WASHINGTON-President Clinton last week launched a new anti-crime program to equip neighborhood watch groups with cellular telephones donated by industry, while threatening to veto a Republican appropriations bill that increases funding for law enforcement.
The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association will provide 50,000 wireless phones and free airtime to the 20,000 citizen patrol organizations throughout the country.
“Now, when drug dealers wear pagers and gang members have cell phones, I think it’s time we put high technology on the side of law and order,” said Clinton last Wednesday at a White House event attended by neighborhood patrol organizations, police, industry and government officials. Some cities like Kansas City, San Francisco and Seattle already have neighborhood crime watch programs that use wireless phones.
In a commencement speech at Penn State in May, the president called on one million volunteers to join neighborhood watch groups in the fight against crime. Following that, Vice President Al Gore in June asked the cellular industry for support. CTIA responded by creating Communities on Phone Patrol, or COPP, in cooperation with the Community Policing Consortium.
Clinton, who gave Baltimore-based community watch volunteer Sandy Sparks the first COPP cellular phone, called the industry effort “an astonishing act of good citizenship and generosity.”
“This program is the result of a successful combination of two great American strengths-volunteerism and wireless technological leadership,” said Thomas Wheeler, president of CTIA.
To get a phone, citizen patrols must complete a one-page application and submit it to the Community Police Consortium. CPC is an umbrella group comprised of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Police Executive Research Forum, the National Sheriff’s Association, the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, the Police Foundation and the Justice Department’s Community Oriented Policing Services Office.
CPC will shortly thereafter notify CTIA that a community watch group has been certified for a phone. The trade group will then contact the wireless carrier serving that community, which will work with the citizen patrol. Specific guidelines are expected to be published soon.
Matt Peskin, executive director of the National Association of Town Watch, said the president’s announcement “represented a new era in police community crime-fighting partnerships.”
On Tuesday, the White House said it would veto an appropriations bill going to the House floor this week that features several anti-crime initiatives.
“If the president wants to veto important funding increases for the war on drugs, violence against women programs and local law enforcement, that’s his prerogative. But we don’t think it’s in the best interest of the American public,” said Elizabeth Morra, spokeswoman for the House Appropriations Committee.
A veto could wipe out spending hikes for the Justice Department, the FBI and the various anti-crime programs if they are frozen at fiscal 1996 budget levels as part of a six-month temporary spending bill contemplated by House Majority Leader Richard Armey (R-Texas).
