Homicide detectives working Monday’s fatal shootings were pulled from the investigation for the rest of the week Wednesday to walk a beat as part of Police Chief Cathy Lanier’s All Hands on Deck effort to increase police visibility, sources said.
The move left some in the city’s depleted detective ranks grumbling that homicide cases were growing cold while veteran investigators wrote parking tickets.
Lanier’s strategy is to saturate the city streets this weekend with 3,600 uniformed police officers to serve arrest warrants, write tickets, provide traffic enforcement and listen to residents’ concerns. This is the fifth All Hands operation since June.
To compensate for the extra shifts, officers must take days off during the week, leaving those shifts shorthanded.
The six-member homicide unit assigned to work the night of Monday’s fatal shootings of Michol Brown, 24, and Michael Yeager, 21, was ordered to stay home Wednesday and today and don uniforms Friday and Saturday to patrol various neighborhoods around the city, according to one homicide detective.
“You can’t take days off and walk foot patrols and try to solve homicides,” said the veteran detective, who agreed to talk only without being named. “It’s impossible.”
The first week of a homicide is the most critical, the police source said. The detectives might try to work on their off days before the trail goes cold or sneak away from their foot beats to work the shooting deaths.
“The cases are in no way jeopardized because of All Hands on Deck,” police spokeswoman Traci Hughes said. “Any detectives who take a day off, others will take up their leads in their absence.”
Councilwoman Mary Cheh, Ward 3, questioned the wisdom of pulling homicide investigators for foot beats, especially when the agency continues to labor under a shortage of detectives.
“I think it’s wrongheaded,” Cheh said. “I find this very worrisome and not the most effective use of resources or deployment.”
The first four All Hands operations netted more than 1,900 arrests, about a fifth more than during the same days last year.
But critics complain that the 48-hour blitz is simply a publicity stunt that does little to stop crime.
So far this year, robberies and homicides are up by 10 percent, and the number of homicides has passed last year’s total.
