"(most folks violating visa stays, by the way, are Canadian, but that's another story);"
Interesting that you say most folks violating visa stays are Canadian, but where does that stat come from? "Every candidate for police chief in St. Paul, anyway, endorsed the Separation Ordinance because, as articulated best by current Chief Harrington (whose profession is keeping St. Paulites safe):" "Tom, your comment about police chiefs coming out for something because it's politically expedient has some pretty significant ramifications for public safety. Are you willing to defend those, too?" Yep, as a former Police Chief I have interviewed for those jobs. Had I not been in political alignment with the current board I don't believe I would have been appointed. Well the board/council says they are looking for the most "qualified" person, many times that also has to do with ideological views. Don't kid yourself, the supreme court and federal judicial appointments are not the only political appointments made where ideology, race, sex and many other factors play a role. And I never said that they do it because it's "politically expedient". The Chief may believe in the values he says, but then again, he may be being told by his "bosses" what to say. His/her job depends on the support of the council and mayor. Now a disagreement here or there won't probably exclude someone but on major issues, well, it would be hard for a Chief to go against the council's wishes and remain on as Chief for a long tenure. If you went public with a position against your bosses stated public position how long would you keep your job? "Moreover, as I understand it, the Ordinance is really just formal codification of St. Paul Police practices of not asking immigration status when answering to housecalls." Local codification, ordinances, etc cannot be in violation of federal or state laws. Local code can many times make federal, state laws more restrictive but not usually less restrictive. The local council can't make drugs legal because they feel that the war on drugs has been ineffective and is a waste of police resources. "Because a woman who's afraid of being deported will not call the police with INS functions if her husband is abusive. Because an undocumented immigrant will not call the fire department if there's a fire for fear of deportation." While there are some good points to this argument. Drains on our public resources for repeat calls for service are great. If a household is a drug house, a gang house, a house with lots of domestic dispute calls for service, I believe our officers should do everything they can to stop it. If a husband is beating his wife (or vice versa), and the victim calls 911, it is probably not the first time it has happened. As a police officer for 20 years I saw many victims who were bloody and bruised, sometimes with broken bones, who the next day went back to the perpetrator and did not want to press charges anymore. That is why the mandatory arrest laws were enacted. To protect the victims. So, to not ask about the illegal status of a perpetrator is actually putting the victim in harms way more. At least this would be one way of keeping the perpetrator from victimizing the victim again. They are not "undocumented immigrants", they are here illegally. Now, I am going to concede that many illegal immigrants are good, honest hard working productive members of the community. However, there are legal channels to go through to come here. We have those rules and allow a certain number of people in at any time for reasons, national security, jobs, (could it be the reason that so many say there are no jobs now is because of the illegal immigrants working when we have a lower unemployment rate than when Clinton ran for re-election in 1996?) etc. I hope that a process will be used to keep the hard working illegal immigrants that are here now, here. Problem is there is also the dark side of illegal immigration. Gangs, drugs, etc. Many of the members of gangs are illegal immigrants, how many? We may never know because of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy of the separation ordinance. I believe, as I said earlier, that there is a gray area of officer discretion. To codify that our officers can't ask people committing crimes whether or not they are here legally or not is wrong. The officer should be finding out, and the jail should be notifying the INS, and the INS should be deporting. It doesn't work this way, but I believe it should. The officers should be able to use discretion between a husband and wife having a fight and the gang member doing a drive by shooting. The council should not tie the hands of our officers to make that judgment call on asking and notifying the INS. "For local policing, the INS/City Separation ordinance is just good policy." I just disagree with this statement. I believe I answered that above. Don't tie our officers hands because of political correctness. Let our officers keep us safe and enforce the laws while using their officer discretion. If they improperly use the discretion than disciplinary proceedings can be brought against them to show that they did not use the discretion properly. "--NYC and LA tried combining INS functions with the local police force, and it resulted in an increase in complaints about racial profiling, and a degradation of the local police forces' relationship with immigrant communities," Racial profiling is another politically correct buzz word for racism. Police, for the most part, do not go out looking to arrest certain ethnic, racial people. Now if they are doing a drug, prostitution, etc sting in a minority neighborhood and the arrests are mainly racial or ethnic peoples, is that profiling or just good policing? I say it's good policing, if they had cause to believe there were crimes going on there and the arrests were good. However, it's so easy these days to scream racism or profiling and then the police are automatically perceived to be wrong. If they are let them be held accountable. But, basing the number of arrests, stops etc by racial or ethnic lines endangers us all. This is a part of management. Another reason I am against public employee unions. If officers are out there violating peoples rights and profiling they need to be held accountable. We want our police officers to be doing their best, and I believe most of them are. But management needs to be held accountable for training the staff to handle situations. With the union issues of promotion, we only get to choose from current employees, not do a search and get the best person for the job. Maybe the best person is on the force, but if you're an employer and you can only choose your next manager from the ranks of current employees and not look outside for new and innovative ideas, your hands are tied and the whole structure becomes less effective. "--Local police simply have their hands full, and are not trained to implement INS laws. Combining INS functions with local policing is bad practice, and leads to an increase of complaints against the force." Agreed that local police do not know the nuances of INS law. No one is asking them too. This is only about asking someone if they have a legal reason, status, etc for being here. If not, then the INS should be notified. This is not about local police enforcing INS laws or administrative rules. It's about local police being allowed to use every method to keep us safe. It's about trusting that our local police officers are doing the best job they can. Asking someone if they are here legally and getting a green card, etc is not the same as enforcing INS rules. Asking should be allowed, and then our police can notify the INS to come and handle the situation under their (INS) guidelines. Complaints need to be taken seriously. However, numbers of complaints are not as relevant as the number of actual sustained violations. It's easy to file a complaint and hold a press conference. It's another thing to actually have a legitimate complaint. Legitimate complaints need to be dealt with (and now we're back to the management and union issues again). " --It's not an effective method of identifying terror suspects. Combining INS and local policing functions did not result in better investigation" What is your source for this? Is this an opinion based piece or a statistically factual argument? Were there bias's present in the gathering of information, or was this done by an independent organization using scientific analysis? "I think the Governor's safety objectives would be better served by staving off those in his own party who would cut LGA funding, which affects how many officers and firefighters are on the street," LGA is not a guarantee. LGA is a supplemental funding source. It is the responsibility of the city, not the state to provide for police and fire departments. These organizations are chartered under the city. The city chose to have their own police and fire departments (many because they wanted local political control over how they were run and how laws were enforced). The Sheriff's department is constitutional but the police department is something that the city has chosen to provide it's citizens. Just as the city has chosen to do lots of functions that help it's citizens, but most are not mandated by law. So if firefighters or police officers are being cut that is completely the cities problem. They chose to have these organizations and they need to fund them. Now I believe that these organizations are more important than most others, and if there is going to be a service reduction, it should not come in public safety, but I have bias's that way. I also have bias's about LGA. I was laid off when Minneapolis went through their lies about LGA. They cut the police departments SAFE, Crime Prevention unit. I was laid off, but a Canadian citizen who worked in the cube across from me, and flew the Canadian flag in her cube stayed on. A Somali man with less seniority was reclassified so he could keep working. What was AFSCME's response? Seniority was more important than national origin. So when you hear that we are exporting jobs, remember that AFSCME is importing them. Enough about my personal bias's on that. "I agree with you - to a point - that Law Enforcement Officers are sworn to "uphold all...laws." But then you seem to say that "uphold" means "enforce". Are you saying that our local police for are supposed to ask if an individual paid the federal taxes when they stop them for running a red light? I don't think you really mean what you seem to say." There is discretion. Spitting on the sidewalk is a crime, there are lots of things that are, in one town where I was police officer there was still an ordinance on the books about cars having to pull over and shut their motors off as a horse approached. So, let's not cloud real issues with hypotheticals that really are way off base. "I, for one, am pleased that our Council gave some guidance to city employees about where to put enforcement efforts. Much better that then leaving it up to the individual officers" Guidance is fine. Ordering them not to enforce a law is wrong. Giving them training, talking about when discretion can be used and working with the legal immigrant community on cultural issues is great. But ordering the police to defy a law because of the political leanings of the council is wrong. "I come from a law enforcement family - grandfather a constable, father a 30 year plus police officer and chief of police, and son-in-law police office - and I know that police officers ignore the law daily. Have you ever followed a police car for any length of time? I have and seldom have I seen them use a turn signal. Don't you think that carries over into their personal driving habits? Or parking in a no parking zone to get a cup of coffee?" I too come from a law enforcement family. Two uncles and myself. Yes, I do see police not use proper traffic habits. I also see them speed and then turn around a write a speeding ticket to someone going the other direction. And when they park in the no parking zone that is to go get a FREE cup of coffee, which should never be allowed. This again comes down to management. Why are we not recruiting from other departments and agencies the best people to be Sgt's, Lt's, etc. Why are we only allowed to promote people from within and only after they have X years on the force? These are rules to protect internal people from being accountable. These are why I advocate against public employee unions. "I, for one, am pleased that our Council gave some guidance to city employees about where to put enforcement efforts. Much better that then leaving it up to the individual officers" I for one want to trust the officer. I want management to make decisions and then let the officer do his/her job. If they don't hold them accountable, but most will do their job and make the right choices. Tom Thompson Como Park Original Message; Tom, Nobody's ignoring the illegal immigration problem (most folks violating visa stays, by the way, are Canadian, but that's another story); we're just leaving it to the folks who are trained to do it---the INS (which is called something else now; bear with me). Every candidate for police chief in St. Paul, anyway, endorsed the Separation Ordinance because, as articulated best by current Chief Harrington (whose profession is keeping St. Paulites safe): --NYC and LA tried combining INS functions with the local police force, and it resulted in an increase in complaints about racial profiling, and a degradation of the local police forces' relationship with immigrant communities, --It's not an effective method of identifying terror suspects. Combining INS and local policing functions did not result in better investigation, and --Local police simply have their hands full, and are not trained to implement INS laws. Combining INS functions with local policing is bad practice, and leads to an increase of complaints against the force. Moreover, as I understand it, the Ordinance is really just formal codification of St. Paul Police practices of not asking immigration status when answering to housecalls. Why? Because a woman who's afraid of being deported will not call the police with INS functions if her husband is abusive. Because an undocumented immigrant will not call the fire department if there's a fire for fear of deportation. For local policing, the INS/City Separation ordinance is just good policy. Tom, your comment about police chiefs coming out for something because it's politically expedient has some pretty significant ramifications for public safety. Are you willing to defend those, too? Certainly the Governor's advocacy of rescinding the measures is even more vulnerable to criticism of political motivation (though the Governor's office lacks the credibility of being responsible for the day to day enforcement of law and upholding of public safety in Minneapolis or St. Paul). When it comes to local law enforcement, I'll take the word of the city chief of police over the governor, anyway. I think the Governor's safety objectives would be better served by staving off those in his own party who would cut LGA funding, which affects how many officers and firefighters are on the street, instead of micromanaging City Council decisions, but that's just me. Erin Stojan Dayton's Bluff Ward 7 _____________________________________________ To Join: St. Paul Issues Forum Rules Discussion Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _____________________________________________ NEW ADDRESS FOR LIST: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, modify subscription, or get your password - visit: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/listinfo/stpaul Archive Address: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/private/stpaul/
