“WHY WOULD YOU DECIDE
THAT THE FIRST THING YOU WANT
TO CUT IS POLICE AND EDUCATION?
YOU’RE EATING THE YOUNG.”
lieutenant, helps lead this effort in
the field. Late on a Tuesday night in
July, Burroughs stands by the department’s mobile command post, a
hulking blue-and-white van, puffing
thoughtfully on a cigar. Sawhorses
and squad cars with lights flashing shut down the block. Across the
street sits a public housing project,
a sprawling complex of squat, ugly
brick buildings known as a hotspot
for gangs and drug crime.
Out in the streets, teams of officers
patrol on foot, while gang and drug
units in convoys of marked and unmarked cars swoop down on known
hot spots, driving suspected drug
dealers off the corners, at least for a
short while. A few undercover narcotics units, meanwhile, are using hardwon intelligence to set up sting operations in a bid to take down bigger fish.
One of the major flaws in the department’s strategy seems to be that its
depleted manpower means that even as
it floods one problem area with cops,
pressure is lifted from other crimeprone neighborhoods. “Right now it’s
quiet. But crime gets displaced while
we’re here,” Burroughs says.
He believes that the city’s gangs are
well aware of the police department’s
cutbacks. “They know that we’re restricted with resources,” he says.
It has been a tough couple of years
for the police force. Many officers lost
close friends during the layoffs. They
watched crime rebound after it fell to
some of the lowest levels in decades
just a few years ago. And just seven
months after the layoffs, Willie Johnson, an extremely popular 16-year
veteran of the force, was killed in a
drive-by shooting while standing in
line at a local pizza joint.
Johnson worked in the 5th precinct
and Burroughs considered him a good
friend. He left behind a wife and two
young daughters. “He was killed in the
same precinct he worked in,” he says.
For officers like Burroughs, there’s
little they can do about the broader
economic forces shaping the city and
their department. But they must carry on. “The bottom line is that we’ve