Responding to an uptick in shootings and citywide outcry that “community policing is dead,” top police brass have been touring neighborhood management teams across the city, announcing new walking beats and introducing the cops who’ll walk them (pictured). Latest stop: Hill South, where some were still reeling from Sunday’s shootings.
The cop tour comes as the city grapples with a particularly tough summer of teen gun violence, including the shooting deaths of two 13 year-olds. Complaints have been brewing for some time that people don’t know the cops who protect them or see the same day-to-day presence in the street. Those complaints got amplified a couple of weeks ago when 10 alders sat down with the chief of police. Ortiz pledged more face-to-face time between cops and those they protect.
Over the last two weeks, top-ranking policemen — the chief and both new assistant chiefs — have been making stops at management team meetings, where they talk crime with neighbors. So far, they’ve hit East Shore, Whalley Avenue/ Edgewood/ Beaver Hill, and the Church Street South apartment complex, where two men were shot to death on Sunday.
Wednesday night, the chiefs visited the Hill South Management Team, an active group that generates a steady crowd each month.
One woman, Tina, showed up in response to Sunday’s shootings. Tina had been walking home from church with her mother when she saw Aaron McCrea gunned down in front of her mother’s apartment, near the Church Street South on Sunday.
“I am very angry. Any one of us could have been caught in the crossfire,” she said. To Lt. Joseph Streeto, the Hill South District Manager, she asked, “Can’t you do something?”
“We’re monitoring these people. We’re doing the best we can,” replied the lieutenant. Church Street South had regular, but not 24-hour cop presence before Sunday, he said. At least until Monday, cops will be there at all hours of the day. He said the complex has been quiet in terms of gunfire until two weeks ago.
At a meeting Tuesday between the management company and the people who live at Church Street South, cops and neighbors agreed to try to revive monthly management team meetings, which had dropped off because only a handful of people were showing up, said Streeto.
Another man lodged a complaint about teens loitering on Button Street: “You go to suburbia and you don’t see those people hanging out on the streets,” he said. Streeto said his crew works hard to “disperse loiterers” and that new patrols would ease the problem.
Streeto (pictured at left), who was much-praised by the crowd, brought three less well-known cops to the meeting. Officers Charles Tyson, Jason Jackson and John Healy (pictured, in the photo at the top of this story, from left to right) have been on the job for seven months. Veteran officers were removed from regular beats in Hill South when they joined the roving crime squad ID-NET, said Streeto.
Tyson and Healy started a walking beat on Rosette Street just a week and a half ago. After a brief introduction, the management team chair asked for business cards. They didn’t have any.
“That went out the window with community policing!” remarked Hill Alderman Jorge Perez.
The new walkers will tackle an area — Rosette Street and its surroundings — where vacant houses have been attracting drugs and crime, said Streeto. A drug dealer was shot there at the end of the summer. The elusive Levester Meyers, wanted for stabbing his wife to death, has reportedly been seen in that area, wearing a wig. Gunshots were heard there Tuesday night, then cops chased down and arrested a teenager for shooting a man nearby.
As Streeto’s new walkers cruise Rosette and its surroundings from 4 p.m. to midnight looking for drug activity around vacant houses, their work will be coupled long term by Habitat for Humanity. The city has agreed to turn over five vacant, foreclosed lots to Habitat. New families are already lining up to work on, then fill the homes.
Police Chief Ortiz and Assistant Chiefs Stephanie Redding and Herman Badger gave pledges of community policing at the end of the meeting.
“I can tell you that we hear you loud and clear,” Ortiz told the crowd. “People want to see more police officers; they want to know their police officers.” The department has been pumping $100,000 per month into overtime pay to get more manpower until new recruits get sworn in the spring.
Badger later said people across the city have been telling police they want more walking beats. Two have been added in the Whalley/Edgewood/Beaver Hill area. Another two just got added in Fair Haven. Badger said he’s urging cops, including members of ID-NET, to add a walking component to their car-based patrols.
As Badger and company tour neighborhoods management teams, input from neighbors will be part of the decision on whether to dismantle ID-NET (which takes away from regular beat manpower, but racks up short-term arrests in target areas) early, or let it run until its original one-year sunset date.
Would the department see a wide-scale change beyond one-time introductions, a long-term shift in mentality and resources back to community policing? Wednesday was too soon to tell. Alderman Perez saw signs his concerns had been noted. “It’s definitely a result of that meeting. “I’ve never seen three officers like that in here before.”
When do we get to meet the cops in West Hills and West Rock? Better to meet them before a fatal catastrophe happens, don't you think? Let's get back to "real" community policing!