When Lawrence’s police officers get overwhelmed with calls reporting anything from barking dogs to violent crimes, the things that seem less important get brushed aside.

At least that was the experience for residents who brought two complaints last month against the department for what they saw as a lack of response to problems in their neighborhoods.

But with a growing city and an increasing number of calls to police each year, it’s more difficult for the department to give residents the level of service they demand, Lawrence Police Lt. David Cobb said.

“The people that are asking for service don’t understand exactly what the pressures are on the officers,” Cobb said.

‘Fell way short’

Clearly, the department’s response was lackluster in the case of an auto burglary reported by 33-year-old Kory Wilcoxson.

“I think we fell way short of what he expected and what we expected to have done,” Cobb said.

On Nov. 16, Wilcoxson reported his car burglarized at his home in the 1500 block of East 15th Street. When an officer came to the scene, Wilcoxson handed him a possible clue: a woman’s name tag from a local hotel he’d found inside the car. Wilcoxson said he thought the culprit or culprits left it behind during the burglary.

Later, his wife noticed the screens on the window of the bedroom of their 14-month-old son had been cut and spread apart. There have been at least two other burglaries within a five-house radius in recent months, Wilcoxson said.

A burglar broke into Kory Wilcoxson's car on East 15th Street, then may have left evidence of an attempt to enter Wilcoxson's home. Wilcoxson and his 14-month-old son, Avery, sit in Avery's bedroom where someone cut the screen. The Wilcoxsons are not satisfied with the way police have handled the burglary and the possible attempted break-in.

The officer returned to the scene and told them he thought the cut screens were just an act of vandalism, Wilcoxson said. A few days later, he called the officer and asked about the investigation, but the officer told him he hadn’t followed up because he’d been too busy.

“I expect more from our police department than that,” Wilcoxson said.

Increasing demands

Cobb said the department took “corrective action” to help the officer learn from the lapse. But he also said that during a typical shift an officer might deal with six or seven events that require reports — maybe a third of which have known suspects and half of which require some other follow-up.

“Sometimes they start feeling overwhelmed,” Cobb said of the department’s officers.

The number of “calls for service” handled per officer per year has crept upward each year since 2000, from 992 per officer in 2000 to a projected 1,065 this year, Cobb said.

At times, Cobb said, busy officers become desensitized to crimes in which no one was hurt. In Wilcoxson’s case, nothing was stolen.

“I asked them, ‘If my kid got killed, then would they get involved?'” Wilcoxson said. “They literally had no answer.”

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After the complaint, the department followed up and found the name tag belonged to a transient who has yet to be located, Wilcoxson said.

Party problems

Lawrence residents such as Arly Allen — who’s tired of unsuccessfully trying to shut down beer bashes in the Centennial neighborhood — say they worry the department is ignoring neighborhoods and missing the big picture.

“What we’re saying to the police department in general is if you let this deterioration occur in the neighborhoods, you’re breeding crime, not solving crime,” Allen said. “There’s no built-in system in the police department that will say, ‘OK, we’re going to pay attention to these little things that ultimately build into big things.'”

Homeowners in the Centennial area have been fighting for years to stem problems they say are associated with an increase in the number of rental homes filled with students.

“I’ve had them urinating in the yard from parties,” said Rick Thompson, an electronic technician who lives at 19th and Maine streets. “They want to relieve themselves, they just go find someplace to hike their leg.”

Bigger fish to fry

Thompson, 47, had city code in mind Nov. 29, when he called police to complain about a noisy party. An ordinance says that if a home within a one-year period accumulates two alcohol offenses, disorderly conduct offenses or other crimes, it can be declared a “nuisance house” and the owner can be forced to solve the problem.

About 12:45 a.m., Thompson called police and asked an officer to quiet down the party and tell people there that if he had to call again, he would press charges. The party quieted for a while, but soon the noise was back, Thompson said.

He called police again, but by that time, the officer who had handled the previous complaint was tied up with a more serious crime, Cobb said. A different officer arrived at the end of Thompson’s driveway.

“I said, ‘I want the party shut down, and I want the people throwing the party ticketed for disturbing the peace,'” he said. “He said ‘OK,’ got in the car and drove over there.”

Why have laws?

Thompson later learned the officer didn’t issue a citation or even write a report.

“We’ve got all these laws, but to get anyone to act on it is a different story,” Thompson said.

Cobb said that when the second officer arrived, he didn’t see anything he thought fit the legal definition of disturbing the peace. Officers on the late-night shift are accustomed to solving problems quickly — not necessarily ensuring that someone’s request for a citation is satisfied, Cobb said.

“If an officer is up to his ears with domestic disturbances, fights, shootings, still there are people calling about a barking dog in their neighborhood,” he said.

Still, the bottom line is that the department’s response fell short, Cobb admitted. The two officers could have communicated better with each other, and the second officer should have listened more closely to Thompson, Cobb said.

Studying the force

An officer later went back and wrote a report, but Thompson said he’s still unhappy the home wasn’t cited — and still in the business of neighborhood mayhem.

The situation in Centennial is different from that in other neighborhoods, Cobb said, because people in the area are using the city laws and police as a tool to try to hang onto their neighborhood. With the limited resources the department has, Cobb said, he thinks the department is doing a decent job.

“I’m sure in their eyes, we’re falling short of what they want us to accomplish,” he said.

Cobb said the department simply needed more officers — as many as 30 more patrol officers and 10 more detectives. The department’s current size is 138 sworn officers, or about 1.7 for every 1,000 residents.

Earlier this year, the city entered into a contract with a group of consultants studying how the department makes use of its resources and what kind of guidelines it should set for future growth. John Campbell of Portland, Ore., the lead consultant on the project, said his work involved more than simply measuring the relative size of the force compared to other cities.

“The more compelling questions really are: What is the actual workload in this particular town? What are the challenges? And how are we facing them?” Campbell said.

Campbell said he wasn’t ready to draw any conclusions.