HELL-NO-COPTERS

So desperate are law-and-order weirdos to push a cop helicopter that
a mysterious non-profit has come out of the heavens to offer the city
one for free. Look beyond the gusts of wind they're kicking up,
however, and you discover that a chopper is not the great weapon
against crime backers pretend it to be -- and we won't even mention the noise.

8 Reasons Why this Bird won't Fly

1 - Crime-fighting bust

Choppers are supposed to deter crimes like auto theft and robbery.
But the "evidence" cited in most supporting studies is anecdotal. The
most controlled study yet on the subject, by University of Western
Ontario sociologist Paul Whitehead, compared crime rates in London,
Ontario, three months before and after the introduction of a police
helicopter. The study looked at seven types of crimes and concluded
that choppers had no "deterrent effect on the incidence of crime...
[or] a suppression effect on rates of crime." Our city auditor's own
study came to the same conclusion after a six-month pilot project in 2001.

2 - No safety net for cops

That choppers provide protection for police on the ground is more
perception than reality. Of 789 incidents responded to during T.O.'s
2001 pilot project, 71 per cent of police officers said in interviews
with the city auditor afterwards that the presence of the chopper had
no effect on the outcome. Only 21 per cent said that the helicopter
was important to the outcome.

3 - Fast, maybe, but futile, too

Speed is a chief selling point of chopper advocates, but in the 2001
test, the helicopter was first on scene only 28 per cent of the time
(on 223 of 789 calls). The chopper on average attended less than one
call per hour of flying time and six calls per day, while regular cop
patrols on average responded to 86 high-priority calls an hour and
more than 694 a day during the same period.

4 - All speed, no chase

Contrary to popular belief, helicopters show very limited
effectiveness, if any at all, when it comes to high-speed vehicle
pursuits. In fact, the likelihood of helicopters responding to
high-speed chases is remote, since pursuits are usually less than two
minutes long. The chopper used in the T.O. study supported a measly
two of 76 vehicle pursuits. Neither of these was a high-speed chase.

5 - Home on the range, not the core

Choppers may be great for surveilling wide-open spaces, but their
manoeuvrability in a city like Toronto is seriously limited in the
core by tall buildings, which makes tasks like conducting searches
next to impossible. The birds can't always get clearance to fly
because of traffic from the Island and Pearson Airports, can't fly in
inclement weather and can't stay in the air for more than two hours
at a time because they have to be refuelled.

6 - Like money falling from the sky

For a force already taking up too much of taxpayers' dollars, the
$1,000 an hour it will cost to operate these birds (including
salaries of support officers and maintenance) is unjustifiable. The
city could get more bang for its buck by taking the $3 million yearly
it costs to run one chopper and hiring an additional 25 police officers.

7 - Fixing a hole where debt gets in

The cops already have a bird in the sky - a fixed-wing number used in
drug surveillance. Other cities have gone to the fixed-wing option
because it's quieter, offers better cover and is 10 times cheaper to
fly - from $110 to $150 per hour. So why not use the craft already in
stock instead of saddling ourselves with the costs of a helicopter we
don't need?

8 - Black Hawk conspiracies

If choppers don't make policing sense, why would cops want them? Is
it the thermal imaging capabilities, a tech useful in detecting pot
grow ops, or the crowd control possibilities that are really behind
this latest effort? Here's hoping cops here don't follow the lead of
their counterparts south of the border in this respect.