A little late in the day for this, but here’s a little game, sure to be as wildly successful as Make Us Laugh. It’s called Where’s that dateline? I’ll give you a news snippet and you pick the dateline. Ready? Of course not:
A pregnant woman was shot in the back. A 17-year-old girl was shot in the head, rendered blind. A 20-year-old man was shot and killed behind the wheel of a moving car; his 15-year-old female passenger was shot as well.
So what’s my dateline? (No fair guessing if you read the paper or any other local news source before 4:30 today…) Is it…
A. Baghdad, Iraq
B. Sarajevo
C. wherever “Children of Men” takes place, or
D. a few hours in South Sacramento over the weekend?
Do I really have to answer? Bet the Police Chief is wishing he could have squashed that recent story about Sacramento having the lowest number of uniformed offers per capita…
22 Comments
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John Hughes
February 26th, 2007 at 5:00 pm
Your post completely confuses me.
It would seem to me it’s City Manager Ray Kerridge that wishes he could’ve squashed that story.
February 26th, 2007 at 5:31 pm
thanks John
sorry for the confusion, kit. does this clear it up?
February 26th, 2007 at 5:40 pm
Lonnie Wong’s report on this on the 10′OClockNews (on FOX 40) was almost humorous, which is one of the many reasons why I hate him. I just can’t take him seriously. Or, maybe the story really was quite funny. I’m not sure.
If you get the chance, watch it.
February 26th, 2007 at 11:15 pm
DMZ,
I don’t know enough about the make up of a city police department to determine whether that is a normal or abnormal ratio.
February 27th, 2007 at 9:10 am
can we agree that dead last in the top 50 cities is an abnormal number? mind you, just because we are close to last in actual size among those top 50 doesn’t matter, we’re talking ratio here.
February 27th, 2007 at 10:26 am
So the answer is “D” I take it?
February 27th, 2007 at 10:29 am
yes pointfinder, as referenced in the title, lede, and throughout the Bee article I linked to, the answer is D.
February 27th, 2007 at 10:33 am
Dead last in the top 50 is referring to the number of actual police officers per capita or to the ratio between beat and non-beat officers?
It seems safe to say that Najera wants more officers under his command. But the only statistics I’ve seen involve actual officers per capita and have nothing to do with the ratio of beat to non-beat. Unless I understand that data, Najera just turning his entire force into beat cops seems like a “robbing Peter to pay Paul” scenario.
February 27th, 2007 at 10:49 am
Ah, thanks, DMZ. I get it. The “Make Us Laugh” game is a real game where your readers are encouraged to try to, ahem, make you laugh, while this new category is all tongue in cheek, snarky even…
I get jokes.
February 27th, 2007 at 11:46 am
it’s pretty cut and dry, kit:
from sacbee.com, 2/4/07
several similar cities have roughly *twice* (twice!) the number of officers as Sac.
February 27th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
pointfinder: glad i was able to help. i suppose i was thrown off by your penchant in the past for using questioning and other rhetorical tactics to find a point that you deem not made or not made obvious. i don’t really have plans to play this game again…
February 27th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Ok, you and I normally are able to communicate in a normal fashion, DMZ, but we seem to be on very different wavelengths right now.
I am *NOT* trying to argue that we are not drastically, dangerously under-policed. I am trying to figure out why you seem to think Najera doesn’t agree with that, when he’s gone on the record saying he does.
Of those cities with twice the police force, who is to say that they don’t also have twice as many non-patrol officers as well? The department still needs detectives, a cyber-crimes division, and those are just two non-patrol positions I, unfamiliar with the employment make up of city law enforcement, can come up with. I am certain there are many more.
Do we blame Najera for not taking officers out of those positions and putting them on the street, or do we blame the city for not giving Najera number of officers he asks for? I blame the city, where you seem to blame the Police Chief. I am earnestly trying to understand why.
February 27th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
you’re making this way more about who i’m blaming for what than it really is. read what i said.
I never said Najera doesn’t think we are understaffed; i meant to say i bet days like that day (6 shootings in 8 days in like a 3 block radius) make him wish nobody else knew that.
Najera has gone on record (linked above) saying that “there’s very few non enforcement positions in our department” when in reality fully 25% of the employees of the Sac PD (at the time of writing) were non-uniformed officers.
More damningly, he has gone on record as saying that there are “maybe 4″ murders in Sacramento in a hypothetical year (http://sacrag.com/2006/06/perspective-on-the-crime-wave). Read that quote again.
i never claimed to be making a well-constructed argument about whose office door needs to be served with a suit. i don’t have any idea who does the hiring or whatever, and i don’t really care. Crime in this city is out. of. control. and i don’t think the Mayor or the Police Chief sound like they care or know what to do.
February 27th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
Well you’ll certainly get no argument from me no the crime issue. I just was thinking back to the Sacramento PD making a pretty vocal stand against developing the Railyards into an arena because they didn’t have adequate forces to patrol what they’ve got now.
To me, that said the Sac PD was admitting to their inadequate number and asking for help. But you’re right, Najera can’t go around quoting ridiculously wrong crime statistics and expect people to nod and fail to notice that the number was nearly that in a single weekend in February.
February 27th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
It’s usually a bad sign when you use a 4 to 1 ratio of explanation to joke.
February 28th, 2007 at 10:00 am
Obdurate – I don’t get it.
February 28th, 2007 at 11:17 am
Usually I blame the joke, but this time I’ll blame the audience.
February 28th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
I was just kidding dude.
February 28th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
obdurate: I get the joke, I don’t agree with the premise.
March 5th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
which premise of which joke?
March 5th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
exactly!
March 5th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
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