DEBORAH SIMMONS: Mayors meet in D.C. to play police numbers game

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

About 300 U.S. mayors are expected to gather in the nation’s capital on Wednesday to give a synopsis of their take on President Obama’s State of the Union address. The timing is perfect.

Riots and civil unrest, high unemployment rates, fiscal orneriness and stubborn education rates are but a handful of the challenges mayors face — though they are not new.

Also familiar will be the solutions offered to overcome the challenges.

In Washington, the No. 1 solution is always a numbers game.

Vice President Joseph R. Biden proved that point Monday, when, back home in Delaware, he used a speech on the occasion of what would have been Martin Luther King Jr.’s 85th birthday to discuss strained relations between police — or “cops” as he called them — and black communities.

Mr. Biden spoke for about 27 minutes, giving those within earshot a precursor to where the Obama administration is headed regarding community policing — the grand federal program that’s supposed to be the answer to Rodney King’s famous quote during the deadly 1992 Los Angeles riots. “Can we all get along?”

Mr. Biden’s answer on MLK day was that there is “no reason on Earth we cannot repair the breach” between law enforcers and community. Of course, there are lots of reasons why, but Mr. Biden mentioned two: “We need to agree in this nation on two basic statements of truth,” he said. “Cops have a right to go home at night to see their families. And two, all minorities, no matter what their neighborhood, have a right to be treated with respect and with dignity. All life matters.”

Indeed it does. Indeed it does.

So why do the president, vice president, mayors, police chiefs, activists and others think body cameras will keep more people, civilians and law enforcers alike, alive to go home to their loved ones?

Why do they think body cameras will do what cellphone and neighborhood cameras haven’t done?

Why do they think police body cameras will succeed where patrol cameras have not?

It’s the numbers game.

Generally speaking, the president’s early proposal to repair the breach calls for your tax dollars to bolster community policing programs, including spending $263 million over three years on body cameras.

Now, local and state police agencies didn’t and don’t need federal mandates to buy body cameras. The hitch is like what some fiscal conservatives and Libertarians would consider the seat belt rule: Tie a safety issue to the federal teat, and local and state authorities will forever buy-in, whether the mandate works or not.

Besides, community policing is not a new idea. In point of fact, two of the reasons Chuck Ramsey was selected to head up the Obama administration’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing are because 1) Mr. Obama was familiar with the effectiveness of Chief Ramsey’s community policing innovations back in Chicago and 2) Mr. Obama was familiar with the effectiveness of the chief’s community policing here in the nation’s capital. The chief has also come under heavy fire as a national leader in militarized policing.

I’ve admired the chief, who now runs the Philadelphia Police Department, because he said on more than one occasion that parental involvement is key to curbing juvenile crime. To the charging of many, the man who would become D.C. mayor in 2007 and the lawsuits brought and won during Chief Ramsey’s tenure meant he had to move on.

America’s mayors will be in town for the U.S. Conference of Mayors annual winter meeting, and they could easily have a three-day confab instead on community policing, having witnessed riots, unrest and peaceful protests since the first Ferguson flare-up in August. That’s not the agenda, however.

What they will do is listen to top Obama officials as they recite the numbers to cure their ills back home.

Federal money for jobs, and federal money for road and transportation projects.

Federal money for education, and federal money for police departments.

Federal money “affordable” housing programs, and a federal health care that works for us all.

They’ll even listen to Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden recite their Democratic agenda — and guess what?

In 2016, when Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden are speechifying on the bid for the White House, the numbers cited in 2015 may have changed, but nagging problems will not have.

That’s Washington for ya.

• Deborah Simmons can be reached at dsimmons@washingtontimes.com.