While the Greensboro City Council found an additional $83,000 for the unit to continue fighting crime past July 31, it still needs two things: more money and man power.
GREENSBORO -- Each day on the job for Cpl. Terry Brown and his team on the robbery suppression unit starts out in the line-up room.
Two key investigations the group spent Wednesday looking in to were an armed robbery at the Biscuitville on Martin Luther King Drive involving a sawed off shotgun and the hunt for 21-year-old Barry Turner. Turner’s a suspect in the armed robbery at the Anna’s Linens from earlier this week.
Armed with around a dozen wanted posters, the six-man unit hit the streets.
“Sometimes we'll be lucky and get them that day,” said Brown, who has been with the unit since January. “Unfortunately there were several times that we'd work hard all four days to catch them and they'd turn themselves in to the other squad on our days off so we'd get frustrated with that.
“And then there are other times when we've exhausted every lead that we know of and they're still out there unfortunately.”
At times, their investigation can resemble a wild goose chase, taking them from fake and former addresses to uncooperative neighbors and family members. But time is a luxury the unit usually has. They are able to do surveillance, research the crime, even do follow-up work.
“The times when you can catch them right after it happened -- and if you weren't there they wouldn't have gotten caught -- it's one of the best feelings you get from this job, knowing that you're work really paid off because without it, it wouldn't have gotten done," said Brown.
But the unit is now working on borrowed time.
The robbery suppression unit in Greensboro usually has the time to delve deep in to cases and try to find the suspects. But with a lack of funding and a need for more manpower, that could soon change.
While the Greensboro City Council found an additional $83,000 for the robbery suppression unit to continue fighting crime past July 31, it still needs two things: more money and manpower.
“We've got a current academy sitting right now with 31 cadets in it and they finish July 25. However they'll have another 14 weeks of field training so it will be mid November before they're ready for field, solo assignment," said Assistant Chief Harold Scott with the Greensboro Police Department.
Scott hopes to have the department’s numbers up to par by December 1, but the funding is another issue the city council will ultimately have to decide upon if the unit is to continue on.
“Already they've taken numerous people off the streets, and the philosophy behind that is you can take them off the streets to put them in jail they're not going to go back out there to commit more armed robberies," added Scott.
Since its inception the robbery suppression unit has arrested 86 people -- 74 of whom were charged with felonies.
For now, Brown and his team are going to keep doing what they've been assigned to do, regardless of the program's future.
“Feeling like you're actually making a difference and getting the really bad people off the street that need to be off the street, it's been a very nice change, a very nice change,” said Brown.
City council members say they will revisit the issue of refunding the unit after hearing recommendations from the consultant that was hired to conduct a review of the police department.
The firm will present its findings to the council at its July 7 meeting at 6 p.m.