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This is almost laughable. 18k for food.
quote:


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Police identify pedestrian killed on Forest Hill Avenue last week
Richmond Police detail $500,000 in expenses for pro-Confederate rally on Monument Avenue
By MARK ROBINSON Richmond Times-Dispatch 16 hrs ago
20171025_MET_RICH
20170916_MET_RALLY_SL
Richmond police spent $252,000 in overtime and $250,000 in operating expenses and equipment for to the Sept. 16 rally on Monument Avenue.
SHELBY LUM/TIMES-DISPATCH

Pro-confederate group rally at Lee monument
Richmond Times-Dispatch


00:0001:50
The Richmond Police Department spent thousands on overtime, protective equipment and food in the run-up to, and during, the pro-Confederate rally held on Monument Avenue in September, a detailed breakdown of the department’s spending provided to the Richmond Times-Dispatch shows.

Earlier this month, Mayor Levar Stoney’s administration disclosed that the city spent about $570,000 to prepare for and staff the Sept. 16 rally . The event saw about a half-dozen pro-Confederate demonstrators from Tennessee and a few hundred counterprotesters coalesce around the Robert E. Lee monument.

Police accounted for the vast majority of the city’s spending, with the costs split between overtime for officers to work the event and equipment and operating expenses the department incurred.

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Police spent $252,328 in overtime to plan for and work the event. In addition to overtime costs, the department reported $250,189.27 in equipment and operating expenses, a full breakdown of which the department provided to The Times-Dispatch in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

The department paid an average of $43.15 per hour in overtime to 204 officers who worked on Friday, Sept. 15, to notify residents of street closures for the impending event and help set up fencing on Monument Avenue that police used to control entry to the protest on that Saturday.

Police also wanted to have officers on standby in case the pro-Confederate group showed up early, said Richmond Deputy Police Chief Eric English, alluding to the torch-lit march that occurred the night before the scheduled white supremacist rally in Charlottesville in August.

“We didn’t want people coming out there Friday carrying Tiki torches through the city of Richmond,” English said.

On Sept. 16, the day of the event, the department paid an average of $43.56 an hour to 475 officers — two-thirds of its sworn force. Not all officers were assigned to Monument Avenue that day, English said; some were stationed in other areas police wanted to monitor. “There was a larger area we were focused on,” English said, not just the stretch of Confederate monuments.

The department paid an average of $41.39 an hour in overtime to 16 officers on Sunday to monitor in case a second demonstration cropped up, similar to a counterprotest march that happened in Richmond after the events in Charlottesville in August, English said.

In addition to the weekend of the event, the department paid overtime for 30 days leading up to the event “in preparation and execution of the department’s operation plan,” according to a FOIA response provided to The Times-Dispatch.

Stoney’s administration earlier this month said the department spent $254,041 for equipment and operations related to the event, a figure the mayor’s office said included one-time purchases that would prepare police for future demonstrations.

The initial accounting released by the administration erroneously duplicated an expense of $3,851.51, a department breakdown denoted.

The largest equipment expenditure related to the event was 75 body cameras police purchased for $84,280.85. The department didn’t have enough body cameras to outfit each officer assigned to the protest area, English said.

“We had to order more of those. … We felt like that was important to equip our folks who would be out there with body cameras so they could capture the events as they occurred,” English said.

An additional $3,612.57 was spent on eight handheld high-definition cameras so a handful of officers could film people entering and leaving the protest area and the demonstration itself, English said.

Police purchased two license plate readers from the Virginia State Police at a cost of $53,600. English said the department stationed the cameras around the protest area, which was closed to traffic, to aid police in tracking down a suspect in case of an incident involving a vehicle.

The department spent $24,538.50 on 75 radio earpieces to help officers communicate during the event. It also bought 50 gas masks at a cost of $24,250 to outfit officers in case police deployed tear gas to control the crowd, English said. The department didn’t have enough masks available for the officers working the event, he added.

With the exception of the gas masks, which English said he wasn’t certain about, the department purchased all of the equipment during the roughly one-month period from the Aug. 12 rally in Charlottesville until the Sept. 16 rally on Monument Avenue.

Anticipating mass arrests during the Richmond rally, police designated the Arthur Ashe Center on North Boulevard as an intake center where it would process people who were arrested, English said.

The department spent $14,982 to erect a temporary perimeter fence meant to provide security by limiting access to the building, English said.

It also purchased three laser printers for the center at a cost of $3,054.72. Asked whether the department had printers it could have used at the site temporarily, English said it did not.

Police arrested seven people during the event.


The department rented 14 vans from Enterprise from the Wednesday prior to the event through Monday at a cost of $9,492. It used the vans to shuttle officers to and from the department’s staging area at the Greater Richmond Convention Center and the protest and elsewhere they were stationed, English said.

The vans also came in handy for delivering one of the department’s other big operating expenses for the event: food.

Police reported spending $17,938.46 to feed and hydrate officers and other personnel working over the weekend.

That figure includes $6,000 for 1,400 box lunches from Mission BBQ on Saturday; $4,196 for 1,000 meals from Feedmore for dinner on Saturday night; $3,818.54 for bottled water, Gatorade, coffee, cups, sugar and creamer, plates and utensils, hand sanitizer and 10 coolers to store drinks; $2,633.14 for scones, fruit, bagels, juices, sodas and other snacks from Wegmans; $822.50 for 250 Chick-fil-A chicken sandwiches; $371 for Papa John’s pizzas and another $97.28 for pizza.

Richmond police footed the bill for Virginia State and Capitol police to eat during the event, English said.

“We’ve had protests before where we only fed Richmond officers, but we’re asking for assistance from other agencies,” English said. “We’re asking for assistance for them; we budgeted for their feeding as well. I feel like that’s the proper thing to do.”

Jim Nolan, a Stoney spokesman, wrote in an email that the city “took the necessary steps” to make sure no people or property were hurt during the demonstration.

“We prepared for the worst and hoped for the best and didn’t take any chances. We are proud of the outcomes from that day. Many of the investments we made to keep our city safe and peaceful and protect our officers and first responders can and will be used to respond to future events, should they arise.”

Andreas Addison, the 1st District councilman and a member of the council’s Public Safety committee, said that while the cost was high, the money spent was worth it to ensure safety of all involved.

“For me, it’s a lot of money to spend on something that we’re not prepared for, but I feel that it’s in the best interest to make sure everyone is safe.”

Capitol Police said last week that it spent $4,400 on overtime and equipment for the event. Virginia State Police has not disclosed its expenditures related to the rally to date.

mrobinson@timesdispatch.com

(804) 649-6734

Twitter: @__MarkRobinson
Monument Final Expense Report
Monument Final Expense Report
22 hrs ago
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Posts: 6633 | Location: Virginia | Registered: December 23, 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
eh-TEE-oh-clez
Picture of Aeteocles
posted Hide Post
I don't see the issue.

They spent a little over $5 per meal. If you are trying to keep staff onsite for the duration of what might be an emergency, then you should expect to feed them. $5 per meal, plus incidentals like coffee, water and Gatorade, seems perfectly reasonable.

The rest of the money was spent on overtime and investment in equipment that can be reused--not just in emergencies, but for daily policing activities. They likely would have bought body-cams and plate scanners at some point anyway.
 
Posts: 13067 | Location: Orange County, California | Registered: May 19, 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Made from a
different mold
Picture of mutedblade
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by Aeteocles:
I don't see the issue.

They spent a little over $5 per meal. If you are trying to keep staff onsite for the duration of what might be an emergency, then you should expect to feed them. $5 per meal, plus incidentals like coffee, water and Gatorade, seems perfectly reasonable.

The rest of the money was spent on overtime and investment in equipment that can be reused--not just in emergencies, but for daily policing activities. They likely would have bought body-cams and plate scanners at some point anyway.


Pretty sure his point is how much the "stupidity" of protesting the Confederate monuments along Monument Ave. in Richmond is costing the tax payers. That's a cool half mil, that otherwise could have been used a little more productively, especially seeing as RVA has some of the shittiest schools in the state. Let's not even go into the buying of license plate readers, which we have been used in the past within the state to make note of potential gun owners and other "deplorable's".


___________________________
No thanks, I've already got a penguin.
 
Posts: 2872 | Location: Lake Anna, VA | Registered: May 07, 2012Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Don't Panic
Picture of joel9507
posted Hide Post
As I read this, it is detailing the expenses to protect statue-defenders, not the statue protestors.

I can see this article as testing out another way to attack freedom of speech. The argument being set up will go something like this, "Hey, the assholes protesting your event will be violent, and it costs too much to defend you, so we'll have to shut you down in the name of fiscal responsibility."

That argument didn't work in the '60s and it shouldn't work today. Granting counter-protesters a functional veto is not freedom of speech.
 
Posts: 15235 | Location: North Carolina | Registered: October 15, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Get my pies
outta the oven!

Picture of PASig
posted Hide Post
You know you can edit out half the junk that got cut and pasted in, right?


 
Posts: 35151 | Location: Pennsylvania | Registered: November 12, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by mutedblade:
quote:
Originally posted by Aeteocles:
I don't see the issue.

They spent a little over $5 per meal. If you are trying to keep staff onsite for the duration of what might be an emergency, then you should expect to feed them. $5 per meal, plus incidentals like coffee, water and Gatorade, seems perfectly reasonable.

The rest of the money was spent on overtime and investment in equipment that can be reused--not just in emergencies, but for daily policing activities. They likely would have bought body-cams and plate scanners at some point anyway.


Pretty sure his point is how much the "stupidity" of protesting the Confederate monuments along Monument Ave. in Richmond is costing the tax payers. That's a cool half mil, that otherwise could have been used a little more productively, especially seeing as RVA has some of the shittiest schools in the state. Let's not even go into the buying of license plate readers, which we have been used in the past within the state to make note of potential gun owners and other "deplorable's".


More or less this. The cost in protests themselves. I will say this is a far cry from seattles response to protests, planned or not. I was quite pleased with the departments overal handle on this.

What i was getting at is it's purchase of a fair number of items they should have had, borrowed from parks deptment, or reallocated from thier other resources. Ie the lisc plate readers, renting trucks instead of borrowing from the city. This whole thing smacks of budget justification. We will get a blank check after charlottville, we will use it ot loose it.
 
Posts: 6633 | Location: Virginia | Registered: December 23, 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Fighting the good fight
Picture of RogueJSK
posted Hide Post
People complain when the cops aren't prepared and a protest gets out of hand. "They're incompetent! They should have known there was a good possibility that this protest could turn violent!"

Then people complain when the cops are prepared but the protest doesn't get out of hand. "What a waste of money! All that manpower and equipment for what turned out to just be a small protest!"

I guess the bottom line is that some people just want to complain, no matter the circumstances.

Richmond PD doesn't have a crystal ball, and they decided (probably rightly so in light of the Charlottesville incident that occurred shortly beforehand) that it was better to be prepared for the possibility than under-prepared.
 
Posts: 33436 | Location: Northwest Arkansas | Registered: January 06, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by PASig:
You know you can edit out half the junk that got cut and pasted in, right?


On the cell phone for now, will trim it up when i get home.
 
Posts: 6633 | Location: Virginia | Registered: December 23, 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by RogueJSK:
People complain when the cops aren't prepared and a protest gets out of hand.

Then people complain when the cops are prepared but the protest doesn't get out of hand.

The bottom line is that people just want to complain. Richmond PD doesn't have a crystal ball, and they decided (probably rightly so in light of Charlotte incident that occurred shortly beforehand) that it was better to be over-prepared for the possibility than under-prepared.


See my points above. The city has the school busses to handle moving people and the parks department to move the gear. As for feeding, not sure why that is on my taxpayer dime.
 
Posts: 6633 | Location: Virginia | Registered: December 23, 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
posted Hide Post
~500 a pop for gas masks ? They never heard of Amazon ? Fuck it. Not their money they were spending
 
Posts: 5108 | Location: Florida Panhandle  | Registered: November 23, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
eh-TEE-oh-clez
Picture of Aeteocles
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by ElToro:
~500 a pop for gas masks ? They never heard of Amazon ? Fuck it. Not their money they were spending


Institutional buyers usually don't buy items off-the-shelf. They typically need/want packaged items with dealer support. In the case of gas masks, they also probably want training, replacement filters, and inspection/re-certification of the masks periodically. It's one thing for you to buy something off of Amazon for shits and giggles, it's another thing when you are ordered to go into harms way and to use the safety equipment mandated by your employer. If the equipment doesn't work as it should, and your employer didn't take reasonable precautions to ensure that the equipment works as it should, then the employer could be sued into oblivion.
 
Posts: 13067 | Location: Orange County, California | Registered: May 19, 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
posted Hide Post
Twas ever thus in police work:
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.


End of Earth: 2 Miles
Upper Peninsula: 4 Miles
 
Posts: 16553 | Location: Marquette MI | Registered: July 08, 2014Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
Picture of FiveFiveSixFan
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by DSgrouse:
As for feeding, not sure why that is on my taxpayer dime.


Many were probably on mandatory overtime after having worked their regular shifts in patrol, etc. They were probably bussed to staging areas where they were unable to leave to go get something to eat. If those were the circumstances, I think it's quite reasonable for the city to pick up the tab.
 
Posts: 7406 | Registered: January 10, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
posted Hide Post
I'm not defending anything about this because I don't know enough about it to have an opinion, BUT here are my observations as a police:

1) If this had turned into a full scale civil emergency, and they did nothing to prepare, or less, or probably even more, and there was any loss of life, damage to property, etc., the story would have been how they did not do enough.

2) When you get into large government agencies, there are generally complex rules for purchasing, especially as the amounts climb. $500 for a gas mask does not sound remotely absurd to me, given that they are probably bought on a bid and have to meet certain standards that were specified in that bid. For some other items, the sooner you need it, the more expensive it will be.

3) A large amount of the equipment I see mentioned (radio "earpieces" which are likely actually expensive tactical headsets, gas masks, video recording equipment, license plate readers, etc.) will find continued additional use.

4) As somebody mentioned, the cost of meals was actually pretty low. By providing meals, they were likely able to ensure that their people ate while also limiting the duration of meals breaks and travel time to and from meals.

5) What's left is the overtime, really, and I go back to point 1 on that.
 
Posts: 5254 | Location: Iowa | Registered: February 24, 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Oh stewardess,
I speak jive.
Picture of 46and2
posted Hide Post
The saying about never letting a good crisis go to waste applies here also.

Beyond whatever valid points and reasons there were, you can bet your ass the opportunity was *also* used to buy other shit *just because*, whether a favor to a vendor, or a wish list item they couldn't justify otherwise, and 80 other reasons.

Furthermore, the difference between the ideal Aeteocles mentions and the reality is a vast gulf, filled with enormous amounts of waste and bullshit that sounds good on paper and never amounts to much of a real difference in the end. Such has *always* been true.
 
Posts: 25613 | Registered: March 12, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Corgis Rock
Picture of Icabod
posted Hide Post
My read is that the department had a chance to get some goodies. Take the body cameras. The purchasing process is no doubt long and entails a lot of bureaucrats that can "just say no." Why not just buy them and claim it was for the demonstration?



“ The work of destruction is quick, easy and exhilarating; the work of creation is slow, laborious and dull.
 
Posts: 6066 | Location: Outside Seattle | Registered: November 29, 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
posted Hide Post
I don't really see a problem with it, but do I think Richmond PD bought a few goodies on the sly or used the protest as a convenient way to do it? Sure.

But I will say, and many other Officers on the forum can testify too::: The duty sucks...

You are either held over your normal shift, brought in early or forced to work on your day off. You are usually bused or transported to the area, and can only have a few items with you.

Besides being tired, hungry, hot/cold,you then add in the fact there is usually no where to go to the bathroom, or you have to wait and go in shifts.

So the money spent on food, water, snacks etc.. Anything little thing to help keep morale up I am good with.
 
Posts: 1862 | Location: In NC trying to get back to VA | Registered: March 03, 2015Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Leave the gun.
Take the cannoli.
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by ElToro:
~500 a pop for gas masks ? They never heard of Amazon ? Fuck it. Not their money they were spending


There's an entire OSHA program that goes along with a mask including sizing and fit-testing. A resourceful police department could have set this up using DHS grant funds. Training for crowd control is another example of authorized expense of the HSGP.

As far as the food goes, I'm not sure riots and demonstrations allow for lunch hours and coffee breaks IAW the contract. You gotta feed your guys.
 
Posts: 6634 | Location: New England | Registered: January 06, 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Do No Harm,
Do Know Harm
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by mrapteam666:
I don't really see a problem with it, but do I think Richmond PD bought a few goodies on the sly or used the protest as a convenient way to do it? Sure.

But I will say, and many other Officers on the forum can testify too::: The duty sucks...

You are either held over your normal shift, brought in early or forced to work on your day off. You are usually bused or transported to the area, and can only have a few items with you.

Besides being tired, hungry, hot/cold,you then add in the fact there is usually no where to go to the bathroom, or you have to wait and go in shifts.

So the money spent on food, water, snacks etc.. Anything little thing to help keep morale up I am good with.


Ain't that the truth. We get emails weekly for staffing pulls due to events. I think the one I just deleted was for something like 350 officers. There aren't enough cops to go around.




Knowing what one is talking about is widely admired but not strictly required here.

Although sometimes distracting, there is often a certain entertainment value to this easy standard.
-JALLEN

"All I need is a WAR ON DRUGS reference and I got myself a police thread BINGO." -jljones
 
Posts: 11470 | Location: NC | Registered: August 16, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Hop head
Picture of lyman
posted Hide Post
my only thought is why did they not reach out to the local business community for food and beverages?

great that they kept some of the meals local, however when I was in the grocery business, (spent some time downtown RVA) we donated a lot of water and goods to the local police for events and needs, esp during the summer months,

a couple of phone calls would have netted them a pallet or 3 of water, easy



https://chandlersfirearms.com/chesterfield-armament/
 
Posts: 10668 | Location: Beach VA,not VA Beach | Registered: July 17, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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