Liaison officers doing their best to improve community
Garbage and used needles litter alleys on the Hilltop. Broken-down cars sit in some of its backyards. Prostitutes and drug addicts hustle along its sidewalks, and gunshots and wailing police sirens fill the air most nights.
In the midst of the chaos, Columbus Police Officer Brian Newsome, a community liaison officer, tackles
those issues and tries to build relationships with residents there.
“My goal is to make it a safer and cleaner place,” said Newsome, 47, who has worked for the Division of Police nearly 24 years.
Newsome worked patrol and ran from call to call for years before becoming a liaison officer. He now works in the Hilltop on day shift Monday through Friday out of the 19th Precinct, centered in the heart of the neighborhood.
The West Side neighborhood is home to more than 64,000 people — making it one of the city’s largest neighborhoods — and it has more than its share of problems.
Newsome posts messages on Nextdoor, a socialnetworking app that allows users to connect with people who live in their own neighborhood, seeking community support to improve Hilltop’s curb appeal. He meets with community members, makes presentations, handles complaints to the city’s 311 hotline and works with code enforcement.
“Sometimes it’s overwhelming. There’s lots of issues,” Newsome said.
Drug dealers set up shop in what are known as “trap houses.” Some require drug users to get high inside, and dealers keep Narcan on hand to administer if necessary, Newsome said.
“It’s not because we’re not raiding them,” Newsome said. “You raid one and another pops up.”
The heroin epidemic has crippled the neighborhood, bringing more crime, ranging from prostitution to assaults to murder. Last year, the neighborhood’s homicide rate exceeded the citywide rate. For every 100,000 residents, 18 people in the Hilltop are killed, compared with 12 citywide. The deaths have been steadily increasing in the neighborhood over the past four years, records show. So have robberies and aggravated assaults.
Of the city’s 30 homicides so far this year through Friday evening, about a third of the deaths happened in the Hilltop. Police suspect a good number of those killings are tied to drugs.
In February, a pair of suspected drug dealers reportedly killed 29-year-old Cody Campbell in a Hilltop home to hinder a police investigation there, according to federal records. The pair went on to kill Campbell’s mother, Sidney, and his girlfriend, Marie Stamp, at the same house, according to records.
In March, a Columbus officer was shot and wounded during a no-knock search warrant for drugs in the Hilltop.
No relief in sight
Lisa Boggs, who has lived in the Hilltop since 1990, sat near Hague and Sullivant avenues last summer. She counted about 45 prostitutes near the intersection she calls ground zero for prostitution and drugs.
Gaunt figures in hooded sweatshirts walk down the street looking for scrap metal to sell. Prostitutes pace up and down sidewalks near John Burroughs Elementary School, making eyes with potential customers. Many are looking for their next high. The time of day doesn’t matter.
Even after police stings, Boggs said, “We still have them. They come back or new ones take their place.”
She tries to implement social controls on her own. She posts photos of trash in neighbors’ yards on Facebook and calls them out. She organizes cleanups and routinely picks up trash, hoping the neighborhood improves.
“If a neighborhood is surrounded by trash and blight, we can’t feel good about living here,” Boggs said. “It’s an open invitation to criminals to come in here and set up shop.”
Most of the residents are white. Fewer than half of the homes are owned by residents. When it comes to residents 25 or older, about 17 percent of the population has an associate’s degree or higher. Another 24 percent never finished high school, according to census data.
Talk to veteran officers or lifelong residents, and many agree the Hilltop has been plagued with high crime for decades, with no relief in sight.
“You have people who have lived here their whole life. They can’t come out of their house,” Newsome said.
Some Hilltop homes have boards blocking doors that likely greeted families decades ago.
About 5,510 homes — 19 percent — are vacant, according to census data. Drug users sometimes break in to get high or raid the structures for copper, Newsome said.
Newsome works with code enforcement officers — six of whom are assigned to the Hilltop. They work on getting vacant structures demolished if the homes are in poor condition as well as on zoning issues, such as inoperable cars parked in yards.
“When your neighborhood looks clean, they know people are working and taking care of their stuff,” he said.
In the fall, police completed a no-knock warrant and confiscated heroin, crack cocaine and marijuana at a home in the 800 block of Hague Avenue. A few guns also were seized.
Between community complaints, Newsome and code enforcement officers helped secure a preliminary injunction to board up the house. In February, addicts found a bed frame to use as a ladder to enter the second story of the home. The electricity had to be shut off to discourage them from using the house.
“If a neighborhood is surrounded by trash and blight, we can’t feel good about living here. It’s an open invitation to criminals to come in here and set up shop.”
—Lisa Boggs, Hilltop residence
New York creates a new kind of officer
Community policing dates back to the mid-1990s, when a series of federal grants placed officers in neighborhoods to develop relationships with residents. Otherwise, patrol officers often have little time to learn faces.
In Columbus, officials are quick to tout the liaison program as evidence that police have a great relationship with the community.
Alex Vitale, an associate professor of sociology for Brooklyn College, said most of the programs don’t change things in the community or lower crime.
“It’s about restoring community trust,” said Vitale. “It’s a response to bigger problems with policing they’re not willing to address.”
The New York Police Department overhauled its community policing program two years ago this month. The move was made to allow officers to follow up on past crimes, meet with residents and work to solve problems in neighborhoods.
New York police use neighborhood officer teams of two to identify specific problems within a neighborhood. The neighborhood officers are expected to make a tailored plan to solve problems, monitor crime stats and enlist fellow patrol officers to help carry out those plans.
“They have to be crime fighters,” said New York Police Capt. Timothy Malin, who gave the analogy of the neighborhood officers functioning like a quarterback on a football team. They don’t outrank patrol officers but rely on them to execute plays.
The neighborhood officers receive detective training to develop low-level cases and work with investigative units to help them navigate the neighborhoods. The hours of the officers vary depending on the needs of the neighborhood. There’s four neighborhood officers per precinct to ensure two work together seven days in a week.
“We’re trying to develop a new kind of officer,” Malin said.
In Columbus, most of the liaison officers work day shifts starting at 7 a.m., with weekends off.
Returning officers to neighborhoods
Columbus does not put additional liaison officers into neighborhoods that most need them. It’s one officer per precinct across the board — the way it’s been since the city’s program was started in 1995, archives show. (Police Precinct 10 covers the southern part of the Hilltop before expanding west, adding another officer to cover part of the neighborhood.)
The neighborhood officers in New York, who wear normal patrol uniforms, might back up officers occasionally, but at least a third of their shifts is supposed to be dedicated to problemsolving and working on focused efforts.
Lt. Scott Bartholow, who oversees the community liaison program in Columbus, said the amount of time liaison officers should spend with residents depends on the needs of the area.
New York’s plan started as a pilot program in four precincts. It’s now in more than half the police precincts, with plans to go citywide. An additional 1,200 officers were added to the force and some specialized units were dissolved to create the manpower necessary to carry out the plan, Malin said.
New York’s program hasn’t been around long enough to be judged a success quite yet, Vitale said, but some cities have taken notice. Baltimore police have begun adopting a similar program after visiting New York.
Surveys administered by an outside company are being conducted among New York precincts with and without the neighborhood policing program.
Bartholow said there was no way to measure progress of Columbus’ liaison program because officers each have different areas that call for different reactions.
Remaining hopeful
At last check, Newsome was working to enforce parking restrictions and the city has since removed a few more blighted homes in the Hilltop.
Boggs continues to organize efforts around the neighborhood. A cleanup is scheduled for 10 a.m. May 6 at Burroughs Park. Many days test her resolve.
“We decided to stay and fight,” she said.
In the meantime, she remains hopeful that things will improve. Residents continue to wait for longpromised resources to get funneled into the neighborhood.
“I’m still excited,” Boggs said. “I’m still waiting.”