Crime watches dig deep to clean up Hub streets Groups soar as they go high tech

Crime watches dig deep to clean up Hub streets
Groups soar as they go high tech

ALL EYES: Wes Williams of Wilmore Street uses a webcam as part of the crime watch to monitor activities and report criminal actions to police.
By Jessica Fargen  |   Sunday, January 16, 2011  |  http://www.bostonherald.com  |  Local Coverage
Photo by Patrick Whittemore

Armed with webcams, cell phones and a renewed neighborhood spirit, vigilant Boston residents fed up with crime are starting neighborhood watches at a surging rate and taking back their streets at the same time.

Hub residents started 56 crime watches last year at a rate of about one every week — a nearly 25 percent increase over 2009, according to Boston police.

“We basically took back the street,” Wes Williams said of Wilmore Street in Mattapan, where six neighbors used their own money to buy wireless, mobile cameras to catch wrongdoing.

Wilmore Street was once a cut-through for warring gangs — but not anymore, said Williams, a teacher and father of nine. The street is also better lit, and neighbors are coming out of their houses more often.

“The crime went away,” said Sgt. Tim Torigian, the community service officer at the B-3 police station who works closely with Williams and other crime watches. “I’d like to have one on every street if I could.”

The increase in crime watches has come as major crimes in Boston — with the exception of homicides — have dropped. Homicides increased from 49 in 2009 to 74 last year, but robberies, rapes, larcenies and car thefts are down.

Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis said increasing the number of crime watches is part of a strategy to open the doors of the department and engage residents.

“I think it really is important that people take control of public safety and take control into their own hands. That’s what you are seeing happen in Boston,” he said. “We’ve had four years of substantial reductions of crime that’s due in large part to the community stepping up and working closely with the police.”

In the blighted Hendry Street neighborhood in Dorchester, stay-at-home mom Shirley Montanez, 31, started a crime watch in September — too many drugs, too much prostitution, she said. Two months ago, there was a shooting.

“We have more of an eye of what’s going on instead of being closed off,” she said.

The result? More police cars on the street.

For Trena Ambroise, the catalyst was the murder of 13-year-old Steve Odom, the son of two preachers who was gunned down on Evans Street, steps from his house in 2007.

“An innocent child was murdered. That was on everybody’s hearts and minds. We said, ‘We’ve got to do something,’ ” said Ambroise, who started Redefining Our Community in June 2009, a crime watch encompassing a dozen streets.

Nights are quieter with fewer party houses. Hopkins Street is now a one-way, and Evans and Corbet streets have stop signs, making it safer for kids. Residents said crime is down.

“Our number one goal is for us to know our neighbors and to look out for each other, to make this neighborhood a closer community,” said Ambroise, who lives on Corbet Street. “We share information. We all are on the lookout for one another.”

Crime watches are community builders as much as crime deterrents. The hallmarks are summer block parties or cookouts and monthly meetings with police. Neighbors leave porch lights on at night. They exchange cell phone numbers and call each other or police when something doesn’t look right on their street.

“The message is, we are preventing,” said Valarie Seabrook, who recently started a crime watch in the East Fens, where there have been a number of muggings and attempted break-ins. “We are not going to let things deteriorate in front of our eyes. We are going to nip this in the bud.”

Carolyn MacNeil, the tireless head of the two-person BPD crime watch unit, has a list of more than 800 crime watches. A passionate advocate for neighborhoods, she’s hoping for even more crime watches this year. Just last week, BPD and community leaders held the first crime watch meeting for the Woolson Street neighborhood, where four people, including a 2-year-old boy, were killed in September.

“It’s really important for the neighbors to get connected,” MacNeil said. “It tunes people into the finer things in a neighborhood, the comings and goings of people. No one knows your street like you know your street.”

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