From the Battle Creek Inquirer via Pechanga:
Four months after the opening of FireKeepers Casino, local police say crime hasn’t risen as some casino opponents had feared.
While some critics feared the casino would lead to an increase in burglaries, embezzlement and crimes of that ilk, that hasn’t materialized, police and residents said.
Increased traffic is the thing most residents near the casino are going to experience, said Emmett Township’s acting Public Safety Director Kenneth Cunningham. Gamers at the casino might see the occasional drunken and disorderly conduct, but nothing more than would be expected at a place selling alcohol, Cunningham said.
Cunningham and casino officials said data on the number of incidents near FireKeepers and on casino grounds were not immediately available. Those statistics are tracked by the Huron Potawatomi Police Department, the force for the Athens Township-based Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi, FireKeepers’ owners.
Residents living near the facility say its impact has been minimal.
“It’s not really been a problem,” said Sue Bess, 67, who lives on Ackerson Drive, directly east of the casino property. “Traffic’s not really been much different. Everything’s moved pretty smooth.”
The tribe in October 2008 signed a $1.1 million agreement with Emmett Township for Emmett to police the casino around the clock for three years. The tribe pays for five cross-trained police, fire and emergency medical public safety officers and a new patrol car for the township, which is housed at the casino. Fire or medical calls are handled and paid for on a per-call basis.
Four months after the casino’s opening, “Things are going very good,” Cunningham said.
TRAFFIC,
DISORDERLY CONDUCT
Casino opponents claimed FireKeepers would increase crime as people made poor by gambling losses turned to theft to make ends meet.
A 2000 University of Illinois study found counties with casinos enjoyed a drop in crime rates for up to four years after the casino opened before crime rates climbed dramatically for the following five years. Kalamazoo’s W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research is tracking FireKeepers’ impact in Calhoun County.
As of now, Cunningham said, “Traffic incidents are the things you’re most going to see.”
There have been two major traffic events at the casino: opening day and Nov. 30, the day FireKeepers gave away a limited-edition Lee Iacocca Mustang. On the giveaway day, 10 township officers were occupied for four hours and I-94 exit ramps near the casino were closed for 15 minutes while overflow traffic was directed into the casino lot.
Otherwise, traffic tends to flow smoothly, area residents and police say.
Occasional heavy traffic and minor fender-benders are the most common occurrences in the casino area, Cunningham said.
On casino grounds, disorderly conduct has been the most common offense, he said.
Drunken bad behavior — fights, shouting, urinating in public — is something you might see at any entertainment establishment where liquor is sold. But FireKeepers is essentially a 236,000-square-foot bar with 3,000 parking spaces frequently filled. Still, more serious crimes have occurred at FireKeepers, Cunningham said, such as an attempted carjacking and a man who brandished a knife against casino security.
“But there hasn’t been anything really major or surprising out there,” he said.
Craig Schwartz, chief of the tribal police, said in a statement Friday the low number of incidents “is to the credit of the professionalism and excellent working relationship of the Huron Potawatomi Police Department, the Emmett Township Public Safety Department and the FireKeepers Casino security team.”
FireKeepers’ security, which is also trained to perform emergency medical treatments, handles situations as best they can before calling Emmett for help, Cunningham said.
Things are going smoothly for residents neighboring the casino, as well.
“I think most of us expected it would be much worse,” said Bess, who heads the Ackerson Drive Neighborhood Watch. “Until the leaves were off the trees on this street, you didn’t really even know it was there.”
‘KNOWING YOUR STUFF’
Police a tribal casino is a unique challenge for any department.
That’s because tribal casinos sit on sovereign tribal land, where state laws do not apply to American Indians, and non-Indians face federal charges for certain crimes that would be handled in state court if committed off tribal land.
“It’s definitely a learning curve,” Cunningham said. “It’s very much been a challenge for the officers getting used to, what do you write a citation for, what do you arrest for, that kind of thing.”
Sometimes, crimes prosecuted in federal court carry different penalties than state court, Cunningham said. For example, urinating in public is a $100 fine that doesn’t appear on an offender’s permanent record if handled in federal court. If someone was charged with that offense off tribal land, it would show on their record, Cunningham said.
A thick, three-ring binder full of federal, state and tribal statutes guides officers working the casino, Cunningham said.
“It’s just a matter of knowing your stuff,” he said. “It’s a matter of working with tribal police, working with the (federal Bureau of Indian Affairs). It’s a matter of working together.”
BEING TAXED,
GETTING PAID
Emmett Township has 19 full-time public safety officers. At least one of them is at FireKeepers at all times, Cunningham said. Officers work the casino on a rotation schedule.
But at times the casino, which has proved very popular, can be more taxing than one officer can handle, such as the day the Mustang was given away.
The public safety contract with the tribe allows Emmett to bill the tribe for up to $37,500 a year in administrative costs. However, expenses for overtime required to handle that Nov. 30 rush or for officers to testify in federal court in Grand Rapids on citations written at FireKeepers — and the fuel to get officers there — were not covered.
For those costs, Emmett will have to turn to the
2 percent of FireKeepers slot profits guaranteed to local governments. That 2 percent will be paid out by a six-member board on which Emmett has a seat. Many municipalities will be pitching to get paid by that board, so Emmett has since the casino’s opening kept stringent records of costs it wants reimbursed.
“Anything that has anything to do with working at the casino, we’re keeping track of that,” Cunningham said.
About the contract
Below are some quick facts on the 2008 public safety contract between Emmett Township and the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of Potawatomi:
The township will provide five public safety officers and 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week police services a the casino for three years, 2009-10, 2010-11 and 2011-12. Afterward, the contract is up for renegotiation. Fire and emergency medical services are handled on an on-call basis.
The contract calls for $375,489.16 each year for the five officers.
The tribe also paid the township about $46,500 for a new patrol vehicle to be housed at FireKeepers for the three years.
The contract totals nearly $1.2 million over three years.
It also allows the township to recoup up to $37,500 per year in administrative costs from the tribe, if Emmett cannot get that expense from the 2 percent of casino slot profits guaranteed to local governments by the state-tribe compact which allowed FireKeepers. That 2 percent is dispersed by the FireKeepers Casino Local Revenue Sharing Board.
The contract also grants township officers the authority to enforce tribal law on sovereign tribal land. The FireKeepers property, along with the tribe’s Pine Creek Reservation in AthensTownship, was federally entrusted in 2006, making it sovereign land. An agreement is necessary to give Emmett authority there, just like an agreement would be necessary for Emmett to police in Battle Creek.
Turtle Talk 