A packed house of Columbus residents Monday at Sim Scott Park Community Center heard city leaders’ plans for crime prevention and reduction.
More than 100 attended the first of three scheduled community meetings aimed to rally residents behind the city’s renewed efforts to keep the streets of Columbus safe — particularly in the wake of a March 20 shooting at the park that left four injured.
As the centerpiece to Monday’s community meeting, Columbus Police Chief Tony Carleton introduced a four-officer task force — comprised of Canyon Boykin, Kevin McCrary, Andres Rodriquez and Yolanda Young — that will work to build rapport with residents in high-crime neighborhoods in hopes of stopping small problems before they become larger.
Carleton said the task force would conduct foot patrols in neighborhoods with higher crime volume, such as those surrounding Sim Scott Park, meet with residents and staying on top of “quality of life” issues. He said each of the four officers will have a cell phone residents can call anonymously if they see suspicious behavior, rather than call 911 and leave their names. Those numbers are available upon request, Carleton said, and should remove residents’ fear of reprisal for reporting suspicious or criminal activity.
‘We can’t maximize our potential without help from the community’
“A lot of these things are problems where people are trying to sleep at 12 o’clock at night, and people are out in the front yard being loud,” Carleton said. “These are the types of things this unit will address … we can’t maximize our potential as a police department without help from the community. These guys will be doing foot patrols. They may even knock on your front door to introduce themselves. If you are out mowing your yard and you see them come by, you may even offer them a glass of water.”
Carleton noted the officers would not be a catch-all replacement for calling 911.
“If there’s someone breaking into your house, call 911,” he said. “Don’t call these guys. If you see someone that you know doesn’t live in your neighborhood but they keep walking by your house, or you see (various other suspicious activity), that’s when you call these guys.”
CPD plans to open substations
On Monday, city officials also outlined plans to reopen some of Columbus’ police substations, including the one at Sim Scott Park, which will operate between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays under Officer Rhonda Sanders’ supervision.
Further, Mayor Robert Smith and Ward 5 Councilman Kabir Karriem, who represents the neighborhoods around Sim Scott Park, said they both plan to support a city ordinance that would force “neighborhood stores” — loosely defined Monday as convenience stores embedded in residential areas — to close at 10 p.m. Both indicated those stores tend to be hotbeds for criminal and nuisance behavior, especially in the early morning hours.
“Some of those stores are open at 1 a.m.,” Smith said. “And if they are open at 1 a.m., you know the average person standing around ain’t going in there to buy the milk.”
Carleton said CPD receives an average of 30,000 calls per year, about 8,000 more than the national average for cities of similar size. Because of that, and the fact he said his officers dealt with “10 percent of the population 90 percent of the time, and most of that’s negative,” he knows building a strong relationship with the public will be a challenge. That challenge, he said, did not make the goal any less necessary.
To that end, Smith and others Monday called on the citizens to do their part in keeping their neighborhoods safe and pleaded with them not to let fear keep them from further from safety.
“If we’re serious about crime, we’re going to work together,” Smith said. “That starts at home with the parents, and it includes the schools, the pastors, everybody … I ought to be able to sit on my porch in peace without worrying about gang bangers coming around shooting. Any citizen should be able to walk down any street in Columbus without worrying about being robbed. Either you want to reduce crime, or you want to maintain the status quo.”
‘Trash and crime go hand-in-hand’
Karriem also admonished residents to take pride in their property and keep their neighborhoods clean.
“Trash and crime go hand-in-hand,” Karriem said. “If you’ve got a nasty community, you’re sure enough going to have crime.”
Municipal Judge Nicole Clinkscales and Columbus Municipal School District Superintendent Philip Hickman also spoke at Monday’s meeting about ways their entities plan to combat the city’s crime problem.
Smith later opened the floor for an extended question and comment period from the public.
Columbus resident Kim Brown, who owns a salon on 20th Street North near the park, said she was encouraged Monday by the city’s plan. In light of vandalism, break-ins and loitering she said her shop has endured recently, she has much at stake for the plan’s success.
After Monday’s meeting, Brown told The Dispatch she was working the day of the park shooting, and it shook her to the point of considering relocating her business. But now re-emboldened, she’s determined to stick it out.
“We can’t let people who don’t stay in this community run us off,” she said. “We ain’t going nowhere. If (the city) brings in police officers who are not afraid to do their job and will walk through the neighborhoods and be visible, that will help a lot.”
Similar community meeting will follow at East Columbus Gymnasium on April 6 and Townsend Community Center on April 13.
Both will begin at 6 p.m.
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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