Pedestrian police: Cape cops begin foot patrols in downtown

The Cape Girardeau Police Department had officers walking the streets this weekend to make downtown Cape Girardeau a safer place for residents and businesses.

The foot patrols consist of two officers who walk around downtown from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. Police spokesperson Sgt. Adam Glueck said the patrols will be focused on weekends, but they also will be deployed on a case-by-case basis for special events during the week.

Foot patrols have been an implementation goal for some time for Police Chief Wes Blair, but funding and manpower obstacles had gotten in the way. The first downtown foot patrols began Friday night and Saturday morning. Blair said he was pleased with the results thus far.

"From what I was told, it was extremely successful," he said. "We had some good interaction between citizens and officers."

Police now are able to fund the patrols thanks to the cooperation of the Downtown Cape Girardeau Community Improvement District, a downtown organization that has offered to cover the officers' wages for their patrol time. Glueck said officers are paid hourly at an overtime rate during foot-patrol duty.

Cape Girardeau police officer Brian Eggers, right, detains a man Friday night while his identity is determined during downtown foot patrols with patrolman Jason Angle, left, on Water Street in Cape Girardeau. The man was not arrested.Fred Lynch

"We've already been patrolling the downtown area," Glueck said. "But Cape Girardeau is big enough that it's hard for officers to focus on a few blocks, as well as watching the rest of the city."

He pointed out the intended effect of the patrols is twofold.

"We obviously want to limit crime down there, but at the same time, it provides us an opportunity to engage with the community," Glueck said. "Community relations are something we're always looking to improve on."

Walking down Broadway during their Saturday night patrols, officers Jon Ortmann and Brian Eggers said the community's response has been overwhelmingly positive.

"We've had probably 50 people stop us and thank us so far," Ortmann said, and it was only approaching midnight.

He said foot patrols offer police a chance to get back to the roots of policing. What cars granted police in greater mobility, Ortmann said, they cost in face-to-face interaction.

"People who are into community policing say the worst thing to happen to policing is the patrol car," he said, adding it's good to be out of the car and walking around for a change anyway. Otherwise, he'd probably be driving for a huge majority of a 12-hour shift.

From midnight until 2 a.m., the officers were greeted cordially and respectfully almost without exception. Almost.

A heavily intoxicated man who apparently was lost was rude but passive. When officers tried to help him call a friend, he became uncooperative. The officers were able to take him into protective custody without incident.

These, the officers said, were the types of situations they expected to most frequently encounter, along with possibly having to break up a fistfight now and then.

There would be no criminal charge, Eggers explained as Ortmann helped the intoxicated man into a squad car. The man just would have to sleep it off and be released the next day.

"The major thing is knowing how to pick your battles," Ortmann said. "Not in a lazy way, of course, but just, 'What's the most productive use of your resources?'"

All told, Ortmann and Eggers walked about 5 miles over the course of their patrol, and aside from telling a group of fraternity brothers not to walk in the street, it was a quiet night.

tgraef@semissourian.com

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