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| Special Police Urban Response | |
|---|---|
| Abbreviation | SPUR |
| Motto | "Keeping The Streets Safe"(official) "We harm those who would harm others" (unofficial) |
| Agency overview | |
| Formed | 1987 |
| Dissolved | 2002 |
| Superseding agency | Local Option Police Supplemental Support |
| Employees | 18,000 (peak) |
| Jurisdictional structure | |
| Operations jurisdiction | Etheinia |
| Operational structure | |
| Parent agency | Bureau of Law & Order |
Special Police Urban Response(SPUR), later briefly known as Community Police Response(CPR), was a program run by the Etheinian Bureau of Law & Order which existed between 1987 and 2002. SPUR was designed to counter the rampant crime in Etheinian cities at the time, particularly drugs and street gangs, by applying military-style tactics & training to everyday law enforcement duties. SPUR units, which operated in 14 cities and employed 20,000 officers at their peak, worked independently of local police departments and had considerably more freedom in their movements, methods, and activities. They also received equipment and vehicles from the military.
In its early years, the SPUR program was considered a roaring success, managing to arrest unprecedented numbers of criminals, break up several high-profile gangs, and “sanitize” entire neighborhoods of crime & drugs. Later in life, however, SPUR units became notorious for their brutality and corruption, and for the criminal activities many of their officers were involved in, including theft, extortion, drug trafficking, witness intimidation, beatings and rapes of detainees, and reckless, indiscriminate shootings. This culminated in the 1999 Korista City Riots, which was later deemed a police riot by a government investigative panel. One historian would note that “by the end of the millennium, many members of SPUR seemed to be little more than gangsters with badges.”
SPUR was placed under heavy government scrutiny after the riots, and many officers left or were forced to resign. Under the direction of reformist President Alejo Ibanez, several units were disbanded, with the remainder having their budgets slashed and being placed under the supervision of federal courts. However, relatively few officers were ever tried or convicted for crimes they committed under the auspices of their authority. SPUR was renamed to CPR in an attempt to distance the program from its checkered past, but in 2002 all remaining units were disbanded permanently; it would be replaced by the Local Option Police Supplemental Support(LOPSS) program in 2003. SPUR remains the only police unit in Etheinian history to be dismantled due to criminal misconduct.