Advocate: What have you guys been up to this past month?
Pam: Friday and Saturday nights, the Dallas Housing Authority has been hiring off-duty officers to walk the (Roseland Homes) housing area (located next to North Central Expressway near Downtown) from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m., so Rick and I have been doing that. We walk the housing area for eight hours.
Rick: It’s a way to increase the police visibility, getting the officers out there walking and getting to know folks, rather than just driving around.
Pam: I was there the first night it started, and it was – how should I say it – pretty active. We had a guy run from us, another guy tried to take an officer’s gun, and another guy was selling cocaine.
Advocate: All in the first night?
Pam: Yeah. And we heard several shots fired, and I know the shots were fired within a block or two of where we were.
Craig: Basically, when the sun goes down, that place is a war zone. During the day, it’s pretty laid-back. They (the criminals) know we’re there, so they disperse when we come by.
Advocate: Who are the big trouble-makers there, and what kind of trouble goes on?
Craig: The biggest problem is caused by people who don’t live there. The main attraction is the location – it’s just been a meeting place for years for the older folks, so I guess the young folks just started meeting there, too. The big plus is that a majority of the people who live there are good people, they really are. We have one section we call the “senior citizens section”, and they’re always doing something special for us, cooking something or whatever.
Pam: And the little kids, they love the police, too, don’t they?
Craig: (Long pause.) Well, some of them do. It’s not that they hate us or dislike us, it’s just that most times when they see the police, it’s in a negative light, taking mommy or daddy to jail. If I saw that happening to my parents, I probably wouldn’t be too happy to see a policeman, either.
Rick: On the other hand, when we were out walking Saturday night, we had a bunch of them (kids) come up to us and ask for football cards (which the police department distributes to children as part of a community relations effort). Of course, Pam and I had a foot chase with an 11-year-old, but this was outside the housing area.
Pam: We chased him down, caught him, arrested him, whatever. But they know there’s nothing much we can do to them.
Craig: We had an 11-year-old who beat up the mail lady and took some mail. We called out the postal inspector and asked him what we could do. I mean, you would think it would be a federal crime to beat up a postal carrier and steal U.S. mail, but the inspector said there was nothing he could do.
Rick: Yet a lot of times, when we walk, people are standing in doorways waving and thanking us for being there. One guy came up to us and said he really respected us for the job we were doing.
Pam: It’s like Craig said, the people who live there, most of them, are good people. They don’t want crime. And that’s why we are there.
Rick: (Police Chief William) Rathburn is very interested in taking areas like the housing area and making a dent in offenses there. That’s what the walking officers and the (violent crime) task force are for.
Advocate: Of course, what happens when the pressure is off and the mass force of officers moves to another area?
Craig: It could be back to square one.
Rick: I think they’re (police command) kind of hoping that when the new (police) academy graduates come out, officers will be permanently re-allocated throughout the City to areas that need more help. So it won’t be like when the money runs out, the officers leave and everything goes back again.
Craig: The biggest key is to get the people involved who live in the neighborhood. If they don’t get involved, if they sit back and do nothing except watch us, nothing will change.
The problem is that in the housing area, in particular, the people have a bad image of police because of things that have happened in years past. It’s tough to change that image. One of the main reasons we are there is to gain their trust, but it’s tough to do. It really is.
