More officers to hit streets in plainclothes

Goodbye Officer Friendly. Hello Serpico.

This week, Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis reversed an edict he had issued just six months ago, requiring dozens of the department's plainclothes patrol officers to return to uniform. The order had been touted as a way of increasing police visibility on the streets and of making residents feel safer, key elements of his community policing strategy.

Now, Davis has decided to leave the decision up to his captains, after the commanders told him they needed plainclothes officers for surveillance work to respond to robberies, low-level drug dealing, and other crimes, Davis's spokeswoman, Elaine Driscoll said.

But concealed behind the tactical decision were some hard feelings, distrust, and resentment within the ranks of the department.

Law enforcement officials with knowledge of the policy change said many captains had complained that people on the street were less willing to cooperate with an officer in uniform than an officer dressed in street clothes. This could be one of the reasons, a captain said during a January command staff meeting, that there had been fewer arrests for gun-related crimes in his district, according to notes of the meeting obtained by the Globe.

But in that meeting, Davis and Superintendent-in-Chief Robert P. Dunford expressed skepticism about that explanation and raised concerns that officers in the anticrime unit could be rebelling against the policy by making fewer arrests, according to the notes. Wearing plainclothes is typically considered something of a reward for officers who captains believe work hard and are aggressive and productive in making arrests.

"If the lack of arrests is a pushback from officers, it needs to be dealt with immediately," Davis and Dunford said, according to the notes, which summarized the Jan. 22 meeting.

Officials later considered the possibility that cold weather was keeping criminals inside and could have been a factor in the drop in arrests in some districts.

Ultimately, Davis decided it was best to give his captains the discretion over dress code, said Driscoll.

"The police commissioner believes that police strategies need to be nimble and if a district captain feels at a certain point that an officer needs to come to work in a different outfit, then that's OK," she said.

While some questioned whether this move undercuts Davis's commitment to community policing, Driscoll called the change "a routine part of police management."

"The captains made a good case for why at the district level they might need their anticrime officers in uniform or plainclothes," she said. "We used that strategy for six months, and I think like anything in the police business, needs and priorities change over time."

Last fall, describing his edict, Davis said he knew some officers would not like going back to uniform. But Davis said being in uniform on the street would make officers more effective in preventing crime.

At the time, the move was lauded by community activists and criminologists who said that such visibility was powerful in discouraging criminal activity and forging a stronger bond between the Police Department and neighborhoods.

Yesterday, some of them were disappointed to learn of the change.

"I can understand taking people out of uniforms for investigations that are temporary," said Jorge Martinez, executive director of Project RIGHT, a community group in Grove Hall. "But if we want the visibility and we want the interaction between community residents and police officers, it's in our best interest to keep officers in uniform."

More uniformed officers on the street makes people feel safer than reports of drops in crime, said James Alan Fox, a professor of criminal justice at Northeastern University.

"What makes an impression on [people] is more cops, seeing them on foot, seeing them on bicycles, seeing them in the neighborhood," Fox said. "When we feel unsafe, we become prisoners of our own fear. We tend to stay indoors more. We're more suspicious of people. When we're afraid, it deteriorates a sense of community."

Driscoll said the change gives captains the flexibility to be more proactive in their response to community concerns.

"If there is a captain that says uniform visibility is the need of the day, then the captain can make that decision," Driscoll said. "If captains feel that there is a strong focus on robberies that day and having plainclothes will help, then the captain can make that decision."

The change allows about 60 patrol officers in the anticrime unit to go back to plainclothes. Each district has two to four anticrime unit officers working during an eight-hour shift, and most districts have four officers, Driscoll said. The change lets two of the four officers don street clothes, but a captain can ask permission for all of them to come to work in plainclothes.

Anticrime officers historically have taken advantage of their informal clothing and unmarked cars to watch for criminal activity as it is happening and surreptitiously gather information from known criminals on the street.

Explaining the uniform mandate last fall, Davis said that detectives, who are always in plainclothes, already do much of that work. Anticrime officers should be beating the street, he said, where residents can see them, and, it is hoped, form relationships with them.

"I want officers to be more approachable," he said during the September interview. "It's really putting our money where our mouth is on the community policing commitment."

Maria Cramer can be reached at mcramer@globe.com.