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In June, George Fox was gunned down during a robbery inside a Lower Moyamensing bar, and through coordination between the Homicide Division and the 3rd District, the gunman was identified and arrested within two weeks. The district’s Capt. Michael Ryan now wants a similar collaboration among the communities he oversees.
“Everybody says what happens in Queen Village won’t affect me below Oregon Avenue,” he said. “Well, it does because if something’s going [on] up in Queen Village, where do you think the police officers are going to be? — where the crime is.”
Ryan called neighborhood leaders to step up and interact with one another during a public safety conference, which about 30 community leaders attended at the Holiday Inn, 900 Packer Ave., Aug 13.
“My thing as the captain of the district is to make everybody safe,” he said. “Your communities are only interested in your communities.”
Dickinson Narrows Civic Association formed in 2006 to better the area bounded by Fourth, Mifflin and Sixth streets and Washington Avenue, but its president, Jeff Weisner, likes the idea of working with neighboring groups.
“It’s a good thing,” the resident of Fifth and Greenwich streets said, “but it’s all about heading down the same positive path.”
Joseph F. Marino, East Passyunk Crossing Civic Association and Town Watch co-chair, worries the district sees his organization’s terrain, spanning Tasker Street to Snyder Avenue and Broad to Eighth streets, as too safe, resulting in a crime boost. The resident of Jessup and Mifflin streets never has met with the captain, noting Ryan’s mentions of civics mainly east of 10th Street during the presentation.
“That’s not to fault him,” Marino said. “It’s just that it’s a breakdown of communications.”
Ryan said he was happy with the turnout and eager to see if there were any new e-mail sign-ups from group leaders he was not in contact with before.
“I hope there was because there are some groups that never even bother us,” he said after the conference.
Ryan had a lineup of speakers consisting of groups like the Mayor’s Office of Transportation and Utilities, Philly LGBT Police Liaison Committee, PhillyRising, Town Watch Integrated Services and Victim/Witness Services of South Philadelphia Inc., 1426 S. 12th St.
Caroline McGlynn, the South Bureau chief for the District Attorney’s Office, spoke on two initiatives to keep repeat offenders in jail and to prevent gang-related gunfire.
Community members’ presence at sentences have helped to sway judges to give harsher sentences, McGlynn said noting a study by her office that revealed most of those convicted of a homicide have a gun possession arrest in their past. Additionally, the City plans to utilize David Kennedy’s theory, which drastically reduced homicides in Boston during the 1990s. The local version will target South Philly gangs, using the example of the Fifth Street North gang, which the federal government basically disbanded with a 2011 drug bust, McGlynn said.
“That’s one of the prime examples we’ll use for some of these other gangs to show them that ‘You become our target group — you’re done. Every time you look the wrong way on the street, every time … someone pulls that trigger we will flood that area and you will no longer be able to exist the way you have as a gang,” McGlynn said.
Ryan is very receptive to the idea.
“I do see this working down here. I think it’s going to be a bigger success in the 3rd than in the 1st or 17th because we have a limited area,” he said referring to 13th and Catharine streets; Fourth Street and Washington Avenue; and the area bounded by Dickinson, Fourth, Ritner and Seventh streets as its gang havens. “They’re surrounded by nice neighborhoods.”
However, he doesn’t want residents to take on the prevention of homicides or gang warfare. He just needs them to be proactive and to report nuisances, such as vacant properties, missing manhole covers or “anything that upsets you” to 311.
“When you walk in certain neighborhoods, you know you don’t want to mess with that neighborhood,” Ryan said. “They have signs, they have town watch signs, they have video cameras. … I want to make the entire 3rd like that. You don’t mess with the 3rd District. That’s my mission and I need your help to do it.”
Contact Managing Editor Amanda L. Snyder at asnyder@southphillyreview.com or ext. 117.
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