Shaker Heights Safety Forces Misused a Week After Issue 1 Passage: Letter to the Editor

(Tuesday evening), around 5:45pm, there were 3 police officers, 2 police cruisers and the K-9 unit on my street, Rawnsdale Road. There were officers on my property and I asked them what was going on. They said they were looking for a kid without a bicycle helmet!

There were 2 members of the bike patrol there also. What a ridiculous waste of taxpayer money. A few weeks ago, Mayor Leiken threatened the residents of to bully residents into voting for an unnecessary income tax increase by stating that the police department would only be able to respond to the most serious of crimes if the income tax increase did not pass. Well, now that it passed, it looks the police department is bored but has to justify their double and triple overtime so they send out 5 city employees to look for a kid without a bike helmet.

Unbelievable.

On July 4th, my 15 year old son and had to be taken to the hospital. When I called 911, the response was that there was no one available to help him because all employees were at the fireworks!  

Fortunately, the county prosecutors are doing their job and the criminals are about to be sentenced. Shaker was the laughing stock of the state, but now they have the great distinction of being the laughing stock of the country, Bloomberg report, etc.

I'm sure the 4200 residents who voted for this increase will be very happy with the way Shaker spends its money, the other 18,000 registered voters, not so much.