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View Full Version : Civilian Patrols Grow As Recession Puts Citizens on Guard




disorderlyvision
09-21-2009, 06:01 AM
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125235840966590631.html


WAREHAM, Mass. -- After parking her truck in this beachside town in July, local resident Pamela Miller says she was confronted by a man wearing a neon-lemon "Parking Enforcement" T-shirt. He accused her of parking illegally, called her "retarded," and, after she refused to move her truck, bumped her legs with his Ford Crown Victoria, she later told town officials.

With the economic downturn, there's been a fresh boom across the country in volunteer cadres of citizens taking on some of the routine duties of short-staffed police departments. While a court will decide who did what to whom in the ticket dispute between the 39-year-old Ms. Miller and 70-year-old volunteer George Coleman, the standoff shows how civic involvement isn't always civil.

While many communities appreciate the help, friction has surfaced in some locales, with residents using terms like "little Napoleon" and "gung-ho" to complain about the citizen patrollers and their tactics.

Wareham's Crime Watch has grown quickly over the past year, adding a number of volunteers, opening its own storefront office and taking over the job of writing parking tickets from an overstretched police force that had let enforcement lapse. The tanned, gray-haired Mr. Coleman acknowledges over the cackle of a police scanner that the ramp-up hasn't been entirely smooth.

"We got so doggone many enemies," he says, arguing that the 60-member Crime Watch he heads is simply too good at doing its job. This summer, its members wrote 600 $30 tickets, a huge jump from years past, nailing drivers for everything for staying too long in one spot to parking too far from the curb.

"They cry, throw things at you and call you everything, thinking it will get them out of a ticket," he chuckles. "It does not."

Citizens' patrols and their lower-key cousins, neighborhood watch groups, have grown rapidly this decade, fueled by big boosts in times of trouble. Their ranks swelled after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Now, the deep recession is drawing in a new wave of recruits.

The National Association of Citizens on Patrol, a Corona, Calif., nonprofit that promotes civilian volunteerism in law enforcement, says there are about 5,000 citizen patrol units working alongside police departments in the U.S., up 25% from 2008. "This is a sign of the economy," says Art Femister, the group's president. "The number of patrols is just going up and up and up."

Police departments are actively recruiting volunteers. In addition, people are paying more attention to problems in their neighborhoods, according to the National Association of Town Watch, a Wynnewood, Pa., nonprofit promoter of citizen crime-prevention programs.

Neighborhood watches, up 25% from 2008, are growing fast in areas of the country hit hard by foreclosures, says Chris Tutko, director of neighborhood watch for the National Sheriffs' Association.

Orlando, Fla., for instance, saw about 100 neighborhood watch groups spring up in 2008, more than triple its 2007 start-ups, police there say. Appreciative police in the Phoenix neighborhood of Tomahawk Village say residents formed a neighborhood watch to keep an eye out for thieves stripping copper plumbing off foreclosed homes.

Volunteers typically act as observers and call in the police if they witness anything suspicious. Still, their work can be dicey. Late one Saturday night in August, the regular police in Fruitland Park, Fla., encountered a man who "went off the deep end," tracking down and shooting at someone for giving drugs to his wife, says Police Chief Mark Isom. After a citizen patrol spotted and started trailing the suspect's minivan, the suspect hopped out with a rifle and fired twice at the volunteers.

The citizens escaped injury, but the chief says, "Anything in this line of work is tricky."

In Vancouver, British Columbia, a crime-watch volunteer last year sued the city for negligence, saying that when she was required to play the "suspect" in a police-dog training exercise, an 85-pound German shepherd named Ace bit her right shoulder and knocked her knee out of joint. A city spokesman declined to comment.

In Saginaw, Mich., 100 miles north of Detroit, tempers flared this summer after the president of the block association shot Onyx, a rowdy dog. The volunteer, Jose Barajas Jr., says the dog had slipped its chain and menaced him and a neighbor. So he says he pulled out his "high-powered semiautomatic" gun and fired two shots, with fatal results.

Police ruled the shooting self-defense, but Steven Vallier, a 53-year-old stay-at-home father whose family owned the pit bull, Shar-Pei mix, says Mr. Barajas is "way too gung-ho," goes around "showing his gun" and previously had threatened to "shoot the dog if it pooped in his yard again." Mr. Barajas says he's done "no such things."

Back in Wareham, where Victorian houses line the sandy coves and warm, salty breezes come off the harbor, Mr. Coleman now finds himself in legal trouble. Local police arrested the Crime Watch head in July after witnesses said he deliberately steered his cruiser into Ms. Miller's legs during their parking dispute. After pleading not guilty in the local district court, he was released but ordered to return for a hearing later this month. The self-described stickler for rules says he has stopped writing parking tickets for now but continues to run the Crime Watch's office. His duties include keeping track of stacks of photographs of illegally parked vehicles.

Wareham's police union has asked the town to study whether volunteers are qualified to issue parking tickets. The chairman of Wareham's Board of Selectman, however, stands by the volunteers. "These people are taking on the work that our police officers cannot do," Bruce Sauvageau said at a town meeting following Mr. Coleman's arrest. Police "don't have the time, they don't have the resources; they don't have the money," Mr. Sauvageau said.

Not all residents are as appreciative. "It's really nice how they volunteer, but they go overboard," says Khara Paulson, whose family owns A Shore Thing coffee shop. She says Crime Watch members can be rude to people who question their authority or ask why they are chalking tires or taking pictures of parked cars.

Up the block, the aroma of hash browns and the sound of morning gossip fill the shingled Pier View Restaurant. Stephen Baptiste Sr., who's 70 and has run the cafe for 29 years, fumes that Mr. Coleman recently ticketed him and told him, "I've been trailing you."

"I get mad just thinking about it," says Mr. Baptiste, adding, "He's just a little Napoleon type."

Two doors down, at the Crime Watch office, Mr. Coleman smacks the top of his metal desk and says of Mr. Baptiste, "That guy is a screwball." He says Mr. Baptiste insists on parking all day in front of his cafe in spots with two-hour limits.

"He didn't move his car every couple hours like he claims he did, and he got caught," Mr. Coleman says.

He leans back in his swivel chair with a sudden defeated look on his face. It seems Mr. Baptiste has outmaneuvered the Crime Watch by finding a way to avoid getting ticketed. "Now, every two hours, he backs his car up a few feet and forward a few feet and the time starts over," Mr. Coleman says.