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Knimrod
02-04-2006, 12:00 AM
Not just guns -- thugs with guns
Thursday, January 26, 2006
The Saginaw News

Police Chief Gerald H. Cliff advised Saginaw City Council members Monday against buying citizen's guns to thwart violence, saying buybacks didn't get the types of high-powered weapons used by gangs off the streets.

Cliff's straightforward evaluation of gun buy-backs was right on target. Gun buy-back initiatives, in which officials purchase guns from citizens, ostensibly to keep them out of the hands of criminals, aren't effective. A handful of studies since the 1990s, when the federal government gave cities cash to buy guns, show they tend to lure law-abiding citizens to bring in small caliber guns. More importantly, Cliff said the studies indicate buying "closet guns" doesn't have a measurable impact on reducing violence.

Instead, the police chief offered the City Council an alternative to counteract the disturbing violence on Saginaw's streets.

Cliff stressed the importance of the city's Safe Streets team, a squad of five officers that targets street crime. He said if he had enough funding for 10 more officers, he would establish a second five-member Safe Streets team to target gangs and street crime.

Saginaw must find a way to give the chief those resources -- by approving a public safety tax increase and by the council earmarking more federal block grant funding for community policing. The city has a violence problem and it can no longer look the other way as young people are dying. Saginaw had 21 homicides in 2005. Through last weekend, the city had four gun slayings already this year. All four victims were 20 years old or younger.

Cliff needs the manpower to attack the city's violence head on. That's up to the council and, more pointedly, up to city voters, who must first come to the conclusion that continued complacency and denial is killing the city.

Link to story (http://www.mlive.com/news/sanews/index.ssf?/base/news-1/113828895869870.xml&coll=9)

iceman4563
02-05-2006, 08:48 AM
The chief is a former Inspector for the Detroit Police Department, was highly decorated and highly respected by the rank and file of the department. He left on his own terms although being beat down for years I think finally took its toll on him.
Sounds like he is trying some of the same creative administration that eventually put him on the B-list in Detroit. He is dead on with the buy-back program and the lack of difference buying the general guns that come in.
I hope he doesn't end up in a world of frustration in Saginaw trying to convince the ignorant on the city council how to police another nortoriously rough city.

Rob