Mayor Dennis Williams and Police Chief Bobby Cumming unveiled Wilmington’s new policing strategy Monday.
The plan calls for restructuring the Wilmington Police Department from a two-branch set-up to four branches and adding two new inspector positions.
The branches will be Strategic Planning and Development, Support Services, Operations and Investigation and will be led by an Inspector of Strategic Planning and Development, an Inspector of Support Services positions, a Chief Information Officer and a Director of Communications.
“The two inspectors we have now are doing double the work and once we get two more inspectors, which I’m praying we do, it will alleviate all the work on the other two inspectors and the chief will be able to go out and do his job," said Williams. "With four inspectors, everything will run smoothly and I can guarantee you that you won’t see back log of things because the management will be right on top of things."
Having four inspector positions to lead the four branches of the department will require adding just over $827,000 to the city’s operating budget.
Williams says he’s ready to work with City Council on finding a way to do that as soon as possible.
“We’re going to go to council and sit down. We’ll have our best finance people in the room and they’ll decide what’s the safe way to move this money," said Williams. "If we can’t do it, then maybe we’ll start out small with one inspector or maybe we’ll start with an additional captain and no inspectors. We’ll see."
The plan also adds 12 officers to the homicide unit, which will now also encompass violent crime cases, and dedicates 25 officers to community policing across three sectors, with the majority committed to the ector that includes downtown.
The Williams Administration says all together the new public safety plan implements 83 percent of the Wilmington Public Safety Commission’s 111 recommendations, more than Williams seemed willing to sign on to initially, but the mayor says he is backing what his police chief feels is necessary.
“When the chief told me he wanted to implement some new staff officers, I really had to swallow that one. We kind of debated it and then I told him is this is what you think you need, then you go ahead and put it in your report and we’ll present that because he’s there every day managing," said Williams. "He know what he needs. I can only make some assumptions. He said he needed it and the compromise was I’ll support it.”
Cummings notes about 58 percent of the commissions recommendations have already been implemented – 27 more are expected to be in place by year’s end – and 11 are being researched. He says only 8 were found to be not applicable or not feasible.
Councilwoman Hanifa Shabazz was at the roll out of the plan. She says her initial reaction is a positive one.
It falls right in line with City Council’s direction of adding $600,000 back [into this year’s budget] to support the other [commission] initiatives as well," said Shabazz. "I’m looking forward to reading all the fine print, all the details, and the status of the implementation, but I’m glad to see we are moving forward with the recommendations."
If funding support is there, Cummings hopes to have the entire plan in place by the end of the year.
Williams says the sooner the better.
"We're hurting the citizens of this city when we don't police it properly - and our businesses," said Williams. "And I know for a fact, it's Economics 101. No businesses, no city."
