Here, courtesy of blogger Russ Racop, is a Syracuse TV interview with Kenton Buckner, the city’s new police chief. His last day on the Little Rock payroll is Nov. 16 and he told the interviewer he’s leaving on a “high note” with a reduction in crime during his tenure.
I’ll leave the video for your perusal. But I invite you to do a Google search of Little Rock crime rate before getting comfortable about Little Rock post-Buckner in the crime category.
He WAS asked about Radley Balko’s takedown of nepotism, cronyism, inadequate internal investigations, abusive officers and shoddy drug raid tactics in the LRPD. At least the TV interviewer got a comment from Buckner, something he and Little Rock city officials have avoided since a couple of deeply reported exposes by Balko for the Washington Post.
Buckner said the LRPD is a “professional police agency,” though it undoubtedly has “opportunities for improvement.” He noted that the Balko articles appear in the Post “Opinion”
Oh, Buckner also said he opposes a residency requirement for police. He said he prefers an incentive program, such as Little Rock’s willingness to pay $5,000 to cops who settle in the city they police. It hasn’t worked too well with white Little Rock cops, who make up the majority of the force and who predominantly live in the suburbs to avoid crime (apparently the rate isn’t low enough for them, even though it’s a touted point for Buckner) and majority black schools.
Again. Good riddance. Syracuse’s loss is our gain.