Melissa Bailey Photo
Lt. Thaddeus Reddish.
After cops took down the R2 gang, Newhallville’s top cop gained a new partner in the fight to keep crime from resurging in the neighborhood.
Neighborhood District Manager Lt. Thaddeus Reddish is now working not just with his patrol cops, but with Parole Officer Joseph Schmidt, in the quest to keep ex-offenders from committing more crimes.
The partnership was the focus of a press conference Wednesday at the Newhallville police substation. Mayor John DeStefano, who’s making prison reentry support a main focus of his campaign platform, held the event two weeks before the Nov. 8 general election, when he faces petitioning candidate Jeffrey Kerekes.
DeStefano Wednesday outlined a three-step process the city is taking to get a handle on crime in Newhallville. Step One was to take down the R2 gang, which was believed to be responsible for much of the violence around town. Step Two was to offer ex-cons resources through a prison reentry fair.
DeStefano.
Two weeks ago, DeStefano said, the city launched Step Three: A partnership aimed to get police back in communication with parole and probation officers. DeStefano said cops used to do that, but the practice fell by the wayside.
The state has worked with the city to come up with a list of about 20 ex-cons in Newhallville — as well as three other neighborhoods — with histories of gun violence who are likely to reoffend. Reddish and state officials work together to keep track of them.
That includes one former high-ranking member of the R2 gang, who was free pending various cases in court, Reddish said. The guy was on probation, the terms of which included staying out of Newhallville. Reddish said ex-cons often present one case to their probation officer when they show up, nicely dressed, to appointments. But back in the neighborhood, the man was up to the same old behavior. Reddish said when he spotted the guy in the neighborhood, he’d write a report and send it to probation. Eventually the state charged the man with violation of probation and put him behind bars.
In another case, Reddish said, someone on a parole officer’s caseload was up to no good. Parole officers get one picture from inside their offices, but they often don’t know what cops are seeing on the street. Reddish said he took a parole officer in his cruiser to show him where the guy was hanging out, back to the same behavior that got him in trouble in the first place.
While cops have worked with the state before, DeStefano said the new collaboration is different because it involves a narrow list of ex-cons with histories of gun violence. And the city isn’t just looking to enforce the law, but to help these people, he argued.
The partnership is taking place at substations in Newhallville, West River, the Hill and Fair Haven.
Tirzah Kemp, an outreach worker with the city’s prison reentry effort, said one of the people on the Newhallville list is an 18-year-old who recently got out of jail. The man has no work history, she said. She said she offered him an opportunity to get on his feet: A volunteer job at a warehouse. If the teen reports to work for six weeks straight, he’ll get a letter of recommendation showing he’s responsible to take on a permanent job, she said.
“If he does well,” she said, she’ll try to help him land a job — so he can get on the right track and stay away from committing another crime.
Good approach to stopping the madness created by those who have a history, but what about those who first offenders?