The Burlington Police Department has suspended solo officer patrols in response to “the pre-meditated murder of numerous Dallas Police officers by one or more snipers,” Chief Brandon del Pozo announced Friday morning.
Friday night, as demonstrators in Dallas, Texas protested the police killings of black men in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and St. Paul, Minnesota, gunfire broke out.
According to Dallas Police, suspects with semi-automatic rifles shot at least 11 officers, killing five.
Del Pozo said the attack made him reconsider – at least for now – the Burlington Police Department’s policy of sending officers into the streets by themselves.
Before coming on as chief in Burlington, del Pozo worked for the NYPD, where he said officers weren’t allowed to go solo.
“I always felt like that was a great luxury in terms of safety in New York, and I was curious to see how it translated to Burlington,” he said. “I’m comfortable under most circumstances with cops on patrol alone, but not now. Not as of last night.”
Many posts on social media Thursday night mentioned that Dallas Police have a positive relationship with the community there. Data reported by BuzzFeed News show that a deliberate shift by the department toward better community relationships led to decreases in excessive force complaints, arrests and officer-involved shootings in recent years.
Before the shooting started, the Dallas Police Department posted a photo to Twitter of officers posing and smiling with a protestor holding a sign that said “No Justice No Peace,” a popular slogan in the Black Lives Matter movement.
Demonstration in #Dallas @ Belo Garden Park pic.twitter.com/IUx5IaERSB
— Dallas Police Dept (@DallasPD) July 8, 2016
Del Pozo said the positive community relationships police have in Dallas makes Thursday night’s violence especially disconcerting in Burlington.
“The Dallas Police were not in Minneapolis, they were not in Baton Rouge. They are a forward-thinking, progressive police department and yet people opened up an attack on their officers military-style, frankly, that resulted in at least 5 deaths,” he said. “I mean, it just shows that we have 18,000 police forces in the country, and what happens in some places has a real profound effect on others, even if it defies logic.”
In a Tweet announcing the decision, del Pozo said citizens with non-emergency calls can expect police to take longer to respond, now that officers on the force are concentrated in fewer cars. He said the department’s “commitment to foot patrol is undiminished, and it will be two officers for the time being.”
"It just shows that we have 18,000 police forces in the country, and what happens in some places has a real profound effect on others, even if it defies logic." - Burlington Police Chief Brandon del Pozo
The foot patrols are part of Burlington Police’s community policing strategy to foster better relationships between Burlingtonians and officers. Del Pozo said the slower response times that come with the suspension of solo patrols could be seen as a good thing.
“I think that that’s healthy,” he said. “I think one of the reasons why we’re where we’re at in American policing is because we’re trying to meet citizen expectations. So we have to put these officers in cars and they have to be ready to respond to everything within minutes, that’s just what citizens have expected. But that level of response to non-critical incidents is what prevents us from putting more officers on foot, it’s what prevents us from getting them out of cars, it’s what prevents us from having officers get to know citizens."
The police chief added: "So really, I think slowing down the response to non-critical calls is a healthy recalibration to American policing."
Del Pozo said the suspension of solo patrols is temporary, until officials are confident that officers can safely patrol by themselves.
"I just think that there will be a level of alertness as we figure out if any of the national tensions in policing translate into issues in Burlington," he said.
