Safety Report October 11, 2011

October  11, 2011

Mcknight Public Safety Report    

The Mcknight Neighborhood Watch will move it’s meeting to follow the Sector F Team Beat Police meeting on October 20^th. The Sector F meeting will run form 5:30-6:15 with the Neighborhood Watch meeting to follow. This month we asked for the SPD to provide training on Gang activity: how to spot it and what we can do to report it in our neighborhood.

We hope that by having the meetings together there is a more synergy,       participation, and engagement from neighbors. It will also simplify meeting days hopefully generating more attendees. The website has been updated and we expect to meet with Dep Cochrane and Kathy Brown to confirm the format.(we will also keep Ben Swan notified of these meetings as well.)

We are looking for your input on what types of trainings you’d like to see for these meetings.

The biggest initiatives continue to be getting block captain commitments from neighbors and educating neighbors on how to report. Then how to follow up on that request after it’s been reported.

We continue to ask that you call crimes into 787-6302 for non emergencies or           911 for emergencies. The TEXT A TIP number 274637 and type SOLVE in the message is a great solution if want to report anonymous crimes.

We still continue to get results with follow up issues directed to Dep Cochrane and Reggie Miller after items have been properly called in.

There continue to be break ins, petty theft, assaults, and drug issues on Bowdoin,Bay,and Girard-especially during the late night and overnight times.

Ideally we’d like to get a point person inside Cathedral Hill Apts and the Girard Ave complex engaged. Each complex could really use its own “Watch”.

We got a complaint from Valerie Carmen on Thompson St regarding the truck traffic and noise from the Cozy Courtyard on State St. We asked she call it in and we will also follow up with Officer Miller.

Sincerely

Walter Kroll- President

Paul Swenson VP

Ed Kelly VP

McKnight Neighborhood Watch

 

 Meeting Summary

August 3, 2011

Present:         Isaac Crapps, Ed Kelly, Walter Kroll, Ceil Lewonchuk,  Tricia Love-Walsh, Michael McLaurin, Cathy Paquin, Charlie Ramos, Paul Swenson, Stephen Thibeau.

Bowdoin Street Watch Walks:

Ed Kelly, Paul Swenson, Walter Kroll and Charlie Ramos conducted a Watch Walk on Bowdoin St. on July 28^th to establish a presence there.  There have been some fires on Bowdoin St. and the neighbors there are very concerned.  A meeting was held recently with the Arson Squad, which was well attended.  The fires are still under investigation.  The Watch Walks will continue in August at two week intervals.  The next one will be on Thursday, August 11 from 7:00 – 8/8:30 and everyone is invited to participate.  We need to get Valerie Paul, who is the block captain for Bowdoin St., as well as the Police Dept. involved in this activity.

Miscellaneous Updates:

Charlie has a volunteer available to do neighborhood watch related work.  This person has been making some phone calls to people in the neighborhood to try and raise awareness.  If there is any other work that this person could do, please contact Charlie to make arrangements.  Charlie will have another informational leaflet printed up with emergency phone numbers.  He also gave a brief explanation about how Text-a-Tip works.

Steve Thibeau reported that he followed up on a recent suggestion concerning the use of emergency restraining orders.

Neighborhood Crime Statistics:

Charlie reported that Eastern Ave. has been a “hot spot” recently for gang related crime.  A suggestion was made to publish gang members' photos as tatoos could easily be used for identification purposes.  Someone from the PD should talk to our group about gang-related crime in more depth.  There was general discussion about gang crime involving the trafficking of illegal guns.  A lot of minors are involved in this activity.  There have been some arrests made in northern MA recently for guns coming in to the state from VT.

Home Security:

Charlie can arrange to have someone conduct a home security review at minimal cost.  Anyone interested should contact him.  The group discussed some security issues with locks, windows and window air conditioning units and Charlie had brochures available on keypad locks.  Motion lighting and some easy precautions like not leaving tools around outside were also mentioned.  There was also some discussion from attendees about recent break-ins and suspicious behavior.  Some problems with police responsiveness were also cited.