DETER rollout seeing early success

DETER rollout seeing early success

ralphhardin@gmail.com After less than a week in operation, the West Memphis Police Department’s DETER initiative has already resulted in the arrest of one potentially dangerous criminal. Demarcus Parker was pulled over by a West Memphis patrolman, discovered to be driving on a suspended license last week. As they were towing his car, they discovered a high-powered pistol inside.

With two prior domestic battery convictions, the discovery meant Parker was eligible for federal firearms charges. In a report, officers with the West Memphis Police Department confirmed to they have contacted the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the U.S. Attorney’s Office to talk about moving forward with those charges.

Parker was arrested for two misdemeanors including driving without a license and carrying a firearm. He posted bond on Friday and is currently free pending a trial.

DETER, stands for Data Enhanced Targeted Enforcement and Restoration, creates a focus area for police that allows them to be more cognizant of the behaviors of repeat violent offenders and to create a stronger police presence where violent crimes are historically more prevalent and work from a database of known criminals.

“It’s just an informational list to tell them these are the people we’re encountering the most,” said Capt.

Joe Baker, Enforcement/Criminal Investigation Division Commander with the West Memphis Police Department. “I think it tells us we’re not far off on how we’ve chosen to pick these people based on their chronic offender pattern within the city.”

The program launched at the first of the month, part of an overall effort by Chief Donald Oakes and the West Memphis Police Department to curb violent crime in the city. DETER makes use of problem-solving techniques, evidencebased strategies, rigorous data analyses, and evaluation to determine who is committing violent crime, where the crimes are occurring, and why the project is succeeding or not. The West Memphis community has historically experienced a higher rate of violent crime than cities of comparable size. Based on the analysis of the data used for the project, the area that has been identified as having the most concentrated occurrence of violent crime is an area along the South Avalon corridor. This area has a north boundary of Tyler Cove/Tyler Avenue, an east boundary that stops just short of Woods Street, a west boundary just west of Tulane Street, and a south boundary of Cole Street and the Union Pacific Railroad tracks. Using these boundaries the area in the focus area is approxi-

Repeat offender could face federal gun charge mately .59 square miles and has a border perimeter of 3.2 miles.

“The key to the DETER model is the internal collaboration with patrol and investigative units,” explained Baker. “An analyst in Investigations will collect and analyze information and carefully determine the causes of violent crimes in chronic locations. In particular, we will focus on areas where data show high rates of violent crime, unlawful possession or use of firearms, and reported shots fired.”

By Ralph Hardin