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SALT LAKE CITY — The Salt Lake City Police Department says its new Metro Support Bureau has seen success during its first month.
The bureau was created near Pioneer Park to concentrate on crime and community policing in the area from North Temple to 700 South and from I-15 to State Street, where police say they receive about one-third of all their calls for service.
A total of 886 arrests were made by officers in that area from July 6 to Aug. 2, or the first month of operation of the new bureau, according to statistics released by the police department this week.
But Chief Chris Burbank said he isn't measuring the success of the program by arrest statistics alone. It's the feedback from people in that area, he said, that's more important.
"Stats are one thing. But if we're measuring the number of arrests and those types of things, that's not what I want to accomplish. What I'm measuring on, what I'm seeing, is we're having less of a problem. The public feedback we're getting back to us is the areas are cleaner, there are less people sitting around, that we've changed behavior, we have circumvented some of the drug activity in the area. We are impacting what goes on," he said.
Salt Lake City Councilman Luke Garrott, whose District 4 includes Pioneer Park and the Depot District, agrees.
"I've noticed, and I've heard from a number of residents and businesses, it's making a difference. The majority of complaints and justifiable fear residences and businesses sometimes have is from the drug activity," he said.
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Salt Lake City police have a new plan to staff the Pioneer Park bureau with officers 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to patrol the area.The bureau was created after the department received pressure to address drug and violent crime problems. Many of those causing the problems are drug dealers who are "concealing their criminal activity" by trying to blend in with the homeless population who have legitimate needs for service.
"The stories that I hear from residents who try to engage drug dealers and take it into their own hands, it's gotten scarier and scarier," Garrott said.
However, there were concerns when the bureau was created that the criminal element would simply be pushed to other parts of the city and then it would become someone else's problem. But Burbank said he hadn't seen that happen. Plus, he said, the homeless population isn't likely to be pushed out.
"We need to get them to the service providers in that area. They're not going anywhere," he said.
Burbank has said conditions in the Pioneer Park/Depot District are symptomatic of larger societal problems. The department is doing its part through this directed enforcement effort, but he said community partners have to be part of the solution.
The chief said he would like to see a resource center for the homeless population open 24 hours.
"If you have to stand in line every day for two or three hours in order to get somewhere to sleep the next night, you are not going to be effective in seeking employment or getting health needs met," he said. "We need to get them to the service providers in that area. They're not going anywhere."
I've noticed, and I've heard from a number of residents and businesses, it's making a difference. The majority of complaints and justifiable fear residences and businesses sometimes have is from the drug activity.
–Luke Garrott, SLC councilman
Still, Burbank said he is pleased that of the nearly 900 arrests made during the first 30 days, 16 percent of those were drug-related.
Garrott believes the chief is correct in distinguishing between the criminal element and those who are poor or homeless in the area, because as long as there is a demand for drugs, there will be suppliers.
He says Burbank is taking the right approach addressing the problem.
"We need more of a police presence because drug dealing and the aggressiveness of drug dealers has increased over the past two years, so it's definitely made a difference," he said. "To spread (drug dealers) out, I think, is part of the answer. It's a short-term strategy, it's a tactic.
"My opinion is spreading the activity out is actually an improvement. It is the concentration of activity that makes it a dangerous place and not attractive to a lot of people."
Garrott said seeing a drug dealer on his street every other day or so is better than seeing three in a row every day on the same street.
