Security Theater

A few weeks ago Chief Sansom put together a "COVID-19 task force" that meets several times a week to come up with ways to help safeguard our employees. At first a few productive and helpful things came out of these meetings such as getting disinfectant wipes in the cruisers, closing the lobby to the public, answering minor calls over the phone and limiting unnecessary contact between squads as we wrote here in an earlier post. However like most of these types of efforts go, after the initial batch of helpful ideas came out the pressure was still on them to come up with new ideas. So they started delving deeper to justify their existence with new, less helpful ideas.

When we first met with this task force the first thing we noticed was that of the six people on it, three Deputy Chiefs and three Lieutenants, not a single one of them is directly involved with the Patrol Division. Patrol are of course the only ones actually on the front lines out dealing with potentially sick people in the public. So it just seems like common sense to bring someone into these meetings who's actually involved day to day and has some perspective on what those employees are going through and need. But instead Chief Sansom picked six people who all work upstairs far removed from the street, this seems like an odd choice to us.

Here are some of the measures the Union presented that were shot down; as we previously wrote about on here we proposed that employees who had a potential exposure or fell ill be given Administrative leave and/or covered under Worker's Compensation instead of being forced to use their own accrued time off, which the Chief refused. Fortunately for us President Trump and Congress stepped up with legislation to help give us some extra time off specifically for Coronavirus related issues as of April 1st. While we're really glad the Federal Government is helping us out, it's still disappointing to know that our own Chief and Mayor refused to do anything to help us without being forced to by the Feds. Of course even with the Feds forcing their hand the Town still had to take a swipe at our Union by telling people that if you did use any of that Federally guaranteed time off they would count it against your earned days. They just can't help themselves when they see an opportunity to screw over their employees.

Another idea we brought to the Chief was to allow anyone in a public facing position who falls into a defined high risk group due to medical condition or age, to have the option of voluntarily going on Administrative Duty temporarily so they can work in house and potentially reduce their risk of exposure. As far as we know this was never put into effect, probably because it would incur overtime costs, though probably not much as I don't think we have too many people who fall into these risk groups.

One of the task force's ideas that got put into motion last week is the checking of temperatures at the beginning of your shift and sending people home if they have a fever. This is ineffective for a few reasons, the most obvious one being that the thermometer they bought for doing this task is wildly inaccurate. Most of our employees are being checked in with temperatures in the high 80's and low 90's, some as low as 83 degrees. Of course if that was anyone's actual body temperature they'd be dead of hypothermia long before the virus got them. Knowing how the Town of East Hartford works I wouldn't be surprised if they just walked across the street to Dollar Tree and picked this piece of junk out of the clearance bin with the 3 for $5 DVDs so we can save money to buy more laptops for non-essential employees to work from home.

It's also been well documented and well known at this point in the pandemic that a person can carry and spread the virus without having a fever and many people are in fact completely asymptomatic. And even when you do show symptoms you may not have a fever until you're several days in, so a fever is hardly the defining symptom. Checking temperatures makes sense at a store or other public facility where you have unknown people walking in and out, but in a workplace with the same small group of people every day it really accomplishes nothing other than annoying your employees and creating an atmosphere of distrust. This is especially true when you're doing it with a broken thermometer that gives laughably inaccurate readings. Most people can feel when they have a fever and our members are trustworthy enough that they wouldn't come to work knowingly sick and put their co-workers and their families at risk.

The task force has also gone so far as to put up occupancy limit signs in certain rooms in the building like the report writing room, gym, and Watch Commander's office and putting obscure tape markings on the floor. We understand what the intent is with this but the reality is we're all sharing cars, touching the same door handles, railings, car books, keyboards, keys, paperwork, phones. And then once we're out on the street we're going to calls together in cramped apartments and stairwells, sometimes we even roll around on the ground with suspects together. Close contact and cross contamination between employees is inevitable in our line of work. Trying to put these restrictions in place inside the building just creates an awkward work environment and puts more stress on people during an already stressful time.

Of course none of this is about being effective or actually accomplishing anything. It's security theater meant to make it look like something is being done, similar to what the TSA does at airports. In the case of the TSA they at least accomplish the goal of creating an intimidating process that acts as a deterrent. But viruses don't get intimidated or deterred, you either have it or you don't. We think the better approach is to trust your employees and work with them instead of treating them like suspects or idiots. We hope the task force will consider next time they come up with an idea, how effective will it actually be and realize that sometimes you've done all you can for the time being and can take your foot off the accelerator. Don't just do things because you feel like you need to do something or because someone else is doing it.

Overall we think all of our members are doing a great job handling this situation so far with common sense and caution while still doing effective Police work. Hopefully we'll all be through this soon and back to our regular routines.