RON DAVIS -- Through My Eyes

I want you to imagine that after the two pigs had their homes destroyed

by the big bad wolf, they weren’t permitted to move in with any other

pigs. They were on their own.

After the attack, the pigs would have to rebuild their homes, and that

would take time -- time during which they would not only be exposed to

further wolf attacks, but allocate virtually all of their resources to

reconstructing their safety.

Public safety works the same way. We generally find out that we’ve

slipped in public safety through a major incident or a continuing series

of incidents. When it finally dawns on us that our public safety has

slipped, we can’t repair it overnight. It costs more to rebuild proper

public safety than to properly maintaining it. Further, when a major

incident occurs, and it may take the form of a scandal (such as the Los

Angeles Police Department is now facing), or a botched crime-scene

investigation (Jon-Bennet Ramsey or O.J. Simpson for instance), or

high-dollar lawsuits (Tyisha Miller or Rodney King), or through increased

workers’ compensation claims, the community remains highly vulnerable to

these kinds of mistakes until public safety is rebuilt.

While Huntington Beach hasn’t suffered the kind of major incident that

shines the spotlight of attention on public safety, there are clear

warning signs that our public safety could be in serious trouble.

While past awards for being a safe city are nice, they tell us little

about the condition of public safety today. These awards are not only the

product of past police efficiencies and a basically safe citizenry, but a

good deal of blind luck. We can’t continue to rely on past awards and

luck to provide public safety.

A proper public safety net is really an “I NET” -- Intelligent officers

in sufficient Numbers who are Experienced and properly Trained. Without a

high degree of intelligence in all of our public safety officers,

training is less effective and mistakes occur more often -- all of which

costs us in the long run.

Just imagine the pigs calling 911 and requesting the least-intelligent

and least-experienced officers to respond to their emergency.

Intelligence and experience affect the ability to catch the right wolf.

An error in taking down a detailed, correct description of the suspect or

failure to understand constitutional law may result in the arrest of the

wrong wolf (false arrest), or worse yet, the shooting of the wrong wolf

or an innocent bystander (wrongful death).

If we do arrest the right wolf, what level of intelligence do you want in

your cop responding to cross-examination in a courtroom?

A city lacking highly intelligent police officers will soon meet a

different wolf -- not a wolf in sheep’s clothing but wearing a dapper

three-piece suit while standing in front a jury, huffing and puffing at

your city’s general fund.

Not only is it of prime importance to hire officers who are intelligent,

but to have enough officers to adequately protect the community. A city

can get away with a smaller ratio of officers to residents when all of

the officers are extremely intelligent, well trained and very

experienced. But, a low ratio of cops to residents -- with cops who are

lacking in experience and intelligence and who are not the best of the

best, but merely the best of what’s left over after every other

department in the county has picked before us -- is a deadly combination

that will cost us dearly in the future.

Next week, I will demonstrate that the city of Huntington Beach has been

and continues down a public safety disaster path by reducing the ratio of

cops to residents to well below the statewide average and the average for

beach communities. And you’ll see that our compensation packages are so

noncompetitive that we are relegated to hiring the best of the leftovers.

* RON DAVIS is a private attorney who lives in Huntington Beach. He can

be reached by e-mail at [email protected].