The Democrat & Chronicle published an editorial this morning entitled "Reassign troopers".
The editorial supports Governor Spitzer's plan to reassign State Troopers away from rural and suburban school resource officer jobs and racino security, and into urban "high crime" areas. It doesn't bother me that such a re-assignment will take place, but the "justifications" made by the D&C for doing so are cause for concern.
The editorial states that the troopers are being taken away from tasks "better performed by local officers or deputies, or by a trained civilian security force". They go on to say "Currently, 118 school districts statewide employ troopers as resource officers. Some of those are suburban districts not really in need of the high-level skills and training troopers bring.
The school assignments might make sense, though, if it were not for the serious crime problems in upstate cities".
If you live in Brighton or Gates, be prepared for the D&C to use the same arguments to support moving your police into the City of Rochester as part of a metro police plan. It's obvious, isn't it, that the police are more needed in the City than in our suburbs? Why should we have more police service than we "need" while the City can't afford the number of police needed to stop crime there?
In addition to foreshadowing metro police articles, the editorial is notable for what it doesn't say. The D&C is all for chargebacks for Monroe County Sheriff's road patrol costs. What about a State police chrgeback? Will the taxpayers in those school districts losing their troopers get a state tax reduction? Will the taxpayers in the City pay a chargeback?
Once agin we have the D&C talking out of both sides of its editorial "mouth".
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