The way Toledo police investigate gangs, guns, and drugs — and theway they relate to each other — is going to change.
The department has used three separate units to investigate the three driving forces behind much of the city's crime with some overlap and some lack of communications. By combining the gang and vice units with the SWAT team, investigations will be more cohesive and, quite possibly, more expeditious. It's not yet known what the new unit will be called.
“It's more about information sharing and helping each other,” police Sgt. Joe Heffernan said. “If the gang unit is trying to do an investigation on a particular gang, they can better use the vice-narcotics unit to do some of those gang charges. Sometimes the easiest way to get at a gang is through drugs. If you can prove some top people are trafficking drugs, that goes a long way in dismantling a gang.”
In Toledo, gangs, guns, and drugs are practically synonymous, police said.
Mayor D. Michael Collins said the move is also a cost-cutting measure, which he hopes will reduce the amount of overtime paid to supervisors.
This year, the police department is projected to be $750,000 to $900,000 over budget on overtime, the mayor said. Most overtime is worked by command officers, he said.
“The belief is that this will reduce the amount of overtime that we are experiencing in the command ranks,” Mayor Collins said. He said the move should “enhance” investigations with “more streams of information going into the same direction.”
No officers will be reassigned to regular road patrol. The command officers who oversee the individual units will all work together in oversight of the new larger unit.
“It's all the same people. The mission is still the same,” Sergeant Heffernan said. “We're still going to be doing street-level enforcement with the same officers and we're still going to be doing investigations with the same officers. They will be able to help each other a little more this way.”
Gangs officers have already received additional training in drug investigations. A date has not been set for the change to take affect.
Dan Wagner, president of the Toledo Police Patrolman's Association, called the move “sensible.”
“Sometimes the vice and gang units were working on investigating the same person without knowing what the other unit was doing,” Mr. Wagner said.
Contact Taylor Dungjen at tdungjen@theblade.com, or 419-724-6054, or on Twitter @taylordungjen.
First Published October 1, 2014, 4:00 a.m.
