OSNA President Michael Bingham writes: Quite the irony that while 70 of us were sitting in Christ Church last evening listening to the police tell us that the increase in criminal activity in the neighborhood was mainly a figment of our imaginations, there were two house break-ins in the vicinity of White Street. During our meeting.
The Stratford P.D. sent its community affairs officer, Bobby Ramos, to represent the department and mollify worried neighbors. While Ramos was affable and quick on his feet, he seemed to know little about our neighborhood or the specifics of any of the recent crimes. Questions about the Harry Rosen House left him speechless. In fairness, Academy Hill is not his beat (he is assigned to the South End). I got the idea he didn't really even know anything about our break-in.
Ramos was quick to defend his department's response time to calls. But when Paul Joy called last week about the quick-moving teenage gangs moving through Broad and White Street yards, he said no one showed up for 15 minutes — hardly the urgency needed to apprehend fast-moving kids on foot (which they didn't).
Many of Ramos suggestions obviously have merit: lock your car, lock your house, install motion sensors, get an alarm system. But most neighbors I talked with were adamant about the need for increased neighborhood patrols and overall police visibility, as well as — yes, it's true — better response times to calls.
His best suggestion is one we can all agree with: If you see anything at all suspicious, call the police.
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1 comment:
Let's not bite the hand that feeds! Whether he knows all the details or not, Mr. Ramos was there to help. Let's hope the meeting is the start of something good!
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