Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Violence slows as Pittsburgh police get back to basics

By Carl Prine
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Wednesday, May 6, 2009

A spate of incidents requiring SWAT responses in the weeks after the slayings of three Pittsburgh police officers belies the fact that violent crime is decreasing citywide, officials say.

Last year, reports of the most violent offenses � homicide, rape, arson, aggravated assault and robbery � fell in the neighborhoods that make up five of Pittsburgh's six police patrol zones, on average at 5 percent each below 2007 numbers. The exception was Zone 3, until recently headquartered in the South Side.

Even though some neighborhoods still have real problems, such as those in the city's southern hilltop area where violent crimes rose 19 percent in 2008, it appears that methods aimed at reducing violence are working, say public safety officials and community leaders.

Mayor Luke Ravenstahl expects to spend $5 million this year to demolish buildings that attract drug dealers and users or tempt arsonists. Such demolitions are an important addition to "back-to-basics" community policing, which puts officers on foot or bicycle patrols and relies on people to report troublemakers, he said.

"We really look at public safety as a comprehensive effort. It's more than police officers," the mayor said. "It's about getting communities involved."

Police commanders and Public Safety Director Mike Huss say this is a common blueprint for success: Send "impact" squads, night patrols and undercover detectives into areas showing the first signs of escalating violence, and follow with beat cops and police liaisons to work with neighborhood leaders, churches and block watch groups.

Abandoned buildings that are bulldozed can become parklets, or be marketed for development. In police Zones 3 and 5, building inspectors are housed at police stations and walk through neighborhoods with beat cops.

"It's a progressive, proactive approach," Huss said. "It relies on the professionalism and the energy of our officers to carry it out, and we think it's going to have a major impact."

There are early signs of progress. Attempted murders, gun incidents and other aggravated assaults fell 4 percent last year, and the decrease appears to be continuing, according to Huss and police data.

Walking for security

Zone 2 Cmdr. George Trosky remembers walking a beat as an officer in 1978.

Trosky emphasizes to officers that walking � not driving � is an effective way to ward off trouble. His zone encompasses 5 square miles, from the 62nd Street Bridge through Downtown to the Hill District.

Last year, violent crime dropped nearly 8 percent in his zone, according to police data.

"You need to be in the area, every day. You need to get to know who should be there. Once you're there, people will tell you things," Trosky said.

When officers working out of the Zone 2 station in the Hill District cracked down on dope deals and worked with neighbors to ferret out illegal firearms, violence fell, community leaders say.

"They flooded the area with undercover cops. Then they clamped down the premises and they kept it up. Sometimes, there's the commander by himself, walking alone to see what's really going on," said George Mowl, the manager of the Reed Roberts subsidized housing complex for three decades.

"There's not much going on now," Mowl said. "It's actually getting kind of boring. Boring is good."

For two years, Reed Roberts and the jumble of housing projects comprising the Hill's Terrace Village section were Pittsburgh's most dangerous stretch of land. The number of violent crimes per acre in that neighborhood was more than twice that of Homewood North and three times that recorded in East Liberty, according to police data.

In 2006 and 2007, officers investigated a violent crime for every 11 people living in Terrace Village.

Last year, however, total offenses dropped by a third in the neighborhood. Zone 2 officers said Trosky's emphasis on beat patrols and tools such as video surveillance of high-crime corners and detectives' analysis of areas where violence is most likely to occur helped them achieve the drop in crime. Rosters of public housing tenants also help, so that officers know who lives there and who might be trespassing troublemakers.

Tips given by callers to Ravenstahl's 311 hotline and "silent complaint forms" that mask neighbors' names "pan out more than 90 percent of the time," said Janine Davis, community liaison officer for Zone 2. When people see results, she said, they're more likely to call again.

Trosky and other police commanders credit Chief Nate Harper with giving them freedom to tailor their crime busting to the streets they patrol. Harper demands results, they say, but he understands that cookie-cutter approaches to policing won't work. He, too, emphasizes forging partnerships with neighbors to fight crime.

In a written statement, Harper praised the city's officers for their hard work � but he singled out the anti-crime initiatives with neighborhood groups.

Redrawing boundaries

Police are concentrating on Zone 3, where violent crime reports rose 19 percent in 2008. The highest increases were in Beechview, Brookline, Beltzhoover and Carrick.

To tackle the surge in violent crime in that zone, officials last year redrew some boundaries to put western neighborhoods such as Banksville and Brookline in the quieter, newly formed Zone 6. In April, they moved the Zone 3 police station from South Side to Allentown.

Cmdr. Catherine McNeilly took charge of Zone 3 a year ago. By March, she said, violent offenses in the remaining sections of her zone had fallen 36 percent compared with a year earlier. She credits officers patrolling the streets.

But in Beltzhoover, the middle of Zone 3, violent crime doubled in 2008. Although murders and arsons remained rare, an armed robbery or aggravated assault occurred in the neighborhood every week.

Someone living in Beltzhoover is three times more likely to suffer violence than a Beechview resident, and 11 times more likely than someone in nearby Overbrook. That's unacceptable, said Ravenstahl.

Contractors recently flattened more than 60 vacant Beltzhoover buildings � contributing to a 37 percent increase in demolitions from 2007-08.

"We're close to Downtown. We want businesses to come in, but it's a circular problem. If there's a lot of violent crime, then the criminals will target the businesses," said Connie Wellons, a board member of the Beltzhoover Citizens Community Development Corp. "So we're focusing on crime and housing because they go together. Until we tackle both of them effectively, we'll be an undiscovered oasis in Pittsburgh."

Carl Prine can be reached at cprine@tribweb.com or 412-320-7826.
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