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Knimrod
01-24-2006, 11:19 PM
Cliff: Gun plan off mark
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
MIKE THOMPSON
THE SAGINAW NEWS

Responding to a city leader's stab at thwarting violent crime, Saginaw's police chief is dismissing the idea of paying people to give up their guns as missing its mark.

A "gun buy-back" concept that received brief attention during the middle 1990s proved fruitless in fighting crime, Chief Gerald H. Cliff told City Council members Monday.

"The buy-backs didn't reach the market that people were looking for," Cliff said. "They weren't getting the AK-47s or the 9-millimeters. They were getting grandpa's shotgun after grandpa had died."

Councilman Amos O'Neal two weeks ago asked Cliff about the gun buy-back idea as Saginaw entered a violent January stretch with four homicides so far. Last year's slaying total in Saginaw was 21.

Cliff said a key component of a gun crackdown is tracing ownership of weapons seized in raids and arrests, pushing back to the original point of sale.

Two U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents from the Flint field office last summer joined the city police force three days a week. The gun enforcement agents help the Safe Streets team as well as the region's drug enforcement squad, known as BAYANET.

The feds work with city and surrounding agencies to trace guns from one crime to the next. They have a dual goal of catching both the shooters and the illegal gun dealers -- essentially forcing criminals to fight a two-front war against police.

Collection of data during the next few years may help uncover some repeated points of origin that could gain attention from authorities, Cliff said.

Saginaw council members in coming weeks must decide how to spend $3.01 million in federal block grants, including up to $445,700 available for community police.

Cliff said the only real answer is more officers. He joins his Saginaw police chief predecessors as a supporter of community policing, but he gives even higher priority to special operations units that make intensive sweeps in crime-prone neighborhoods.

Saginaw's Safe Streets Team now has five officers, along with the ATF and an FBI officer.

"Give us more officers," Cliff said, "and we would put another Safe Streets team out there."

The FBI is providing $60,000 to help pay overtime for the Saginaw officers and the firearms bureau potentially will offer small rewards such as $100 for information leading to seizure of a gun or a firearms arrest, Cliff said.

Gun buy-backs took root when Bill Clinton was president a decade ago, the chief said, as a sidelight to his highly publicized pledge to put 100,000 new officers on the streets.

Major metropolitan areas including New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington received grants in the range of $300,000 to $500,000 and typically collected 6,000 to 8,000 firearms apiece.

Cities had to pay half the cost, and Saginaw leaders in 1995 decided not to take part, even though Mayor Gary L. Loster raised the idea. He was mayor at the time and former Buena Vista Township police chief.

"It wasn't just that guns weren't the type used in the streets," Cliff said, "it was that the people bringing them in weren't the criminals, but the law-abiding citizens. (Later research) showed no evidence of any impact."

The project gradually died out during the final years of Clinton's tenure, and President Bush phased out funding in 2001.

Funding for the 100,000 officers, like the buy-backs, also had a short life. Clinton and Al Gore, who was his vice president, still today assert that they kept the promise. In fact, communities paid for half the cost and the effort lasted three years, expiring in 1998.

Saginaw pushed its force as high as 154 sworn officers in 2000, including 14 community officers. Today's count is 94, including three neighborhood-based community specialists.

A ballot proposal for higher property taxes is likely Tuesday, May 2. Council members have yet to officially act and are awaiting a report from Darnell Earley, the interim manager who was on vacation Monday. Earley is to outline the finances for police, fire and other services when the council next meets Monday, Feb. 6, either at a 5 p.m. briefing or during the 6:30 p.m. regular session. v

Mike Thompson covers city government for The Saginaw News. You may reach him at 776-9691.

Link to story (http://www.mlive.com/news/sanews/index.ssf?/base/news-17/1138116172302550.xml&coll=9)

goldwing2000
01-25-2006, 12:04 AM
That Chief sounds like he actually has his poop in a group.