Understaffing puts cops, public at risk in Harvey

A call has gone out in Harvey: Officers need assistance. The police union has accused the mayor and his administration of not putting enough uniformed officers on the streets, jeopardizing the safety of those who are on duty.

The union contract calls for six officers to be on patrol during each 12-hour shift in Harvey, a city of 30,000 residents. As a matter of routine, according to the union, the department puts only four on patrol. And on a recent Friday night, only two patrol officers were on duty from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., claims union president Norm Frese.

Last Friday, Frese sent a letter to Mayor Eric Kellogg asking for help. The missive was prompted by an injury to an officer who responded to a violent domestic dispute call without backup, Frese said, while the three other cars were on their own domestic disturbance calls.

The union "is demanding that if the ... shortages cannot be filled by the City of Harvey, that either the Cook County Sheriff's Police or the Illinois State Police be brought in to assist the Harvey Police Officers." Frese said the lack of manpower has been an issue for more than a year.

The city claims the streets of Harvey do not go under-staffed or unpatrolled. Department administrators help patrol, says city spokeswoman Sandra Alvarado. Furthermore, problems filling shifts should be blamed on patrol officers themselves, she says, who are taking "an unusually large amount" of sick days of late.

Recently, the Daily Southtown has revealed that the number of sworn officers in the department has declined under Kellogg's administration even as spending on public safety has dramatically increased. In August 2002, Harvey had 71 full-time and 21 part-time sworn police officers, according to the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board. As of last month, Harvey has 56 full-time and 11 part-time officers, according to board records. Harvey's own current police roster shows only 21 of Harvey's sworn personnel are front-line patrol officers. The rest are sergeants, commanders, directors, detectives or other higher ranks.

A Southtown investigation of city budget and spending records — as much as can be reviewed, given Harvey's failure to provide public documents despite repeated Freedom of Information Act requests — shows public safety spending $2.1 million over budget in Kellogg's first year as mayor.

If the money isn't going to police officers, where is it going? Sources tell the Southtown the money is going to friends, relatives and other unqualified personnel.

Heading into an election season, and a contentious mayoral contest, perhaps the union is exploiting this opportunity to criticize the mayor.

What's more likely, in our view, is that the seams are coming apart in a mismanaged police department. The police officers on the frayed edges are risking their lives without sufficient backup.

Kellogg's spokeswoman insists sergeants and commanders are leaving their desks to join officers on patrol. But we've seen the kind of quality law enforcement the community can expect from the mayor's hand-picked command staff.

At an accident scene May 31, Deputy Chief Denard Eaves and Cmdr. Darnell Keel incited a crowd of onlookers to accost a Southtown photographer. Eaves and Keel have misrepresented the crash itself on a public access TV program aired in Harvey, and they've lied about their own actions that day.

Eaves, as a sergeant, was fired by the previous mayor, who called him "incompetent." Keel was under the eye of the FBI at one time, allegedly for confiscating guns from criminals and reselling them on the street. In 2002, he plowed his car into a crowd outside a local bar and then threatened to shoot people. As an officer, he was reprimanded for telling someone trying to flag down his car to "get lost." In a newly filed federal lawsuit, Keel is alleged to have driven around in his police car sipping Crown Royal. He's the subject of several federal lawsuits alleging discrimination against white officers, which in turn has prompted a federal civil rights probe of the department.

Another commander, Merritt Gentry, has racked up 11 misconduct charges. He's been accused of failing to write reports on his cases and misplacing evidence. Gentry is the detective who ripped open his shirt to show off his gang tattoos to a murder suspect during an interrogation. He lied to Cook County prosecutors about the activities of one of his detectives, and a federal lawsuit settled out of court alleged he ordered the strip search of a buddy's estranged girlfriend.

State records list the mayor's brother, Derrick Muhammad, as a full-time officer, but sources tell the Southtown he wields much more control within the department despite the fact he's a plumber by trade.

With backup like this, who needs criminals?

Harvey's failure to put enough cops on the street — trustworthy, professional cops — puts public safety at risk, not to mention the lives of its officers. Without a doubt, asking for the assistance of Cook County sheriff's police or Illinois State Police to patrol Harvey is an attention-getting tactic.

The question now is, who will respond?