Friday, May 16, 2008
Does it help to have police live in the neighborhoods they patrol?
Jun 14, 1999 | "OK, this one," the detective says as we pull slowly past a neat clapboard house in a run-down neighborhood. "Vietnamese guy is out watering his bushes. Knucklehead comes up, whips it out, gets to peeing right on them. Vietnamese guy yells at him." The detective narrates calmly, eyes both on the road and on the wary people watching the strangers go by. "Knucklehead goes on up the block home, gives his kid brother $20, $25 to go back down and shoot the guy. Kid rides his bike down, shoots at the Vietnamese guy but hits his brother sitting on the porch. Dead. The first guy, the guy ain't shot, runs in the house, gets his gun, shoots kid brother in the back of the head as he rides off on the bike."
My driver almost displays anger. Almost. "They actually tried him. The Vietnamese guy." He allows himself a little disgusted snort of a laugh.
I crane my neck to keep the house where something so awful happened in view as long as possible.
"But he was acquitted, right? The Vietnamese guy?"
"Yes! but ... Yeah. He got off. OK, this one." He might have been giving me the baseball scores. "Old guy. Lived here forever. Knucklehead grandson's a doper. Goes to jail. He gives evidence on some more knuckleheads. They decide to rob his house. Now, he's in jail, don't even live there no more, but the grandfather's there, so once they get into the house ..." I listen and find myself wondering what size chalk outline a wizened old man leaves, and what it's like to hear gunshots in the night.
Never let a homicide detective show you around his city. You don't see neighborhoods; you see crime scenes. You don't see residents; you see witnesses who refuse to come forward and knuckleheads who the cops know, but can't prove, have literally gotten away with murder. So where does a cop live? What's his take on his neighbors? Is he supposed to mediate disputes on his own time? What's his duty when the guy in 4B lights up a blunt at a neighborhood barbecue? Do they make neighborhoods better? Safer? Or do they invite retribution? Should they live in the cities they patrol?
New York's police brutality problem has focused attention on getting more cops to live in the neighborhoods they patrol. There have been many such efforts. Since 1997, the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Officer Next Door Program has made 2,511 police officers urban homeowners, with 50 percent discounts on foreclosed homes and $100 down payments. The catch is that they have to stay at least three years and the homes have to be in "designated revitalization areas" -- aka the 'hood. Working with private lenders, the program so far includes 36 states and the District of Columbia.
Many localities have similar home-grown versions: St. Louis' Cops on the Block initiative has helped 178 policemen buy homes in its inner city since 1994. San Diego offers "silent second" mortgages of up to $25,000 that require no payment of principal or interest; many cities absorb closing costs and arrange low-cost financing for their homesteading officers. In parts of D.C., apartment complexes vie for officers to live either free or nearly so on their property. Atlanta, Baltimore and even New York offer cops free or cut-rate housing in public housing complexes.
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