Volker feature in KC Star story on community policing

VNA Safety Committee Chair Kara Werner is featured in a new KC Star article about community policing efforts going in several KC neighborhoods. Check out our Safety and Crime page for more info the VNA's efforts keep the neighborhood safe and clean, and to find resources for your own home.

Police helping residents take back control of their neighborhoods
By SARA SHEPHERD
The Kansas City Star
Tue, May. 11, 2010

Around the holidays last year, Kara Werner noticed that crime in the Volker neighborhood, where she’s lived 10 years, seemed to be getting worse.

Not just car break-ins and home burglaries, but crimes involving guns, or doors being kicked in during broad daylight.

At first, Werner said, she felt afraid.

Then, she felt like doing something about it.

“All I could think was, ‘How is no one seeing people walking down the street with television sets and getting in cars?’ ” she said.

Werner soon became one of many residents diving into grassroots-style crime prevention efforts taught by the Kansas City Police Department.

The trend is called community policing, and the goal is essentially to help residents help themselves.

Community Interaction Officers in each of the police department’s six patrol divisions help residents organize block watch programs and neighborhood crime patrols. They also conduct free home and business security assessments and speak to groups on topics such as self-defense, property crime prevention and identity theft.

Community Interaction Officers say the Waldo-area rapes sparked a huge increase in requests for their services, especially around Waldo but also in other parts of the city.

Before the rapes, Officer John Trainor of the Metro Patrol Division conducted a handful of home security assessments and personal safety classes each month, he said.

With a serial rapist on the loose, that number grew closer to 100, Trainor said. And requests for help in setting up block watch programs increased three- or four-fold.

To help him keep up, the police department assigned Trainor two extra officers to help with security assessments and a limited-duty officer to answer phones.

Trainor said calls seemed to spike after each rape and die down again after two or three weeks.

“If there’s not some type of crime going up on your block, it’s really hard to get people interested,” Trainor said. “If there isn’t a threat, other priorities take over.”

Last week authorities arrested Bernard Jackson, 52, and charged him with four unsolved rapes from the 1980s. Police call him a person of interest in the recent Waldo-area rapes.

“We need to still take precautions as if this guy is out on the streets today,” said Master Patrol Officer Jim Schriever of Central Patrol Division. “We’ve had incidents like this in the past .... At some point in our future, there will be an incident.”

Schriever said residents should incorporate safety into their daily lifestyles to reduce the likelihood of becoming victims of all types of crime, which he added can occur “anywhere, at any time, to anyone.”

• • •

Whether lots of residents or only a few step up, police say some simple steps can improve the safety of a neighborhood.

“We understand that if we get two people together, and that if the neighborhood sees a notable difference, it’s going to be contagious,” Schriever said.

Volker is a good example, he said.

Werner, presuming she wasn’t the only one concerned about crime, started by setting up a Volker Watch Facebook group.

A few weeks later, 50 residents showed up for the group’s first meeting. Her e-mail list includes about 150 neighbors, said Werner, now official safety chairwoman for the Volker Neighborhood Association.

In April, Volkerites hit the streets for a neighborhood graffiti cleanup.

They’ve scheduled Light Up Volker — an evening for everyone to turn on their porch lights, get outside and meet their neighbors — for this Sunday. .

Plans are in the works for a Volker cycle patrol, for which small groups of residents who like to bike will don orange vests for rides through the neighborhood.

Several 39th Street businesses are supporting the group’s efforts, Werner said. Volker Bicycles is offering free tune-ups for cycle patrol participants, and Starbucks has designated a bulletin board to Volker Watch announcements.

Neighbors also stay in touch and keep up on crime-prevention tips through the Volker Watch Facebook page.

“Community-building is so important,” Werner said.

• • •

Residents may not be able to completely burglar-proof a house, police say, but they can do a lot to deter or delay criminals.

Some of the most common tips include better lighting and better locks, said Officer Jason Cooley of the East Patrol Division. Officers also suggest strategies from a movement called Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design, such as cutting back bushes an intruder could hide in or adding fencing.

Follow-up remains one of the biggest challenges, Cooley said. “Obviously, it’s not going to do much good unless they follow through with our recommendations.”

Cooley said he’s exploring possibilities to improve that.

He’d like to see insurers give discounts for homeowners who have a police officer verify they’ve fulfilled safety recommendations. Another idea is persuading a hardware store to discount safety-improving products such as safer locks, windows or security lights.

Last year, in response to a rash of license plate and sticker thefts, police teamed with Advance Auto Parts to offer discounts on related crime-prevention items.

They sold roughly 500 license plate covers at the kickoff, and the program continued for two more months.

“I know that’s had to have had good results,” Cooley said.

Werner said residents should be actively involved with their own safety — not to live in fear or act as vigilantes, but to be “eyes and ears.”

After all, the police can’t be everywhere all the time.

“I really believe that we need to make happen what we want to have happen,” she said. “It’s up to all of us every single day.”

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To contact your area’s Community Interaction Officer, visit www.kcmo.org/police/Services/CommunityInteractionOfficers.