On television, we frequently see cops exchanging gunfire with criminals. In practice, cops rarely hear gunfire except on the target range, and many cops retire without ever firing a gun (although in Lancaster, it seems that cops have declared open season on dogs.)

When we see firefighters on TV, they're standing around watching a fire, with some of them holding hoses squirting water. In practice, though, firefighters are several times more likely to be injured or killed on the job. It isn't just the fire, but smoke, falling debris, slipping on wet or icy surfaces. A friend of mine was walking on a roof and fell through a skylight to his death. He wasn't careless; the building owner had covered over the skylight with a tarpaper and bitumen roofing without bothering to remove the skylight or cover it with something sturdy, such as plywood.

On NewsLanc, a letter to the editor asserts that "Charlie Smithgall will write off as much of the city fire bureau as he can to pay for more police…" I assume that's a fair prediction, as NewsLanc didn't challenge it.

Understaffed?

It then goes on to assert that the City of Lancaster is dangerously understaffed when it comes to firemen, according to national standards. Those standards, set by the National Fire Protection Association, a non-governmental group, assert that the first response to a fire should arrive within 4 minutes of the dispatcher receiving the call, and that there be a minimum of 4 firefighters per unit.

In other words, if you have six officers arriving within 4 minutes on two trucks, you don't meet the standard; if you have two fewer officers and one fewer truck on the scene, you do.

It'd be useful to know what the average response time is, and what percentage of the fires are responded to within that magical four-minute time limit.

Lancaster has three fire stations. At the west King street and the east King street stations, they have a rescue pumper and a "quint", a truck that has pump, booster tank, hose, ground ladders and an aerial ladder. The third fire station, on Fremont Street, has one truck, presumably a rescue pumper, although it's not explicitly stated on their website.

Playing Statistics

If they built two additional fire stations, so that there was only one truck at each fire house, they'd be able to respond to more fires within that four minute window - but would that result in more effective fire fighting? I don't know. In my years as a reporter, I can't recall ever seeing as few as four men on one truck at a fire. It was fairly uncommon to see twice that many; there were usually more.

I believe it was George Armstrong Custer who is credited with saying that a battle usually is won by the guy who gets there "fustest with the mostest". I've sometimes gotten to fires before the fire department did, and seen amateurs running around with buckets and garden hoses and blankets, and in the case of grass fires, wearing work shoes. If you haven't got enough people or enough equipment to stomp on that fire hard while it's small, it gets bigger.

And What About Police?

Do we have too few police? Too many? This country has 800,000 law enforcement officers for a population of slightly over 300 million. That's 1 officer per 375 people. The city of Lancaster has a population of 54,000 and 168 sworn officers. That 1 officer per 321 people.

But that doesn't count the State Police and the Sheriff's Department. The State Police doesn't do a lot in the city, although they would if we had no city police, and the Sheriff's Department mostly does things like serve warrants and crowd control - but those ARE duties of law enforcement officers and deputies are included in the 800,000 law enforcement officers nationwide.

Oh, but lest we forget, Lancaster City has been providing Lancaster Township with police protection. At 1 officer per 375 people, Lancaster City should need 144 officers. Does covering the township require 24 additional officers? According to the contract negotiations, it appears that it takes about 8 officers.

So based on these back-of-the-envelope calculations, it appears that we may be weighted a little heavy in favor of police, a little light in favor of firemen. Depending, of course, on the statistics on fire protection that we earlier mentioned are sorely needed.

Is There A Better Way?

It occurs to me that there are many skills that are unique to police officers, to firemen and to paramedics, but that frequently those needs overlap at the scene of an emergency. There's a crash, and as the officers arrive on the scene, one of the vehicles breaks into fire. Should the officers remove the passengers from the other car, in case it catches fire, or are they risking damage to the spinal cord that will cause paralysis or death?

If, instead of separate police, fire, and EMS organizations, we had public safety officers that were cross-trained, not only could we respond more quickly to emergencies, but we could respond better to emergencies. We'd need a different type of vehicle, perhaps more like a Chevy Suburban, to carry more emergency apparatus than would comfortably fit in a trunk, but when a fire broke out, you could have two patrol units responding within two minutes, with more arriving all the time, while someone else stops at the fire station, and drives a pumper to the fire. In many cases, someone with injuries can be rushed to the emergency room before an ambulance could arrive.

It would take extra training for public safety officers, and once trained, we'd want to pay them enough to keep them from being "stolen" by other departments, but four competent cross-trained public safety officers and two vehicles would be much less expensive than twelve specialists and six vehicles. What's more, because the time and difficulty of coordinating efforts is much reduced, the services rendered could be much more effectively rendered. I think we could expect better services, at lower cost, while paying our public safety officers more. That sounds like everybody wins - except for those who have established political fiefdoms in the various organizations and unions.

We've said it before; we'll say it again. Charlie and Rick both are personable guys, and they both seem intent on giving, rather than taking. We should be pleased to have such men want to serve. And we should want a better mayor than either one offers us.

Other Bloggers On Related Topics:
Charlie Smithgall - fire - Lancaster PA - police - Rick Gray