Teams target high-crime zones while trying not to alienate minority communities
By Zusha Elinson
The Wall Street Journal
October 3, 2016
LAS VEGAS—Sgt. Jessie Wiggins maneuvered his police cruiser away from the glow of the
Strip and into the darkness of a nearby neighborhood that recently had been the scene of a half-
dozen robberies, multiple assaults and the killing of a 21-year-old with a shotgun blast to his
head.
On this night in early August, Sgt. Wiggins and his eight officers cruised a square-mile area
of low-rise apartment complexes, stopping residents for minor offenses in the hopes of nabbing
violent criminals and illegal guns. A trespasser turned out to be a suspect in a May murder in the
same area.
Later, a newspaper deliveryman, who was stopped for failing to turn on his blinker and had no
criminal record, became upset, and he said believed the officers were simply targeting black
people.
Sgt. Wiggins, who is white, drove to the scene to try to smooth over the dispute. “We’re actually
here to help you guys out,” Sgt. Wiggins said to the man. “We know you’re not a violent guy,
you’re not the guy we’re looking for.”
The tactic is part of new effort to stop crime before it happens by using data to send teams of
officers to swarm violent-crime hot spots each night.
Las Vegas, like 28 other large cities in the first half of the year, saw a jump in homicides. The
murder rate in the Las Vegas area is still far below more violent cities, such as Baltimore or
Chicago.
But the leap in homicides here, from 56 in the first half of 2015 to 90 in the first half of 2016,
was one of the largest of the 51 major city police departments surveyed by the Major Cities
Chiefs Association at midyear. Robberies and assaults are also up from last year.
Most U.S. cities are much safer than they were in the 1990s, and it is unclear if the recent
jumps indicate the beginning of a long-term shift or a blip on the radar. But it has police chiefs
and politicians worried and seeking answers.
Targeting high-crime zones isn’t new, but deploying the tactic presents a fresh challenge for
police departments grappling with a rise in crime in an era of escalating tension between law
enforcement and minority communities.
“It’s always a struggle to keep departments in check when there’s a significant increase in
crime,” said Samuel Walker, professor emeritus of criminal justice at the University of Nebraska
Omaha. “You’ve got public pressure to do something, and in the past, it was often do anything.”
In the past, police here and across the nation used a zero-tolerance style of policing to fight
violent crime, stopping and arresting people for minor offenses. The approach heightened
tensions between African-American residents and police in places such as Baltimore and New
York, where a judge ruled that the department’s deployment of its stop-and-frisk program was
unconstitutional and racially discriminatory.
In Las Vegas, the Metropolitan Police Department is trying to tamp down violent crime
without alienating the black and Latino residents the department has worked to win over.
Metro came under scrutiny five years ago for a high number of questionable shootings of black
men. After a voluntary Justice Department review, Metro introduced new use-of-
force training and revamped policies. Body cameras were deployed—and Metro is currently one
of the only major departments to quickly release footage after shootings.
Fatal shootings by police have dropped—and there is less tension between black residents and
police than there is in other places, said Roxann McCoy, president of the NAACP’s Las Vegas
chapter. “Our police department has changed tremendously,” she said.
Even so, Ms. McCoy said she has received some complaints about the hot-spot policing from
residents.
“They just feel like they’re being harassed,” she said. “They have no clue that it’s a hot spot and
this is taking place.”She added: “We want the bad guys caught, but we don’t want the innocent
people caught up, too.”
The rise in violent crime here is driven by several factors, police said.
More young men with stolen guns are shooting at each other over the slightest provocation, said
Lt. Dan McGrath, who heads the homicide division.
In April, Angelo Barboza, 15, was killed and four others injured in a gunfight between two
groups of teens at a party; 80 bullets were fired, he said.
Antoine Williams, 21, was killed allegedly by two accomplices shortly after the trio was
involved in a home-invasion robbery on July 24 in the hot spot to the east of the Strip, Lt.
McGrath said.
California gang members also have been muscling into Las Vegas, viewing it as an open market
for selling drugs, said Lt. Sean Toman, who heads the drug-fighting task force. The violence that
results isn’t about traditional gang rivalries or longstanding turf battles.
After murders, the department deploys religious leaders and officers to the neighborhood and
sometimes hosts barbecues in an effort to ease fear, gather leads and prevent retaliation.
Metro police officials say that violent crime has ebbed since the hot-spot policing effort was
introduced in late April, but that it is too early to say whether their new approach is having an
impact.
Sgt. Wiggins, 44, a former SWAT team sniper with a comedic streak (he wore Mickey Mouse-
style mitts to his police academy graduation instead of the required white gloves), said the
department is trying to avoid past mistakes.
Officers once took a “hook ya and book ya” approach, he said, arresting and ticketing people for
every offense or outstanding warrant, no matter how minor.
Sgt. Wiggins said he instructs his officers to pursue violent criminals, and let “Ma and Pa Kettle”
go for minor violations. “We’re not just dealing with a spike in violent crime; we have a
philosophy that deals with community outreach,” he said. “How do we balance these two
things?”
Brian Sette and Justin Spurling, the officers who nabbed the trespasser who turned out to be a
murder suspect, were grinning when Sgt. Wiggins rolled up on the scene, a notorious alley in an
apartment complex. Sgt. Wiggins called it a “good snag,” but when he found out the suspect
didn’t have a gun, he needled the pair. “I need a gun in my pretty little hands,” he said.
A half a block away and a few minutes later, another pair of officers stopped a man for riding a
bike without a light. They found hypodermic needles in his bag but no guns.
“That’s a fish we throw back,” Sgt. Wiggins said.
EDITOR’S NOTE: NYPD’s stop and frisk tactics were very effective despite the critics claim to the contrary. The judge who ruled those tactics unconstitutional and discriminatory had a track record of issuing anti-police decisions. NYPD started to appeal her decision but uber-liberal Mayor Bill de Blasio made them drop the appeal.
It is true that many of those stopped and frisked were law abiding African-Americans, but the tactics did reduce gun violence.,
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