Alexandria's Misguided Crime Fighting Priorities

The Alexandria Virginia Police Department's focus on ticket writing may have left the department unable to address other, more serious crimes.

On May 8, the Alexandria, Virginia police department dedicated seven officers and a Sheriff's deputy to a roaming DWI enforcement for 10 hours.  Two arrests were made for Driving While Intoxicated.

Two weeks later, they met with greater success.  This time, nine Alexandria officers, two parking enforcement officers, an emergency communications technician and a Sheriff's Office deputy were on the job for 8 hours and netted three DWIs.

These achievements come on the heels of the month long Street Smart Campaign, "to increase awareness of pedestrian and bicycle safety and reduce the number of injuries and deaths."  Who knows how many man hours were required to issue the 1,412 citations issued in the name of pedestrian and cyclist safety.

The City is understandably proud of this ticket writing.  Today the police announced that they would be targeting handicap parking violators.  But given the truly brazen character of some recent headline crimes, some reprioritizing might be in order.

This is how the police department explained a recent theft of city property.

[T]he suspect(s) scaled a fence and broke into a storage shed that contained lawn equipment owned by the City.  The lawn equipment was loaded onto a trailer that was attached to a Ford F-450 Crew Cab truck and driven through a closed and locked gate.  All of the property and vehicles are owned by the City of Alexandria Parks and Recreation Department.

And today, there was a daytime knifepoint robbery of a children's hobby store in the heart of the busy Old Town Alexandria shopping and tourist district.

The city needs to get its priorities in order.  Unfortunately, the capacity for sound judgment by a city council unable, in the midst of a historic budget crisis, to say no to a nearly $2 million "Wayfinding Signage" program, remains in doubt.