot gear for all uniformed officers doesn't count.

Or that huge, state of the art two-story police building building on 12th Street.

Or the $350K the city spent this year for emergency lights and equiptment for first responder units (includes police cars).

Or the nearly half a million dollars the city is spending to lease new police vehicles. Last year an audit found the city spends nearly three million dollars a year on patrol cars that are considered past their service life. The audit also showed the fleet department was overstaffed and inefficient. 
 

And we don't need to bring up the fact (but we will) that over half of all uniformed police officers are not resident's of Little Rock. What business do they have trying to hold the board of directors responsible for anything when they are not voters anyway?  

http://badlittlerock.blogspot.com/2015/06/majority-of-little-rock-police-officers.html

The department is authorized to fill those vacancies, but too few graduating recruits each year paired with retirements have kept the vacancies consistent.

Even a $5,000 signing bonus is not helping get recruits.

 

That FOP post lit a fire under Director Lance Hines.

Hines said the staffing shortage can't be used as an excuse.
 

"We're short-handed, I understand that. But we have the police force we have, and we're going to have to do the best with what we got," he said.

"I just think the community-policing effort, until we are fully staffed, needs to be put on the back burner. We need to go back to the old-school police tactics and do zero tolerance for any criminal activity, whether that's panhandling on the corner or littering or anything," he said.

"We should have a top 25 hit list of most wanted gang members, and if they spit on the sidewalk, litter, jaywalk, we ought to be running them in. We need to put the word out that we are not going to tolerate this kind of behavior on our streets."

"It's time to stop playing hug a cop and start being a cop,"  Hines said, referring to the department's community-policing initiative, which focuses partially on officers building relationships with community members.
 

Hines said it's common knowledge "on the street" that the slain toddler's father is a gang member.
 

"They know who the suspects [in the toddler's death] are, but won't cooperate with police. The rest of the shootings have been retaliations," Hines said.

HINES KNOWS A "G" WHEN HE SEE'S ONE

Stodola said Buckner will give city directors an update Sunday on what the department's Violence Reduction Unit is working on. He said the city also has been organizing a group of ex-felons who might have some "street credibility" and be able to reach youths potentially involved in crime.

"The recent retaliatory shootings in Little Rock have justifiably upset our community," the mayor said. "We are committed to finding answers to bring a stop to this violence and we want to let the public know what the city is doing about it."

MAYOR STODOLA SAYS WHILE THE GROUPS COULD BE DESCRIBED AS GANGS, THEY DON"T NECESSARILY FIT THE USUAL CHARACTERIZATION OF A GANG

Stodola came under fire a while back for taking over a year to research what Little Rock could do about the ever rising crime rate, after the city was ranked number one for crime for a city of its size.

Stodala couldn't come up with anything and formed a task force to tackle the problem.

Nothing more has ever been said about that task force since then and we have not heard about any findings or recommendations they made.

Chief Buckner has had his own problems, missing handgun, failing marks from a city commission.

What?  You haven't heard about the failing marks?

Last year was rough for Kenton. The board on multiple occasions raised all kinds of a stink about his officers not wanting to live in Little Rock because of the crime and the schools. 

Various groups accused the chief of doing nothing to help the black community in their efforts to stop black-on-black crime.

The chief often posted where he had eaten lunch or went to church on the LRPD Facebook page. Not so much about what he was doing to fight crime.

Most of Buckner's posts have been deleted from the LRPD Facebook page after certain individuals brought him to task about those posts.

Those individuals were blocked from being able to post comments or even see the LRPD Facebook page.  So much for free speech.

LRPD FURNISHED A PARTIAL LISTING OF BLOCKED INDIVIDUALS

In March 2015, The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette ran a story about claims LRPD made about a 4.9% drop in crime. 

 

Buckner's remarks in the article caused the Little Rock Racial and Cultural Diversity Commission to request a meeting with Chief Buckner. 

Buckner, who often losses his composure when challenged, demanded that the RCD evaluate his performance and give him a letter grade.

They honored his request and he got an "F".

One thing you can bet Chief Buckner will not discuss is the special treatment police officers receive from LRPD when involved in a traffic accident.

Back in March, Buckner was following a vehicle too close and rammed into it causing damage to his city owned vehicle and the vehicle he struck.

Buckner was not issued a citation even though it was obvious that he was in violation of the law. Not to mention the accident was his fault.

Then in April, he had another accident, again his fault.

Stay tuned for a post about these shenanigans.

If you are planning on attending the Emergency Meeting tomorrow afternoon you better get there early.  

The board room will be packed with news media and seating is extremely limited.

CITY BLAMES RECENT SPIKE IN SHOOTINGS ON "RIVAL PARTIES" - A CODE WORD FOR GANGS

"IT'S LIKE WE ARE UNDER SIEGE" - DIRECTOR DORIS WRIGHT

At a city board meeting back in March, Director Dorris Wright asked City Manager Bruce Moore to have the Little Rock Police Department provide information about what was behind a rash of shooting in the city, especially in her ward which encompasses  parts of central and west Little Rock.

It took LRPD an entire month to provide City Manager Moore a paragraphs worth of information.

 

 

The paragraph about crime statistics was the easy part and probably took a couple of minutes to look that information up.

Why the city is afraid to speak plainly and admit that the shootings were gang related and instead used a euphemism that appears less dangerous is just as alarming as the ever increasing crime.

Just yesterday there were four shooting in less that five hours.

Here are some crimes that have occurred, all over the city in the last few days:

- A man armed with a large pistol forced two Little Rock Waffle House employees inside the business, which he then robbed.
 
- A man was struck with a gun and robbed by two men who approached him in a vacant lot near a Little Rock club where he had parked his car.

- A 63-year-old Little Rock man who was chopping wood outside his home Saturday afternoon was robbed at gunpoint by two men

- After a robber made off with an 81-year-old woman's purse outside a west Little Rock store Monday afternoon.

- The only one of these four publicized that was solved so far is the last one. Not by LRPD, but by a man who witnessed the crime who then chased after the assailant and recovered her stolen property of the 81 year old victim.

A story about this memorandum, which appeared on the front page of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette today, relates that violent crime is on the rise in Little Rock and there has been a 16% increase in violent crime from January 1, 2017 through April 17, 2017 compared to the same time period last year. 

No word from the task force that Mayor Stodola formed quite some time ago to take care of the crime problem in Little Rock after spending a year or so doing research on how to reduce it himself.

Changes are needed in Little Rock municipal government.  Just go to a Board of Director's meeting or watch videos of the meetings on the city's YouTube channel and it won't take you long to realize what those changes are.

WARD 2 DIRECTOR KEN RICHARDSON FINALLY SHOWS UP FOR A VOTING MEETING - BUT HE SNEAKS OUT EARLY PROVIDING A HUMOROUS ENDING TO THE BOARD MEETING

DIRECTOR RICHARDSON MAKES A RARE APPEARANCE AT A VOTING MEETING, WITH A HUGE BUMP IN THE MIDDLE OF HIS FOREHEAD

We previously posted that the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette ran a story recently about Ken Richardson, the Ward 2 Board member, having missed almost half of the city board of director meetings since January 2016 where voting occurred.

This creates serious concerns about his ability to effectively represent his ward and impacts the ability of the board to take care of business for all citizens of the city.

Due to recent coverage of his many absences or to the fact that he had nothing better to do, Ken made a rare appearance this past Tuesday and actually showed up for a board meeting to vote on important issues - with a big bump and cut smack dab in the middle of his forehead.

Did Ken have a little too much to drink again and fall flat on his face?  Did someone give him a good smack with a frying pan?  Did flashing lights trigger a seizure and he fell? Your guess is as good as ours.

A few minutes before the meeting was was over, Richardson is sitting in his chair talking with Vice-Mayor Kathy Webb.

Then he quietly left the meeting during the Citizen Communication portion of the meeting.

At the end of Citizen Communication's,  Mayor Mark Stodola, unaware that Ken booked out early, stated, "Director Richardson, ahhh, do I hear a motion to adjourn from you?" Hearing no response, Mayor Stodola looks over to where Richardson had been seated and notices he is gone and then says, "Oh, he's not here anymore!" and loud laughter erupts. Then Mayor Stodola spreads out his arms and exclaims, "He vanished on me!" 

Who knew that a Little Rock Board of Director meeting could provide so much entertainment? 

Our previous post pointed out the fact that Richardson has a history of drinking and driving and he has admitted to having an issue with liquor. According to some accounts he also suffers from seizures for which he takes medication.

But his admission to being a dangerous drunk driver and driving when his license was suspended is just the tip of the iceberg.

Our research into Richardson's legal issues uncovered a little known matters.  

Back in 1986, Richardson was charged with burglary in San Jose, California.  Apparently he hotfooted it from the land of fruits and nuts and sought refuge from the law back in Little Rock.

According to the San Jose County Criminal Court Clerk, they issued a fugitive arrest warrant for Richardson, but he never stood trial for the criminal offense.

We found that he was actually arrested on the fugitive warrant once he returned to Little Rock, but due to the passage of time there are few records of what transpired once he was arrested here on the California fugitive warrant.

Richardson refused to answer questions we posed to him about the disposition of the criminal charges from California.

We found some information about Richardson's time in California in an article the Arkansas Times published about gang activity in Little Rock.

Apparently Richardson left California due to the burglary charges and came back to Little Rock and subsequently obtained a job with the city.  As previously stated, Richardson was never in court for the charges as California couldn't find him.

Richardson was a big player in getting that monstrosity of a building on 12th Street for LRPD and retail businesses.   

It opened in 2014 and the retail space on the ground floor still sits empty.

The city has paid a consultant a huge fee to help fill the empty space with tenants and as of this date none have been identified. 

There have also been questions about the non-profit agency he worked for, New Futures for Youth -  now defunct, that received thousands in tax dollars and  grants and any influence he might have exerted to receive funds for it from the City of Little Rock.From 2010 through 2016 the City paid $1,403,008.36 to New Futures for Youth.

Richardson needs to man up and answer questions we posed to him.  The citizens of Little Rock have the right to know the truth about city officials.