IMPD Returning To Beat Patrols

Apparently Indianapolis' new Public Safety Director Troy Riggs isn't as keen on zone patrols as his predecessor Frank Straub. Police officers, community leaders and several council members criticized the zone patrols implemented by Straub as a crime-reduction tool because they shifted a large percentage of the police force to just a few problem areas at the expense of many neighborhoods throughout the city, which left too few officers available to respond to police runs. Riggs tells the Star he plans to return to beat patrols next year.

In a move designed to improve community policing, Indianapolis Public Safety Director Troy Riggs plans a return to beat-based police patrols.

“I want citizens to be just as familiar with their local police officer as they are with their congressman or senator,” Riggs said.

The change is part of a larger top-to-bottom “efficiency review” of all the public safety departments beginning in January. The teams will look for ways to get the most bang for the buck in tough economic times across all departments . . .

Riggs favors beat patrols because he said it gives the public confidence they are being served and helps police- resident relations.

But Riggs said the new beat map could look radically different from the old one. For one thing, it will have fewer beats.

“There were just so many beats in the old system that it was unmanageable,” Riggs said.

If Straub had a role in Gotham City's police department in "Dark Knight Rises," he would have been Deputy Commissioner Pete Foley, who foolishly sent practically the entire police force into the city's sewer tunnels to gain glory for capturing Bane and, instead, caused them to become trapped for five months after Bane collapsed the tunnels, leaving the city without any police protection to resist Bane.