Good police work underscores need to keep our own department

We know.

In recent weeks, police officers, firefighters and public employee union members have come under a lot of criticism and outright attack on their collective bargaining rights, salaries, benefits and pensions.

Not just here in Hamtramck, but seemingly everywhere.

Our nation seems to be heading toward a major showdown on how we treat public employees.

Even this newspaper has weighed in on the matter.

But this editorial is not about what unions should or should not do.

This is about the incredible job our Police Department has done in recent weeks. And why it’s important that, at all costs, we keep our own police and fire departments.

Recently, police investigators cracked a high-profile homicide that occurred in the Hamtramck Senior Plaza apartments. In about 24 hours investigators got the name of the suspect and his likely whereabouts and were able to arrest the suspect without incident.

That took a lot of extra effort and hours to track down a suspected, cold-blooded killer.

That investigation was the summation of plain-old good police work. The kind of work that requires dedicated employees who care about this city.

And in two other investigations, police officers and investigators acted like a well-oiled machine in tracking down and busting two major house break-in gangs. It took countless hours and dogged police work to get these bad guys.

To be fair, no one has been convicted yet and all suspects are due their day in court.

What’s been lost in the discussion of budget cuts and bad financial times is the value of having a highly-trained and professional police and fire workforce. Let’s reflect on these recent successful police efforts and try to open a discussion on how we can preserve what we have.