Community policing moves into mall

Eric Leake

Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2005 | 9:34 a.m.

Future shoppers in the Galleria at Sunset may be surprised to see a police desk where the Bkoz hip-hop gear shop used to be.

The Henderson City Council Tuesday night unanimously approved in its consent agenda leasing the shopping mall location for the Community Police Bureau.

Officer Todd Rasmussen, a Henderson Police spokesman, said the idea is to make police and department programs more familiar and accessible to the public.

"The goal of any community policing department is just to form better relationships with the community, to let them know that we do have good programs out there and they're available to them," Rasmussen said.

Those programs include Drug Abuse Resistance Education, personal security, and other crime prevention classes.

"They have a lot of these programs here at the police department, but they don't get to meet the community as often as they would at the mall," Rasmussen said.

He added that moving the Community Police Bureau to the mall will free up space at department headquarters.

The department will rent the 2,400-square-foot mall location for a minimum of $28,800 per year, according to the lease agreement. Rasmussen said he expects the bureau to begin moving into the mall in March or April and to open soon after.

For shopper and father John Howard, the police will be a welcomed presence.

"Police need it and the kids need it too," Howard said as he took a break from shopping Tuesday evening at the mall.

"They need to interact with the public and the kids," he said. "Mostly what the police deal with is the bad ones, not the good ones."

Howard said he shops only about once a month, but he has children ages 7, 10, and 12 who "come here all the time." As a parent, he said, he would feel somewhat better about letting his kids go with friends to the mall.

"A kid will know where that place is and be able to run there and feel safe," he said. "If my kids get scared in a place like this, there's nowhere to run to. Where do they go?"

Julie Malinowski suggested the police let their presence also be known in the parking lots, especially at night.

She said she would be glad to see the police bureau in the mall and would even consider taking a crime prevention course there because "women are very vulnerable."

Rasmussen said the bureau's primary purpose in the mall is community interaction, not mall policing, but that shopper safety is an obvious byproduct.

"If they're there and they witness something, there are armed officers there to respond immediately," he said, adding that a police sergeant will also man the bureau.

Rasmussen said he in unaware of a storefront police presence in any other valley malls though it is more common in other cities.

Security is a concern at valley malls. In August, 17-year-old Lee Masangkay died after being beaten in the food court at the Boulevard mall.

The Boulevard contracts unarmed security guards. Mall marketing manager Carrie Renfrow liked the idea of a community police center.

"We don't have one here now, but I definitely think it would be a great addition to our center," she said.

A mall's first priority, she said, is always providing a safe atmosphere for customers.