Case Date:

11/17/2022

Followup to case# 181838 (I believe there is a problem with distracted driving in Bloomington despite there being a state law about hands-free driving for a few years now. Please inform me what BPD is doing to directly address this danger to the public safety of this city. Thank you. Marnina Patrick) I took Captain Pedigo up on the suggestion to contact the ISP and am now sharing the replies I go: "Thank you for taking the time to send us a note of concern for drivers utilizing celllular devices while driving. We have listed the statue below for your review and will forward you concern to the commander of the bloomington district. If you see a violation, please don’t hesitate to report the driver to your local police/sheriff's office or the closest ISP post." "The bloomington police department is still responsible for traffic infractions even if they have staff shortages. Police departments throughout the nation are experiencing staffing shortages however still continue to serve the public."

Case Date:

10/17/2022

I believe there is a problem with distracted driving in Bloomington despite there being a state law about hands-free driving for a few years now. Please inform me what BPD is doing to directly address this danger to the public safety of this city. Thank you. Marnina Patrick

Case Date:

9/27/2022

In response to uReport case # 181637: "Greetings. We need moving violation enforcement and an increase in people who can do traffic law enforcement. Can someone in BPD as well as OOTM please read this article and consider how the City of Bloomington may work to make their streets actually safe and civil... Please take note of the quote about their goal. I think Bloomington needs to make the goal of public safety a top and most important priority! This is what the city of New Orleans is doing to help their police department with their staff shortages. 'They will have duties such as monitoring phone and online reports, issuing traffic citations, surveying major events like Mardi Gras and the Essence Festival and even doing some investigative work. Civilians would additionally be dispatched to calls that may not require an officer, such as collecting preliminary evidence, securing loose pets and responding to forgery, certain medical episodes and some thefts, New Orleans Police Superintendent Shaun Ferguson said last Thursday. 'The goal of all of this is to make our officers feel safe so that they can make our citizens and visitors feel safe,' Ferguson said. 'This is also to reduce some of the workload currently placed on our patrol and district personnel. But more importantly this is designed to reduce response time and address the backlogs in which we have in some of our districts.'" Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/09/26/1125055305/new-orleans-police-civilians" RESPONSE: "BPD already has a program such as this in place in an effort to lessen the workload on sworn officers so they can focus their efforts on criminal behavior. MY REPLY: Thank you very much for the information. I was aware that there were Community Service Specialists but since I have still been told repeatedly over the past three years that BPD does not have the staffing to do traffic detail or do much work outside of responding to 9/11 calls, then I respectfully suggest COB budgets for and approves several more CSSs. Also, admittedly I had a poor opinion to the CSS position due to a car collision at a bad intersection that was attended to by a CSS and not a sworn officer and was never included in the official stats for that intersection. When I requested a four way stop from P & T, they cited there had never been a collision there when that is blatantly false. Please consider checking the protocol on how collisions attended to by CSSs are handled for reporting purposes as well as increase the head count, please. There is a problem with public safety in this town that the current business as usual is not curbing. Thank you for your time.

Case Date:

1/17/2020

I filed a uReport nearly a year ago (in March 2019). The uReport was passd back and forth between city employees, but I have received no information that the uReport was actually read or responded to. The uReport was case #167846. Speeding is still a problem on Maxwell Lane - it's a four-tenths of a mile straightaway with a blind hill in the center.

Case Date:

11/12/2014

With the recent crime in the neighborhood, it would be nice to see regular police patrols in the evenings.