On Patrol in the East Side

Has your house ever been broken into? Did a package disappear from your doorstep during the holidays? Have you ever come out of the house in the morning to find your car up on blocks, tires missing? Have you witnessed a drunken brawl on Thayer Street? You’re not alone.

Cheryl Simmons certainly knows this. After “a rash of break-ins” in 2010, she started a neighborhood crime watch listserv, collecting reports from both concerned citizens and Providence Police. She now has about 650 neighbors on her email list. “The primary types of crime I’ve been getting reports of are vehicle break-ins and tire theft,” she says. “There are also B&Es and an occasional assault, but by far the most common are vehicle break-ins.” We know crime happens on the East Side, and we know what kind – but how much crime happens? And what can be done to stop it?

“Crime is always about opportunity,” explains Officer Fausto Garcia, a 17-year veteran of the Providence Police Department. “If you leave that opportunity open, someone is going to take it. If you take that opportunity away, there is nothing for them to do.” Garcia sees evidence of this point every day. He works the 3-11pm shift in District 9, which covers the southern half of the East Side. He settled into the post after working “the entire city, corner to corner” from traffic enforcement to school resource officer to patrolman. “I chose to come to the East Side because it’s a nicer area – both in terms of the buildings and the people,” he says. Over the course of a ride-along on one of his Tuesday shifts, Garcia is chatty, articulate and knowledgeable, able to hold court on a variety of subjects like farming, boxing and travel, but architec- ture proves to be a favorite subject of his. “I love to protect this area because it’s like a living history,” he says, referring to all the historic houses and buildings. What they represent lives on. To patrol this area you have to be able to absorb all the history. It’s something you can’t replace or find anywhere else.”

His dedication to the district is apparent, and it’s all in the details. He repeatedly pulls over to point out interesting facets of buildings, or discuss the neighbors he knows personally and the improvements they’ve made to their homes. “When you have a place like this, it makes you want to make sure that people feel safe, that they’re getting a return on investment for their tax dollars.” He’s particularly incensed by break-ins at historic houses, noting that while the pilfered valuables can easily be replaced, the damage done to the structures is the real tragedy. Stealing an iPad is one thing; kicking in an antique door with vintage brass fixtures is quite another.

So how does the crime in his current post stack up against previous assignments? “Comparing the East Side to the rest of the city is unfair,” he notes. “It’s almost like a whole other city. It’s kind of bland, but good. I like it boring.” We look at a map of District 9 detailing all tire thefts in the past several months, each incident marked by an asterisk. “If this was a map of the South Side, you wouldn’t be able to read the street names,” he remarks, alluding to how many more asterisks would cover the street grid.

While property crime persists in the area, violent crime is light and the kind of open-air drug trafficking found on the West and South Sides is almost non-existent. The handful of assaults that do occur tend to be clustered around Thayer and Wickenden in District 9, usually fueled by the nightlife crowd, or Camp Street in District 8 (which covers the northern half of the East Side). There was, however, a particularly scary incident in February in which a Brown professor was hospitalized in an unprovoked assault on Brown Street. The assailants were four local teens, three of whom attend Hope High. Random blowups like that, along with less-than-encouraging violent crime stats, have many longtime residents feeling a little jittery. For example, there were three Aggravated Assaults with Firearms in District 9 (which includes both Thayer and Wickenden) for all of 2013. (District 8 saw a bump in firearm assaults, too, from three in 2012 to four in 2013.) While that might not seem like a crime wave compared to the 53 in District 5 (which includes Olneyville and Silver Lake) for that same period, it represents a 300% increase over District 9’s 2012 total of 0.

Thus far in 2014 (the most recent statistics available as of press time cover through March 2), District 9 saw nine reports of violent crime, including four robberies, four aggravated assaults and one “Sex Offense, Forcible.” None of the robberies or assaults involved firearms. Still, that represents a 50% increase over last year. Violent crime in District 8, on the other hand, is actually down by a marginal amount, from 6 for the same period in 2013 to five this year, including one Aggravated Assault with Firearm. By comparison, District 5 saw 24 incidents of violence, nine of which involved firearms, and three sex offenses. (That admittedly represents a 23% decrease from the same period for 2013.)

Of course, property crime remains the most common type on the East Side, but the numbers there, at least for the early part of this year, are somewhat encouraging. Through March 2, Districts 8 and 9 combined for 129 property crimes, down from 228 for the same period the year before. Bland, but good. It’s also been quite cold this year too.

Of course, budget cuts and attrition over the past couple of years have reduced the number of officers on the street by about 90, which is a concern. But does that lack of manpower makes the streets of the East Side less safe? Garcia sees it as more of a nuisance than a menace. “There are two parts to being a police officer: to protect and to serve,” he explains. “The loss of manpower has drastically cut down on the service aspect. Now we’re just reacting to the protection part of it.” In short, he spends more time chasing radio calls and less time on face-to-face interaction. “It’s hard to find the time to get to know people on a personal basis,” he says.

There are indirect effects too: with less officers in high crime areas, officers with slower beats get stuck backing up calls in other districts – time that might otherwise be spent on the service aspect. Similarly, cuts on equipment take valuable time away from working the beat. Without computers in every car, officers are forced to return to the sub-station to work on reports.

Some help is on the way, however. The latest academy class will soon put 60 new officers on the streets, reports the department’s Director of Training, Lt. Luis San Lucas. “Recruitment and placement will impact the whole city on an equal level,” he explains. But deployment takes time – for his part, Garcia doesn’t expect the new recruits to make any real impact at the street level until almost the end of the year. One of his District 9 colleagues is more blunt: “The academy class that’s coming up is not going to make a dent.” Asked what she hopes this increased manpower can do for the East Side, Cheryl Simmons is equally succinct: “I would just like to see more cars out on patrol.”

In the meantime, everyone from Officer Garcia to District 9 Commander Lt. John Ryan to Cheryl Simmons agrees that East Side residents can do a lot more – and a lot of very simple things – to deter crime. Both Ryan and Simmons are quick to point out that victims of house burglaries often admit to having alarms that weren’t activated. “Some people didn’t even bother to lock their doors,” Ryan adds. Garcia believes that many East Siders have developed a false sense of security: their comfort in living in a relatively safe neighborhood can foster a lack of vigilance. Neighbors will often call the police to complain because someone has a power washer running “one minute after 5pm,” Garcia notes, contrasting that with another resident who admitted to watching two teens pull up to a minivan, put it up on jacks and remove two tires, neither of which were flat, without ever thinking to call it in.

It’s important to remember that this is a city with a high level of poverty, and the East Side has a lot more valuables than the rest of it – and thus, a lot more temptation for criminals. Garcia describes gratuitous, “keep- ing up with the Joneses”-style displays of wealth – such as big, expensive TVs placed directly in front of wide-open first floor windows – as “almost like an invitation.”

He sounds similar notes of caution about the approach many East Siders take toward landscaping. While bushes and fences ensure the sort of privacy that many area residents seek, they also make a police officer’s job more difficult and a burglar’s easier. We slow down in front of a house with a beautifully manicured lawn. Garcia points out the thick bushes clustered around the first floor windows on the side of the house, noting that under cover of darkness they provide a perfect hiding place from which a burglar can enter the house undetected. He repeats what becomes a common refrain as we observe other mistakes: “That’s like an invitation for a criminal.” Fences are another pet peeve. They provide criminals with an opportunity to remain unseen, while simultaneously impeding an officer’s ability to both see crime and react to it. “We’re carrying a lot of extra weight in equipment,” Garcia notes. “We’re not able to jump over the fences easily and by the time we get around it, it’s enough time for a criminal to escape.” Conversely, as we pass a house with no fence, low bushes, trees set out in the yard away from the house itself and lights on both inside and outside, he holds it up as a model of crime prevention.

Ample outdoor lighting is another simple fix that Garcia cites as an effective deterrent – preferably on motion sensors. Criminals hate bright lights and surprises. Similarly, interior lighting is important. He suggests putting a few lights on randomized timers, so that criminals who might be casing the house can’t easily identify patterns. And, of course, locking your doors and turning on your alarm should go without saying. Simmons even goes a step further, suggesting, “house alarms should be active at all times, even while home. We’ve had cases of residents being broken into in the middle of the day while they were in the house. Had the alarm been on, that might not have happened.”

When it comes to protecting cars, again, outdoor lighting with motion sensors is an easy and effective means of protection. And don’t leave valuables in plain sight on car seats – another preventative measure that seems glaringly obvious, but that many victims foolishly ignore.

Of course, the single most effective crime fighting tool at most people’s disposal is the phone. “I would suggest that neighbors stay alert to anything unusual or suspicious on their street, and not be afraid to report something suspicious,” encourages Simmons. “Residents are fairly familiar with their neighbors’ habits, and anything out of the ordinary should be taken seriously.” Garcia seconds that, stressing that residents should be aware of and report anything that seems amiss – even if it turns out to be nothing. “We prefer to be called and find out it’s nothing, rather than not being called and finding out it was something.”