Skinker-DeBaliviere area residents should etch their driver’s license numbers on valuables in an effort to prevent burglaries and arrange schedules with neighbors to watch their block for suspicious activities during high-crime periods, the Skinker-DeBaliviere Community Council’s crime committee has recommended.
At a meeting held in late November, the committee announced that three etching devices are now available for use by area residents.
The etchers are available for rental at the council office, 6008 Kingsbury, for a $1 fee and a $2 deposit. Council executive secretary Cal Stuart said, however, that the fee could be reduced for those who did not have funds immediately available.
The Skinker-DeBaliviere area will be co-operating with the recommendation of the St. Louis Police Department that Missouri driver’s license numbers — which consist of one letter and 15 digits — be etched on valuables.
After property has been marked, homeowners or apartment dwellers will be given stickers to signify that their property has been protected with a permanent number.
The idea is that burglars would be deterred if they know that property they steal could be easily identified.
The idea of more regular surveillance by neighborhood residents of activities on their streets came after the S-D Crime Committee informally rejected the possibilities of either mobile or walking anticrime patrols at a neighborhood meeting last month.
A committee delegation with at least one member from Parkview, Rosedale-Skinker and Washington Heights arranged a meeting with Capt. William Brown, new commander of the Seventh District, to extend the council’s communications with the police.
Police-community relations officer Kress, in an interview with The Paper, suggested also that residents with questions or complaints about police service in general or the etching or Blockwatcher programs in particular should call him or Officer Beeks at 385-0290 or visit their office during weekdays at 5884 Easton Avenue.
Kress, answering one frequently-asked question, said it often took two weeks or more for someone to receive his Blockwatcher number after signing up at a training session. Some residents had complained that they had been told the numbers would be available within a week.
Kress said also that anyone who wanted to have a Blockwatcher training session in his home or elsewhere for five or 20 people should call the police-community relations office.
Commenting about the local crime situation in general terms, Kress said, “Serious crime in the city has dropped this year compared to last year but crime in the Seventh District is up. However, much of the increase is due to burglaries, not serious crimes against persons.”
Kress urged area residents to take steps that might prevent burglaries such as participating in the etching program.
He said also that the police have made efforts to halt the crime rise in the Seventh District, including deployment of the “omni-patrol,” in which officers make walking patrols on a staggered basis.
Kress said the police department would use the omni-patrol in any neighborhood that had been hit with a rash of crimes.
Stuart, suggesting the surveillance alternative, said, “Blocks could organize and people could stand outside their doors or look out windows at the street and then call police if they see any trouble.
“Suspicious characters should know people are watching them,” he said.
Stuart suggested the hours of 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. as key times for observing the street.
The committee was generally unenthusiastic about the possibility of the council’s hiring professional guards, noting the relatively high cost and the need for a long period it would take guards to become familiar with the neighborhood.
“The best thing would really be for each block to form its own method of being observant on a regular schedule,” one committee member said.
At a recent meeting at St. Roch’s Church, more than 30 Pershing and Waterman residents heard the Seventh District’s two police-community relations officers describe the program, in which citizens are given numbers by the St. Louis police with which they are to call in reports of serious crimes and receive special treatment from police department telephone operators.
Although most participants in the meeting were interested in joining Blockwatchers (Police-community relations officer Joe Kress told The Paper that 22 persons signed up after the meeting), criticism of some police methods also was heard.
Some blacks told the officers they felt police were generally too quick to pick up blacks on suspicion of a crime (or in the case of the Pershing rape incident, too quick to shoot them).
Kress and co-officer Bob Beeks, though declining to discuss the incident in detail, emphasized that any complaints against police should be presented in full to the Seventh District or police headquarters downtown if necessary.
Complaints against the police were also a topic at the crime committee meeting. Most members had an example of what they termed police incompetence or lack of follow-up on an incident.
The committee generally concluded that Skinker-DeBaliviere residents should not only be observant of possible criminal activities but also of police activities in the neighborhood. Car and badge numbers of any policemen whom residents believe are acting questionably should be recorded and reported, the committee said.
Originally published in The Paper, December 1971.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1971_12.pdf, printed page 1, 3.
