Virgil (Jack) Wright, crime committee chairman, said the group was considering the formation of a mobile patrol in which area residents would conduct patrols in automobiles and report crimes to the police.
“The residents would not carry guns or make arrests,” Wright said. “This would not be a vigilante group — just a method of greater observation of what goes on in the neighborhood.”
Wright said the mobile patrol would be patterned after a similar project in the Compton Heights neighborhood in south St. Louis. He said the Skinker-DeBaliviere committee was in the process of obtaining the Compton Heights patrol’s rules of operation.
The committee will continue discussion of the mobile patrol idea at its next meeting, Wright said. He urged area residents interested in the project to talk to their block leaders, who would co-ordinate the patrols.
Crime Figures Down
Crime in the St. Louis Police Department’s Seventh District, which includes the Skinker-DeBaliviere area, was down in January compared to the same period a year ago, the Skinker-DeBaliviere Community Council’s crime committee was told in a recent meeting.
Figures for the period Jan. 1-21 show that 53 crimes were reported in the Skinker-DeBaliviere area, including 16 residence burglaries, 12 business burglaries, 11 auto thefts, 8 robberies, 4 assaults and two cases of stealing more than $50.
The Seventh District crime rate showed a great drop over the January period last year, police statistics show. Crimes reported in the Seventh District dropped from 733 to 384, a 52 per cent decrease.
The etching devices being made available to residents to engrave their driver’s license numbers on valuables in an effort to prevent burglaries are not being used extensively, Wright said.
Residents may rent an etching device for two days from the Skinker-DeBaliviere office, 6008 Kingsbury, for a $1 service charge and a $2 deposit. Reduced rates may be obtained for persons without sufficient funds.
After a resident has etched valuable property, he is given a sticker that may be posted on his residence to signify that the property is marked. Police authorities have endorsed the etching idea as a means to identify stolen property and discourage potential burglars.
Complaint Procedures
Brown said residents should bring any complaints about police or requests for follow-ups of previous police report to the attention of the Lieutenant of the Seventh District.
On the question of police patrols in the 6100 block of Pershing, where a rapist was shot to death by police last fall, Brown said beat patrolmen were covering the area between 6 p.m. and 4 a.m.
Police-Community Relations
Chief of Police Eugene J. Camp has been invited to speak at the meeting of the Seventh District police-community relations group at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 1 at the Wohl Center, Kingshighway and Easton, Wright said.
Chairman of the police-community relations group is Bruce Smith.
The Skinker-DeBaliviere crime committee is not actively involved in the effort to retain the Seventh District police station at Page and Union, Wright said.
Curfew Laws
After the last crime committee meeting, a delegation consisting of Ken Cohen and Vince Schoeml of the Rosedale-Skinker association and Anna Busch of the Skinker-DeBaliviere office met with Capt. William Brown of the Seventh District Nov. 23 to discuss committee questions about the police practices in the area.
Brown assured the delegation that the police enforce the curfew law to the best of their ability. He said flyers explaining the curfew law could be obtained from the district’s police-community relations office at 5884 Easton Avenue.
The police often have difficulty with the law because parental responsibility and other social problems are involved, Brown said. He suggested that the flyers on the curfew law be distributed around the community so that parents understood its meaning.
He said, however, that the Skinker-DeBaliviere Community Council had adopted a position favoring retention of the Seventh Police District.
Recent news accounts have indicated that the Board of Police Commissioners is likely to continue the current district plan but may move the Seventh District Station to a new location, four blocks away from the present station, because of cramped and poor quarters at the current district station.
Archive note
The original prints a 52 per cent decrease alongside district counts of 733 and 384. That percentage does not agree with those counts. The figures and percentage are retained as published; the separate neighborhood count of 53 covers a different area.
Originally published in The Paper, February 1972.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1972_02.pdf, printed page 1, 3.
