Oversight of police working “private” security needs rethinking
A sign marks the offices of Hi-Tech Security, a private company that patrols residential neighborhoods in the city. Elie Gardner/Post-Dispatch
It’s no secret that many, if not most, police officers “moonlight.” Officers depend on overtime or off-duty jobs to supplement their family incomes.
It’s also no secret that this can pose serious questions about conflict of interest. The St. Louis Police Department has stringent rules governing “secondary employment.” The rules are laid out in a “special order” more than a dozen pages long. Among the highlights:
• All “secondary employment” must be approved up the chain of command. Outside work cannot exceed 24 hours a week, and may be limited to far fewer hours if a commander feels it interferes with an officer’s performance.
• Cops can’t drive cabs, collect debts, investigate divorce cases, serve summonses, work at casinos, cross a picket line during a strike or other work stoppage, provide private security for public officials, or work at any “location or enterprise that could bring discredit to the department.”
For a long time, that covered most issues. But as commercial and retail districts in the city, residents of private streets and even entire neighborhoods have created special taxing districts to pay for “special patrols,” new questions have arisen.
The business and residential areas want a role in managing the services they pay for. But the police department must be deeply involved, too.
On Sunday, Jeremy Kohler of the Post-Dispatch reported that dozens of St. Louis officers have been moonlighting for private security firms hired to patrol some business and residential areas.
The officers wear their city police uniforms and badges and carry their service weapons. They retain full arrest and investigatory powers. Sometimes they are supervised by police department commanders, who also are moonlighting. The only difference is that officers ride in different cars and answer different radio calls.
But “special patrols” use a public resource. The department should move beyond “special orders” and actively coordinate all policing — on and off duty — in partnership with the community.
Special taxing districts are public bodies, creatures of state law and city ordinance. They are managed by publicly appointed boards that administer public money raised by tax levies approved by voters. Some of the special districts in the city’s central corridor have been exploring ways to pool resources. They have hired a former St. Louis County officer to coordinate off-duty police service.
These sorts of developments could signal a new era in community/police collaboration, improving public safety throughout St. Louis — not just in neighborhoods that can afford to pay for extra service.
City neighborhoods and business districts benefit from the focused, sustained attention of a couple of sharp police officers, uninterrupted by the hurly-burly of daily police work, working with engaged citizens, assessing concerns and helping to develop strategies to meet problems.
Much of this happens now and represents the best use of special tax district money.
But there are questions about how to ensure that the public receives a good value — both for taxpayers shelling out the extra money and for taxpayers citywide permitting their regular cops to work extra.
How, for example, do we measure whether special police efforts are effective or just temporary fixes that push problems elsewhere?
Police data are a key resource. But it is not available to off-duty cops working for private security firms, nor should it be. Sensitive law enforcement information can be abused when handled outside of the regular protocol. Putting off-duty officers on the payroll shouldn’t be way for private enterprises to gain access to confidential police files.
Solutions lie in recognizing special districts as laboratories that should be coordinated with the regular police operations. That means close supervision of off-duty policing. On regular duty, police commanders, for example, keep a close eye on officers’ use of aggressive tactics, especially the manner in which they make pedestrian and auto stops. That may not be the case on special patrol.
Officers should abide by the same police practices and protocols while they’re moonlighting, and the department must enforce its own rules for supervision and accountability. That will add cost, and the special taxing districts should bear it.
The entire city is made safer only if regular and off-duty police work is held to equally high standards of professionalism, innovation and problem solving.
Lest you forget a police officer is a civil officeholder 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Just like other officeholders. This position is full time the officeholder is given so called off duty time to see to his personal needs. This is done purposely so that officers are clear headed while on duty. All work and no play makes jack a dull boy. We want clear minded rested alert officeholders that keep their mind and body on duty. This is the reason for the law. The police are state officers as well as local officers and can be held accountable to local, state, and federal laws. In other words these folks are just like soldiers their off duty time is not their own time they are just considered for some purposes to be “off duty”. The fact is they remain an officer at all times. This leads to hardship in their personal lives which is one of the reasons for so called “off duty time”. Personal lives do affect duty when things are not in order. Civil disorder starts at home. An officer knows these things and does not skirt the law or disobey the law period. If he does at any level he is unfit for duty period. And so it goes.