YOUNGSTOWN POLICE Traffic unit to assist patrol cars

YOUNGSTOWN -- Deployment of afternoon shift traffic and juvenile units in recent weeks is designed to improve service, according to Robert E. Bush Jr., the city's new police chief.
Having a traffic unit at an accident scene eliminates the need for a regular patrol car to spend two to three hours investigating an accident with injury and lets it concentrate on anti-crime patrols and respond to complaints, he explained Wednesday.
The deployment of the one-officer traffic cars allows the department to put two additional cars per shift on the street, he added.
The traffic cars are concentrating their speed enforcement efforts on major streets where speeding has been a problem, such as Market Street and Fifth Avenue and some of the one-way streets on the West Side, Bush told several dozen people at the Southern Boulevard Block Watch meeting in St. Dominic Parish Center.
Extra assistance
Since he succeeded Richard Lewis in mid-April as chief, Bush has also placed a juvenile police unit on afternoon shift when young people are active to follow up on investigations that began on day shift and to apprehend those wanted by juvenile court.
The bicycle patrol, which was initiated under Lewis and consists of four officers, continues on a daily basis, Bush said. It has a flexible schedule and is very useful for assisting at special events, he added.
The department is pursuing its efforts to install computers in cruisers, and Bush said whatever computers are installed must be compatible with airbags, so the airbags don't hurl the computers into the officers when they are deployed in an accident.
Noting computers tend to encroach on the passenger's space in a two-officer patrol car, he said the first computers will be installed in one-officer traffic and report-taking cars. Most regular patrolling in the city is done by two-officer cars.