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.
I’m not sure what the point is of the nameless Editorial Board. It probably isn’t worth the time to figure out given their lackluster track record.
These districts are voted on and approved by the people in that area. If they don’t like the value they are getting, they can end the tax district. The officers already have a limit on how much extra they can work, so I don’r see an issue there either.
Sometimes the nameless Editorial Board rambles on in an incoherent manner just so they can post something in this blog. This is one of those days, folks.
Tim (nameless) seems devoted to riding the “nameless editorial board” hobby horse.
The editorial board is not nameless, or any kind of mystery.
It consists of Kevin Mowbray, P-D publisher, Gilbert Bailon, editorial page editor, Kevin Horrigan, deputy editorial page editor, Jamie Riley, letters editor, RJ Matson, editorial cartoonist, John Carlton, editorial writer and me. I also am an editorial writer.
Kevin, John and I do most of the writing — but everybody plays a part in the discussion leading up to an editorial and comments on pieces before they run.
Anyone who is interested can ask who the principal writer was of any given editorial. I did the main writing on this one.
Mr. Roth- Yes, the Editorial Board is a bit of a mystery. Maybe you should post your response to Tim on the sidebar permanently so anyone visiting this blog knows the members of the editorial board.
And as a side note, generally speaking, when one of the editorial members makes a comment towards a reader they tend to be arrogant and sarcastic. Granted, readers can be the same way, but you guys are supposed to be the professionals. You wouldn’t know it by some of the responses.
Good idea, FTPD. Let me see what I can do.
Wow, you mean the names of the nameless Editorial Board will finally be listed on here? That is great. I’ve only been using that description for ages. Nice to see the quick turnaround.
FTPD: Any sarcastic remarks made toward me are no doubt deserved since I often write the same way. What’s good for the goose as it were. Just speaking for myself of course. To be fair, Mr Roth is one of the few that does respond on a regular basis, so I give him credit for that.
Tim - Actually, I was thinking of Kevin Horrigan specifically. There have been a few others too.
I agree with the posting ! I have know more than a couple ex-policemen who for one reason or another moon lighted as a private security company and then started one of their own ! Problem was they did not have the approval of their commander . So they got around it by using their wives as the principle holder of the company , employing other Saint Louis policemen wanting extra pay . I like most people had no problem with it because I thought they we not being paid enough for the job they did . However I believe they abused their powers set out by the city and state by hising the fact they were not suppose to be doing it and having other policemen use the resources of the cites computers and information to futher or depend their pockets because noemal security services would have to detain the subjects until the city police got there to run the usual checks on the subject . This is something that should have been paid for unstead of using their postion as a off duty policeman to make money at the cities expense . That is our tax dollar we are talking about . Our money was paying for services for companies who cannot do this for themselves . How many of them are out there ? Just so happens the people I know ran head long into a big law suit that in the long run put them square out of business and brankrupt because they either could not obtain the right amount of insurance ot not enough . The cop wound up retireing from the force before the city caught on to what was going on ! No I believe if they were hired to do a job as a city policemen then they serve only the city , if they want anything else then go else where !
Most of these guys do it to make a living, not for fun and to play policeman. People like Mr. Roth make it sound like there is a bunch of cowboys running around which could’nt be further from the truth. How many incidents do you think have taken place Mr Ross that you have’nt heard about in the countless years secondary employeement has been going on. Contacts, arrests, just preventing crime by being present. But you here one aligation and all the sudden there’s is a problem. Most police officers don’t want problems, the want to go home and strip off their unforms asap and turn into joe blow again. And don’t forget that working secondary employment can also get you killed because you are still playing policeman.
By the way, those ACLU cameras aren’t doing a very good job catching police misconduct are they. Probably because the majority of police officers do their job right and could care less if you have a camera.