From DPD…
On 6-9-14 at approximately 7:34 pm, Decatur Police responded to a pedestrian robbery in the 1300 block of Oakview Road. The victim, a 13-year-old male, stated he was walking East and observed six older teen males walking toward him. The victim crossed the street multiple times to avoid the group and the group also crossed. Four of the males blocked the victim’s path on the sidewalk and one began asking him questions. The victim attempted to dial 911 on his cell phone and one of the males suddenly snatched the cell phone from the victim’s hand. The suspects were last seen walking south on Fifth Avenue. The victim was not injured.
The suspects were described as follows:
#1: black male, approximately 15-16 years old, approximately 5’10”, dark complexion, slim but muscular build, narrow eyes, unkempt afro about 6″ long, a peach-fuzz mustache, wearing a white t-shirt with “Nike” in red on the sleeves and long black shorts.
#2: black male, approximately 15-16 years old, approximately 5’11, medium complexion, hazel eyes, unkempt afro about 3″ long, wearing a plain white t-shirt, dark khaki shorts and thin gold chain necklace.
#3: black male, approximately 15-16 years old, approximately 5’6″, low hair-cut, wearing a black basketball jersey tank with blue stripes down the side and black basketball shorts.
#4: black male, approximately 15-16 years old, approximately 6′, unkempt afro about 6″ long, wearing a black t-shirt with a small logo of Bob Marley’s face on the left side of the chest and a large logo of Bob Marley’s face on the back, blue jeans and black shoes.
guess i’ll be giving another instruction for our kids for these kinds of situations:
“if you feel like you’re being followed, walk up to the front door of the nearest house and start knocking loudly.”
in this case in particular, at 7:30pm it’s very likely someone will be home, and few residents wouldn’t open the door for a kid.
Good advice Rick.
I was just thinking the exact same thing. I am all for some sort of neighborhood watch idea as suggested below. At the minimum, how about a yard sign or window sticker that would identify a house as neighborhood watch participant and a place where someone is welcome to knock if they need help or feel threatened?
Love this! Used to see them all over in PA but haven’t seen them here. Maybe they could be sold through the schools as a fund raiser. This way there would be the added bonus of the kids actually learning to look for them.
Good positive idea.
Anyone have an idea about how to get something like this started? I like the idea of doing through the schools, but I feel like we need it going sooner than August 1st.
the cost for having signs printed in quantity is very affordable.
a quick search for yard signs the size of those home security companies provide customers yielded <$2.50/ea. for quantities of 500-750. the price decreases with greater quantities.
here's a design that's in the right direction
http://friendsofyouth.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/safe-place-logo-2012-2.jpg
i would be willing to donate my agency's design services to create a Decatur branded sign. thoughts on how to foot printing cost and distribution?
we would need to support the program with a local PR effort to make parents aware of the initiative.
i'm sure the city would help at some level.
I love this idea and would happily buy a sign to have in my yard so anyone who needs help could come to my house to ask for it.
My 13 year old was walking home from Oakhurst, coming down Hill St, at 7.30pm last night & it scares me that it could have easily been her or her friend who was heading home down Oakview toward Fave at the same time.
I have told my kids to go to a house or the fire station if they are near it if they ever felt nervous or threatened but having homes with signs would be great for quickly finding help.
Wow–great descriptions! This is one smart kid….
yup, very well done.
Yeah, that’s what struck me as well. Couldn’t have gotten much better descriptions short of asking them for their names and social security numbers. Kudos to him.
DM could save some time and just copy and paste this article into the site every 2 days until September.
Until we, the residents, stand up to this and establish a patrol or neighborhood watch, it’s going to continue. Paying high taxes and making increasing demands for more police are not enough.
Plus, if the police had driven by and stopped and questioned these kids, they would have been assused of racial profiling, notwithstanding the fact these criminals match the description of the group of teenagers who have very recently committed similar crimes in Decatur.
Not racial profiling for a police officer to walk by a group of six 15-16 year old boys and say “Hey guys, how you doing” is it? Not if the same greeting is given whether they are white or black, right?
that’s one slipper slope!
Questioned them about what?
My idea is to not question at all. Just say hi. Let them know the police are there and out and about. And that would be for any group of 15-16 year old boys even if they were wearing polo shirts and carrying library books. Even in the good old days, six 15-16 year old boys hanging out in the summer had the potential for trouble, whether you were in Mayberry or Brooklyn. Never hurts to have a police, or at least adult, presence keeping an eye on them.
DPD is in a no win situation on things like this. Stop and question people and it’s “racial profiling!” Don’t question anyone and it’s “our police aren’t doing enough!”
Facts are facts.
After last weeks wee hours of the night break-in on Park Dr., many neighbors called the DPD to ask for additional patrols through our neighborhood. Checking in with the neighborhood, the response has been lackluster.
Increased criminal activity should result in additional law enforcement presence. We certainly pay enough in property taxes to expect a better response from our city leaders. Police can’t be everywhere at all times. But if citizens aren’t seeing police folks on the streets, criminals aren’t seeing them either.
Don’t disagree that an increased police presence would be nice (and they may have been present more than you think, in unmarked cars), but I don’t think that can be the only answer to the problem. We also need effective neighborhood watch and good education about what kinds of behaviors reduce the risk of being the victim of petty crime. Obviously, there is nothing in this particular in this story to indicate the teen was doing anything to attract attention other than walking down the street…But it does seem wise to tell our kids often, in and out of school, about what kinds of behaviors increase risk.
I’ll add that hiring extra police and paying for more overtime is expensive. The single biggest potential source of revenue may be property taxes from remodeled homes that do not appear in dekalb county’s system, either because the permits are not being correctly processed in the city, because the city is not correctly reporting data to the county, or because the county is not correctly entering data into their system. In any case, we are probably talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in lost property tax revenue. A quick survey of my street alone suggests underpayment on these sorts of properties by something like 20k. And yes, that is also one of the reasons we need high property taxes – to compensate for properties that are appraised far below value. Seems like this should be intolerable to most folks in Decatur!
+1. Let’s keep this issue alive. Our city leaders need to know that its citizens are concerned about the countless reports of property under-appraisal.
If neighbors aren’t seeing the police, those casing our houses are not seeing the police. Every year I post that we need more visible police presence on the south side of Decatur especially at the start of summer.
I’m curious – is the “neighborhood” referenced really an entire neighborhood’s voice? Or is it one person’s perception? Regardless, did the entire neighborhood or this one person sit in the window and count police cars all night? If not, how do they know whether patrols increased?
It’s far from a quantitative surgery. I spoke with five neighbors. Three said something similar to this, ‘I’ve seen a patrol car 2-3 times.’ One said, ‘I saw one car.’ And one other said, ‘I’ve seen zero police cars.’
Granted, this all anecdotal. But my point is valid—my neighbors and I are feeling the police presence after a rather heinous crime, a home break-in while a family is sleeping, has been lackluster.
Considering the uptick in crime. I personally wouldn’t mind seeing a police car coming down my street every hour.
Did the Park Ave people stay up all night to see if there were increased patrols?
should increased patrols only occur when people are sleeping?
Last year’s biggest incident on Park occurred between 5:30 and 6:00 pm. Police need to be visible at all times of the day, especially this time of year. I know people are very defensive about COD cops, but all I am saying is that when people looking for trouble pass over the Atlanta-Decatur line on Candler and other “big” arteries into our city from the south, they should notice an increase in patrols– preferably enough to make them nervous and get them to turn around and leave COD. Someone last year suggested asking police to do their paperwork parked in cruisers parked in key areas at this time of year- I think that is a great idea. If I can (and routinely do) go on an hour+ walk all over Oakhurst and WP and never see a single cop, so do the people looking for trouble.
I agree. Before we even talk about adding police, the City should take over assessments and catch up on these undervalued properties.
Has the city looked at this before? If the expense of running this in-house is less than the additional revenue generated than why not do it?
These teens need summer jobs…the boys most off all. It pains me to say that even if these jobs are funded through taxes it will be a much better alternative than dealing with a generation raised with little to no self-esteem and little to no concern for others.
These teens needed to be raised with values. The apple doesn’t far fall from the tree.
I agree about summer jobs and also sports and rec programs. That’s been a tried and true intervention since the old Boystown/Father Flanagan movies. Back when the kids who were profiled were poor Irish. Decatur Rec is great and has a nice counselor-in-training program but my impression is that the 15 year olds with guns are coming from Atlanta and other parts of DeKalb County. Are there enough summer youth activities throughout the Metro area?
You can blame the parents but that won’t stop thefts, robberies, break-ins, shootings. Some parents are downright negligent. Others are never around in the summer because they are working two jobs–no more Welfare Moms, remember? Others did their very best but had the bad luck to have their kids swayed by older kids and young adults outside the family. I’d focus on solutions–interventions, policing, neighborhood watch, home safety, etc.–rather than blame.
Is it time to revisit our police recruitment video?
http://www.decaturmetro.com/2012/07/08/decatur-police-recruitment-video-goes-viral/
If you have a 14-17 year old kid, and you don’t know where they are at night, you need to be accountable for the crimes they commit. Once you make the parents accountable for crimes their children commit, you’ll see some more aggressive parenting.
Meaning, start explaining wrong from right. Yeh, 14 IS too late for that…where ya been???
Wait, I thought we weren’t supposed to helicopter…..you just can’t win as a parent.
i’m not a helicopter parent—i’m a drone parent: i keep a silent and stealthy eye on them from a greater distance, and repeat the same things (‘jeez dad . . .”) over and over and over again.
THAT is a brilliant term–drone parent!
I went on an hour + walk with my dogs this afternoon. I was passed three times by DPD cruisers on three different streets all over Oakhurst, and they actually DO use unmarked cars as well. I feel a lot safer with them than I would in unincorporated Dekalb county, Atlanta as well.