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St. Pete Police: Effort Cuts Violent Crime Nearly 30%

News Channel 8 photo by WALLY PATANOW

St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker discusses a crimefighting inititative called Community and Police Engagement. The program is credited with curbing violent crime in the Childs Park, Harbordale and Palmetto Park neighborhoods.

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By STEPHEN THOMPSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 30, 2008

ST. PETERSBURG - A special police initiative slashed violent crime in three troubled neighborhoods by nearly 30 percent, officials announced today.

And it all started with officers going door to door.

St. Petersburg Police Chief Chuck Harmon implemented Community and Police Engagement on May 26, and it wrapped up today. Groups of four officers were assigned to each of the three neighborhoods, and their first job was to knock on each and every door.

Not everyone was home. The officers went to 3,600 homes and businesses and talked to about 1,200 people, Harmon said at a news conference today.

Where no one was home, the officers left door hangers with a range of city telephone numbers – not just confidential texting or phone lines to leave crime tips, but also those for city sanitation and code enforcement departments.

Sometimes those tips led to criminal investigations. As Harmon spoke outside the police department's mobile community police resource center, a bus, in one of the neighborhoods today, masked members of the vice and narcotics squads were executing a search warrant down the street -- part of the CAPE initiative.

Six individuals were arrested at the house at 2751 Third Ave. S. on a variety of drug charges, said St. Petersburg police spokesman Bill Proffitt. Detectives also seized crack cocaine, a press used to make crack cocaine, marijuana, a TEC-DC9 semi-automatic pistol, a .44-Magnum revolver, two stun guns, ammunition, $1,600 cash and a 1995 Chevrolet Camaro, Proffitt said.

Six pit bulls also were taken from the residence by county animal control workers, he said.

It is obvious that the presence of the additional four officers in each of the three neighborhoods has been crucial, said Barry Books, a community service officer who was in charge of one of the groups.

That the department mobile resource center was brought into each of the neighborhoods at least once a week – where it often was parked in front of a drug house – also helped, Books said.

Sometimes officers assigned to the bus gave neighborhood children stuffed animals, coloring books and stickers, said Sgt. Daniel Barber, who was in charge of a second group of four officers.

The neighborhoods targeted were Childs Park, Harbordale and Palmetto Park.

When the officers were told of street-level drug dealing, they would pass the information on to the street crimes unit, which typically puts dealers under surveillance as it gathers evidence against them, Books said. Vice and narcotics units, on the other hand, targeted drug houses.

Books said officers also were told of runaways, some of whom were taken off the streets.

If they were told of a problem involving a dilapidated house, one of the officers might try to address it through the codes department, he said.

The department also used some relatively new approaches to specific types of crimes, Assistant Police Chief Dave DeKay said. For instance, officers took a tougher approach to people firing guns into the air or into the ground. Since that is a violation of a city ordinance, officers typically had given the culprits a notice to appear in court, but now they are putting them in jail, DeKay said.

The approach to reports of certain crimes also has become swifter, DeKay said. Previously the department would not deal comprehensively with a report of exchanged gunfire on a given night until the next morning, but now many segments of the department are getting involved that night, when the report comes in, DeKay said.

Harmon said the initiative has had concrete results, and the city council members representing the three neighborhoods congratulated him Tuesday for making their constituents safer.

Mayor Rick Baker also praised the police effort.

Violent crimes in the three neighborhoods declined by 26.7 percent compared with the same four-month period in 2007, the department said. Gun-related crimes declined by 17.1 percent.

Further, there were no homicides in any of the neighborhoods during the CAPE initiative; there were
five from January to the beginning of the initiative.

Reporter Stephen Thompson can be reached at (727) 451-2336 or spthompson@tampatrib.com.

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