City of Lincoln
Police Department
Police Department
lincoln.ne.gov
Problem-oriented Policing (Pop) Projects
The Northwest Center Team has a wide variety of events and businesses on the team area. This means the team is responsible for coordinating police response to events like the Star City Parade, Haymarket Heydays, July Jam, football games, and many more.
The team's POP projects in 1997 encompassed not only special events but businesses, neighborhoods, the liquor industry, and student population. A few of the projects handled by the NWC Team this year include:
Public Service Officers at the area schools before and after school to assist with traffic and pedestrian problems.Working in the Airpark neighborhood distributing petitions for additional lights, working with the neighborhood watch coordinators, and patrolling during high incident times.
Targeting downtown graffiti. The project resulted in the arrest of a person responsible for over 70 cases of graffiti.
Goodrich Middle School Career Fair
Goodrich Middle School and the Lincoln Police Department premiered a very different Career Fair to 9th grade students. For the first time, students at Goodrich had the opportunity to interview for jobs with over 18 community businesses. This cooperative community project gave the students a chance to meet and discuss career options with over 30 business professionals.
The students prepared for the job interviews during a 10-week curriculum course under the instruction of teacher Tim Bayne. Officer Teresa Hruza and Lois Paschke coordinated recruitment of business interviewers. A number of participating businesses like Hy-Vee, Burger King, The Wagon Train Project, and Dominos said they intend to hire qualified students.
| Sergeants | Officers | PSO's | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Davidsaver Jackson Kinghorn Kubicek Myers Schmidt | Andreasen Arthur Ashley Blowers Branch Brehm Bucher Butler, R. Cleland | Danson Dorn Dowell Duden Engel, M. Fitch, R. Fitch, S. Franken Hamm | Hansen Helmstadter Hillabrand Hohnstein Hruza, T. R. Kennett Kocian Link Mangels, R. | Marti, C. Meyer Muff Nissen Phillips, D. Phillips, K. Prai Pratt Robinson | Smith, R. Solano Urkevich Van Nortwick Ward, T. White | Bartek Church Milleson Munn Northcott Price Spratlen |
Community-Based problem-oriented policing thrives on the Northeast Team. Led by Captain Jon Briggs, team officers have actively pursued POP (problem- oriented policing) projects on their assigned beats. With the development of the Problem Resolution Team, which combines various city agencies, some of the community's problems have been successfully resolved.
Abandoned & Junked Vehicles
Neighbors contacted the police department complaining about a firm that had unlicensed, wrecked, and abandoned vehicles overflowing from their business and illegally parked on city streets. The firm had also taken over three old houses across the street from their main business and was parking junked vehicles in the back yard. The neighborhood began to look like a dumping ground for junked vehicles. The owner of the business told neighbors and police that the problem would be corrected, however, nothing changed.
The Northeast Team developed a POP project and took photos of the business, the street, and the three houses to depict the condition of the neighborhood. The project was then presented to the Problem Resolution Team for consideration. The City legal department researched the zoning laws and the laws regarding operating a salvage yard. The City codes division inspected the three houses and found that the properties had been rezoned to business, however, one of the houses had been red tagged. Officers continued to patrol and cite and tow any vehicle found in violation. Conditions started to change; a fence was erected around the business, and the red-tagged house was remodeled. The business has been cited for salvage operation violations and is in litigation with the City. The junked vehicles were removed from the back yards of the houses and the project continues to be monitored.
| Sergeants | Officers | PSO | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arp Bassett Merwick Richards Roeder | Alesch Arnold Bourg Brandl Campbell Carter Clark, R. Clarke Dean Evans Fehringer | Flood Fluitt Gambrell Hahne Hurley, R. Johnson, D. Keasling Kennett, S. Kneifl Lloyd | Mangels, M. Milisits Munn Niemeyer Pachunka Schaaf Scott Smith, J. Solano, C. L. Steenson * | Stokes Tallman Tankesley Varga Ward, B. Wiles Willemsen Wittwer Yindrick | Ewoldt
|
| * Leave of Absence | |||||
New Substations
Location....location....location. This concept is as important to police
substations as it is to real estate and restaurants. In 1997, the Southwest
Team made significant progress in becoming more accessible to its citizens
by moving closer to the community. We were fortunate enough to open two new
substations whose space was donated by civic-minded area businesses.
Both of these locations, an apartment at 2020 "G" Street, and office space
in the Center Point professional building at 13 and "E" Street, are in areas
that absorb a large amount of our resources. These substations will provide
a place for the officers to complete reports, make phone calls, conduct
community and police meetings, and other activities. This will eliminate the
need for officers to leave the areas they patrol, increasing police presence
and community interaction.
Problem-oriented Policing (Pop) Projects
In addition to the above progress, the officers of the Southwest team
organized several problem-oriented policing projects to deal with issues
facing the team. These include illegal activities in the parks, larcenies
from auto, and attempts to reduce an inordinately large number of criminal
calls for service in a surprisingly small geographical area of only twenty
square blocks. Perhaps not coincidentally, the same area has one of our
new substations.
Summer Fun Project
Southwest Team School Resource Officers provided activities for 35 area
youths this summer through the third annual Summer Fun Project. The recipe
for the success of this project included one part money and one part
merchandise, both donated by area businesses. Added to this was a good mix
of labor and enthusiasm provided by our School Resource Officers and other
LPD members. They dedicated their time, efforts, and ingenuity while
providing positive role models for all involved. This created three weeks
of fun, memories, and education for a group of kids who without this project
may have had less positive police contacts this summer.
| Sergeants | Officers | PSO | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lantis Larsen Marti, G. Townsend Sundermeier Wright | Alexander Armendariz Banks Bashus Blase Bolkovac Burkhart Dalton Doetker Ehrhorn | Foster, A. Graham Grubb Guthrie Hanshaw Hewitt Hruza, T. A. Jenkins Jindrick Johnson | Lacy Lobdell Martin Marsh McAndrew McGuire Moeller Moore, A. Pitts Reitan | Roberts Schafer Simpson Stumbo Stutzman Vakiner Weinmaster Worley Yardley Zimmer | Jones, C. |
Meet the Beat
In July, the Southeast Team started a project called "Meet the Beat." The
project was designed to get police officers out of their cruisers to meet
citizens who live and work on the Southeast Team area. The entire team area
was divided into six smaller geographic areas in an attempt to give officers
a more manageable piece of real estate. Officers assigned to a specific area
were then used as a resource for special events, projects, presentation
requests, etc., occurring within that area. The eventual goal of the project
is for every citizen living in southeast Lincoln to know one police officer
by name.
Youth Leadership Development Project
The Southeast Team had experienced an increase in citizen generated calls
for service from the neighborhood adjacent to Southeast High School. Many
of the calls and complaints were directed toward Southeast High students.
To impact this problem School Resource Officer John Amen created the Youth
Leadership Development Project.
The goal of this project was to build bridges between the neighbors, staff and students of Southeast High School. The program incorporates a scheduled shadowing period for students to ride with the School Resource Officer as he patrols the neighborhood. Students have the opportunity to contact neighborhood residents to initiate dialogue and facilitate solutions for the neighborhood. At the conclusion of the program students are required to complete an essay which addresses the problems and identifies possible solutions.
Problem-oriented Policing (Pop) Projects
POP projects are designed to impact repetitive problems or situations that
require special needs by implementing specific strategies targeting the
problem. The Southeast Team conducted 50 projects last year. For example,
officers responded to a problem address 19 times over the course of a month.
A POP Project was designed to work with neighbors and the landlord of the
problem tenants to deal with the issues. As a result of the project the
tenants were evicted and the neighborhood restored. A letter from one of
the neighbors read ."I am indebted to all of you. I have my neighborhood
and my sanity back."
| Sergeants | Officers | PSO | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Moore, G Santacroce Sheridan Sims, E. Woolman, M. | Abele Adams Aksamit Amen Bangert Barrett Berlin Briggs, C. Burnham Butt Champoux Cockle | Cue Davis, M. W. Goehring Green Groves Handy Hensel Holm Howell Humiston Hunt, D Hurley, J. | Jaeger Knopik Lutz McMeen Nichols Schellpeper Schneider Scheinost Scherer Standley Unvert Wilke | Miller, B. |