The Montgomery County Police Department urgently needs a policing style more appropriate for the county’s growing urban areas, Police Chief Tom Manger told the County Council on Thursday.
Areas like Silver Spring, Wheaton, Germantown and Rockville need patrol officers on foot and bikes as well as in cars, he said. But without more police officers, Manger can’t meet the changing needs of the areas that are quickly developing from the suburbs and rural areas of 10 years ago.
“We are a very lean department,” he told members of the County Council’s Public Safety Committee. “As the county has gotten more urban, we have had to develop a more urban style of policing … that requires more officers.”
In Wheaton, where robberies are up 20 percent, much of the crime occurs in the area around Bel Pre Road and Connecticut Avenue in Aspen Hill. Manger said he wants to staff the area around the clock, but that could require 18 additional officers.
Bethesda residents saw a spike in burglaries at the end of last year and flooded the inbox of Council President Roger Berliner, D-Bethesda, with requests for help. But the police need more staff to prevent such strings of burglaries, Manger said.
<br/><small><a href=”http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=embed&hl=en&geocode=&q=Bel+Pre+Road+and+Connecticut+Avenue+in+Aspen+Hill&aq=&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=31.701751,86.572266&vpsrc=0&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Connecticut+Ave+%26+Bel+Pre+Rd,+Aspen+Hill,+Montgomery,+Maryland+20906&t=m&ll=39.091833,-77.070293&spn=0.013323,0.01708&z=14&iwloc=A” style=”color:#0000FF;text-align:left”>View Larger Map</a></small></div> <p><span class=”BodyCopy”>”When you talk about burglaries in the [Bethesda] district, you need more than six officers for people to notice and for the bad guys to notice and for us to really have an impact.”</span></p> <p><span class=”BodyCopy”>Germantown also needs a team of officers dedicated to patrolling the downtown area, like the team that patrols downtown Silver Spring and has proven to reduce crime there, Manger said.</span></p> <p><span class=”BodyCopy”>Currently, when a problem arises in downtown Germantown, officers from a different area rush there, leaving another part of the county understaffed, he said. Though the committee recognized the need for additional staffing, it pointed to money as a hurdle.</span></p> <p><span class=”BodyCopy”>”We know you would like to have more officers in particular areas, and if money were no object we would all say yes without hesitation,” said <a href=”http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/andtmpl.asp?url=/content/council/mem/andrews_p/index.asp”>Councilman Phil Andrews, D-Gaithersburg/Rockville</a> and <a href=”http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/andtmpl.asp?url=/content/council/mem/andrews_p/committees.asp”>committee chairman</a>. “But we are not out of the woodshed budgetarily.”</span></p> <p><span class=”EndEmailTag” style=”font-style:italic;”><em><a href=” mailto:[email protected] “>[email protected]</a></em></span></p>
