THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 30, 1995 TAG: 9507280198
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 05 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JANIE BRYANT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 140 lines
Remember the days when the only gunfire heard in the neighborhood was a shot or two fired on the evening western?
Miss those summer nights when golden light poured from unlocked screen doors and neighbors sat on porches listening to crickets and watching children catch lightning bugs?
Then line your car up with about 100 other nostalgic souls on Tuesday and - as they say - take back the night.
That's when residents of Portsmouth will join the rest of the country in National Night Out - the annual event that symbolizes the fight against crime.
Citizens everywhere are asked by the sponsoring National Association of Town Watch to turn on their porch lights and hold porch vigils, block parties, flashlight walks or parades.
And in Portsmouth, it's an event that this year is drawing bigger crowds.
In the past, most of the participation came from Portsmouth's veteran crime-fighters - residents of Cavalier Manor, Brighton, Prentis Park and Gosport.
But other neighborhoods - including some where residents once felt crime happened somewhere else - are joining in on the effort.
The city has 56 neighborhood watches now. Residents of Olde Towne just started a crime watch and already it has more than 100 members.
Many of the neighborhood organizations are represented in this year's annual Night Out.
``What it is, is the citizens taking a stand against the criminals,'' said Gloria Shaffer, one of two coordinators of the Forest Park neighborhood watch.
``We're letting them know we're fed up with it and we want our streets back - not just for us, but for our seniors and our kids,'' she said. ``We've got children who can't go out and play and we've got seniors who can't go out and shop.''
Shaffer - the new treasurer of the city's Crime Prevention Steering Committee - knows the kind of problems that drive residents out of their sheltered world and into the realization that there are no boundaries for crime.
When she and her husband bought their house in Forest Park seven years ago, they saw a small, quiet middle-class neighborhood.
But increasingly the peace of Forest Park and other nearby neighborhoods has been disturbed by the growing drug traffic and crime that has plagued a nearby low-income housing complex.
``It has gotten worst in the last two years,'' said Shaffer, adding that one corner has been especially bad for drawing people who hang out.
``We can't have these people out here shooting every night just because they're bored,'' she said.
Last week two men were shot not far from her house - one of them killed. Days before that, a police officer pursuing a suspect was hindered by a crowd that blocked the officer and told the suspect to run.
Objects were thrown at the officer before backup arrived.
That kind of disrespect for law is not the environment Shaffer wants for her two children, 7 and 14. Over the years, the thought of moving has crossed her mind.
``But then I stop and think about it and why should they run me out of the home I'm buying when they don't belong there,'' said Shaffer.
``I refuse to let them win,'' she said. ``That's the problem. Everybody runs from it instead of standing up to it.''
Shaffer and fellow neighborhood watch coordinator, Tara Welt, are among residents of her community who decided to take a stand four years ago.
The catalyst, she said, was ``a boy around the block who got shot over his tennis shoes on the clothes line.''
The teenager had gone into the yard when he saw someone trying to take the shoes off the line. When he protested, the suspect shot him.
The boy was hospitalized for awhile, Shaffer said. And the whole neighborhood suffered damage to their peace of mind.
``I like Portsmouth,'' said Shaffer. ``I wish the crime was a lot less, but anywhere you go you're going to have the problem. It's whether you open your eyes and see it. . . ''
That's what the neighborhood watch did for many of her neighbors, she said.
``Before we started. . . , we didn't think we had much of a problem,'' she remembered.
Now they have 30 active members and they hand out more than 100 fliers a month.
For awhile they patrolled their streets. After someone threatened to kill - and actually attempted to carry out that threat - someone in the patrol, the police asked watch members to pull the patrol until they could get things under control.
Shaffer gives police high marks for coming in and trying to do that.
``They've been fantastic, the (police) we work with,'' she said. ``I couldn't ask for better people.
``Anytime we say we need something, they're here for us.''
Shaffer's neighborhood is among many who planned their own community National Night Out observances as well as throwing their support behind the citywide event.
Citywide, a National Night Out campaign headquarters has been located inside Tower Mall.
Crime prevention displays, neighborhood watch materials and a four-foot sheet wall for citizens to sign and leave messages of support are located there.
``We've had everyone from little kids whose parents let them draw (on the sheet) to the senior citizens signing it,'' said Shaffer.
After a story ran in the newspaper about the wall, many people made a special trip to the mall just to see it or add their own anti-crime messages and signatures to the wall, said Shaffer.
The Night Out committee hopes to obtain 50,000 signatures.
Their big night will be Aug. 1, when two motorcades form - one at the NSU-ODU Tri-Cities Center (formerly Cradock High School) and another at the Cavalier Manor Center.
The two will meet at one point in the city and end the parade at Tower Mall where an evening of entertainment is planned.
The performances include:
5:40 p.m. - Band performance
6 p.m. - Pan Parrot Steel Band
6:20 p.m. - Defoss step group
6:30 p.m. - Dain Davis and the Flames of Glory
6:40 p.m. - YMCA musical group
6:50 p.m. - Singing by Gaile Bishop, co-chairman of National Night Out
7 p.m. - Linwood Johnson, local music and comedy performer
7:10 p.m. - Park Manor neighborhood presentation
7:20 p.m. - Anointed Sons
7:30 p.m. - Beazley Promenaders
7:50 p.m. - Country and western performance
8 p.m. - McGruff coloring contest winners
8:20 p.m. - Honey in the Rock, Christian dance group
8:40 p.m. - CaReem MEMO: THE NIGHT OUT
Anyone interested in participating in activities can attend a final
meeting of the National Night Out Committee to be held at 7 p.m. July 31
at Tower Mall.
Gaile Bishop and Charles Whitehurst are co-chairing the sponsoring
committee. Besides neighborhood groups, the police and sheriff's
departments, and city officials will participate.
Information may be obtained by calling the Crime Prevention Unit at
558-2824. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by JIM WALKER
Gloria Shaffer is one of two coordinators of the Forest Park
neighborhood watch.
by CNB