I have to call this out. Dishonesty on display.

I normally try to keep this message as positive as possible but this MUST be talked about.

SBPD and Chief Young have been to a neighborhood TWICE now staging photo ops after the recent murder and tragic events of the last month.  SBPD hasn’t been in the neighborhood for over a year and the only time they did come in they disrespected citizens and caused more problems than they solved.  Two times in a month versus a year of not caring.  

To make matters worse… this wasn’t even their event.   A local church collected and made back to school bookbags with supplies and asked SBPD to be on hand to “help” not to hijack the event and make it all about themselves.  They didn’t even mention the church .  Not only is this opportunistic, it’s dishonest. 

Now this isn’t the fault of the officers.   By no means do the officers have negative intentions.   They are forced to write mandatory overtime tickets and keep ticket quotas for revenue generation.  That’s where all the top level raises are coming from.  Town politicians vote themselves a raise while revenue remains the prime motivator.  They couldn’t care less about community policing.  

The saddest part is the neighborhood knows their recent presence is just a photo op and know that the kids will be disappointed again when the officers are forced to go back to writing tickets and lose the focus on community policing.   Faking it for a few weeks just damages the trust even more.  

As some of the folks from the neighborhood said “community involvement… they are pretending to do the same thing they fired Butler for”.  Indeed.  

The chief has openly admitted his only concern is for ticket revenue.  I have the recordings.   I have the screenshots.  

Demand that they be consistent in this recent series of efforts.  

I am always one for positive change and if their fake events lead to them ACTUALLY starting to be present and embrace community policing then the fight was worth it.