David Hoppe

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:: Cop City cop-out

Keeping it real

By David Hoppe

Every now and then the phone will ring at our house with a call from someone on behalf of fallen police officers and their families. I can't say that we always make a donation, but we're glad to be asked and we chip in when we can. Our police department is underfunded and understaffed. Too often, their work is thankless. It can also be extremely dangerous.

Bart Peterson might have lost his bid for another term as mayor because he raised local taxes to help pay for public safety. As far as I'm concerned, if our cops need more money to protect and serve us, I'm willing to help pay for it.

I even try to make a point of waving to the cops who I occasionally see cruising through my neighborhood. I want them to know I appreciate their being around. If anything, I wish I saw more of them.

I like cops. That's why I have to say I think a new plan to create a downtown attraction called Cop City makes as much sense as a screendoor in a submarine.

Cop City - and here I quote from a press release, "Where YOU wear the Badge" - is being promoted by the Indianapolis Police Historical and Educational Foundation (IPHEF). It would be located at the intersection of Georgia and Pennsylvania Streets, across from Conseco Fieldhouse. According to the press release, Cop City's supporters want to open it in time for the Super Bowl in 2012.

"Cop City will be a fun interactive destination where people of all ages can enter the world of policing and experience what it's like to participate in a car chase, make an arrest and process a crime scene, just to name a few examples of Cop City's unique activities," says the press release.

Call me a shrinking violet, but in real life, crime scenes and high-speed chases fill me with dread. Those chases, by the way, have arguably caused more problems than they've solved due to unintended damages and injury inflicted on innocent bystanders. But never mind: the virtual police work that Cop City aims to entertain us with isn't aimed at weak hearts like mine; it's for the kids.

"The inspiration for Cop City really came from our local youth," according to Homicide Detective Lt. Roger Spurgeon, who also serves as president of the IPHEF. "It's imperative for the safety of our community to foster positive relationships with our youth and connect through a human element. We believe Cop City will enable us to do that in a new and exciting way."

I'm all for reaching out to youth and fostering positive relationships. But the Cop City concept reminds me of those museums who decided that it wasn't enough for them to find creative ways to exhibit the world's greatest cultural treasures and works of art; they wanted to compete with Disney World and the mall. These institutions looked longingly at the world of entertainment and wanted a piece of that action for themselves.

It's understandable that cops might want to get into this game. From <I>Dragnet</I> to the <I>CSI</I> franchise, policing has provided the story lines that all but define primetime TV. We spend untold amounts of our lives being entertained by actors pretending to be cops.

But there is probably nothing more real than police work. While fictions may help us civilians better understand why and how the police do their jobs and what they're up against, in the end these entertainments also serve to keep us at a safe distance. They can even desensitize us from the everyday work of watching out for our communities.

There are a number of admirable things the Cop City concept seeks to address, like providing a history of the police department and paying permanent tribute to fallen officers. Best of all, the facility would serve as a downtown police substation.

But there's also something tone deaf about wanting to raise the considerable amount of money necessary to create and operate what would have to be a state-of-the-art downtown attraction when the city doesn't have the resources to hire enough police officers to adequately patrol our metro area.

Someone, of course, is bound to argue that raising the money to create Cop City is a good investment. They will claim that Cop City will pay dividends down the road in improved community relations and greater support for increased funding for public safety. This is typical marketing-think. It places more faith in circuses than service.

In the past two weeks, there have been two break-ins in my neighborhood. A home was burgled and a local film and videomaker's business was robbed. Not long ago a friend of mine was mugged while walking his dog. And I supposedly live in one of this city's "better" neighborhoods.

I don't want to go downtown to "enter the world of policing." Seeing a real, live cop in my neighborhood on a daily basis would mean a lot more.