DARE FALLS VICTIM TO CUTBACKS

Star-Telegram Staff Writer FORT WORTH - The city's DARE program - the
most widely used anti-drug effort in Texas schools - has been
eliminated and the gang-prevention unit slashed by more than half,
Chief Ralph Mendoza said Tuesday.

The cutbacks were in response to a yearlong, $1.2 million study that
offered 266 recommendations for streamlining the department, Mendoza
said.

The Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, known as DARE, ended
with the school year last month, and the DARE police positions will
be shifted to patrol, another area the study recommended beefing up,
Mendoza said.

"DARE has not been shown to reduce narcotics use by youth," Mendoza
told the City Council on Tuesday. "The program is too cumbersome and
doesn't have enough flexibility."

But Mendoza stopped short of the study's recommendation to eliminate
the gang-prevention unit, saying he believes gang activity is on the
rise in Fort Worth.

The changes are Mendoza's first public response to the
city-commissioned study by Justex Systems, a Huntsville-based
consulting company that specializes in law-enforcement agencies. The
study detailed widespread recommendations for patrol, personnel,
management, technology and neighborhood services.

"We are not shying away from any recommendations," Mendoza said. "We
are reviewing all of them."

Still up in the air are hundreds of other proposals, including one to
scale back the number of neighborhood police officers.

City Councilman Clyde Picht, however, questioned whether the city is
getting its money's worth from the study.

"I have an uncomfortable feeling about this," Picht said. "Right now,
it looks like only a fraction are being agreed with."

Mendoza said he will evaluate all of the recommendations and do what
he believes is best for the city and its residents. He said he will
update the City Council each quarter on his efforts to implement the
study's recommendations.

"I'm willing to run this department, but I'm not willing to destroy
it," he said.

Eliminating the gang unit as recommended by the study would have
gutted efforts to control gang activity in the city, he said.

Instead, he is cutting the gang unit from 28 to 11 officers,
including one sergeant. In addition, three detectives will be
reassigned to a newly created Intelligence Unit where they will
continue to work on gang crimes.

Mendoza said he believes gang crime is on the rise and will continue
to worsen. Recent police statistics show that one of every 13
prisoners paroled has been a gang member, he said.

"There is no doubt gang crime will be increasing," Mendoza said. "We
anticipate the number of gang members in the community growing."

The cutbacks will likely reduce the effort to curb gang graffiti,
unless manpower is found elsewhere, he said.

Councilman Jim Lane, however, cautioned Mendoza not to overreach.

"We don't need to get rid of gang units or graffiti reduction," Lane
said. "It makes people feel good when we can stop that.

"Graffiti scares people because they know the gangs are back."

Mendoza said he is also taking steps to decentralize the family
violence department, and to centralize robbery investigations.

Resources will also be shifted from police patrols to the traffic
division, to better handle accidents, he said.

Mendoza said the average response time to a minor accident is now 63
minutes, but said he hopes that making more officers "accident
experts" will help reduce response time.

"I think expertise will allow them to lower this," he said.

The recommendations are the second round in the Justex study.

An earlier report, released last summer, showed that the Police
Department needed 50 more officers to improve response times and
increase police presence. City Council members funded those positions
in their budget last year.

John Kerr, president of the Fort Worth Police Officers Association,
said he supports Mendoza's actions.

"We're all pretty much in agreement," he said. "It's just rethinking
what we do and how we do it."