Leggett increases funding for youth, slashes immigrant outreach program

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - In the face of rising gang crime, attacks on immigrants and a rapidly growing foreign-born community, Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett has moved to eliminate police officer positions tasked with doing outreach to immigrant residents.

The $4.3 billion budget Leggett released Tuesday eliminates the county police department’s funding for 12 community service officer positions, charged with doing outreach to minority communities and encouraging foreign-born residents to work with police. The budget also slashes funding for the Police Activities League program, a youth program supervised by some law enforcement officers.

Leggett said tight budget times — the county is facing a projected $297 million budget gap — forced his decision, and that eliminating those areas enabled him to add $600,000 in county funds to other youth development programs.

Council President Mike Knapp voiced concern about the cuts given the county’s continued population growth — much of which is fueled by an influx of foreign-born residents.

“We can’t hire enough police officers by themselves to get everywhere we want them to be,” Knapp said. “We depend on community policing efforts ... and the like to give residents the tools to assist police officers to make sure our communities are safe.”

Montgomery police officials have also used the officers to communicate to foreign-born residents that the mission of local police is separate from that of federal immigration officials, and widely publicizing that crime victims will never be asked their immigration status.

The move comes as county law enforcement officials report growing trends in criminals targeting Hispanic residents for pack robberies, preying upon them because of the perception that Hispanics may be carrying cash on them since studies show they are less likely to have bank accounts.

In addition, the county released the 2007 gang task force report last week that showed a 29 percent increase in gang crime and a 20 percent increase in gang membership.

“It is going to be tough to lose these programs and positions,” Montgomery Police Chief J. Thomas Manger said, adding that officers will not be laid off, but simply reassigned. “But we can’t cut the number of officers on the street or the number of detectives investigating crimes so we had to cut there.”

kmiller@dcexaminer.com

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