THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, December 5, 1995 TAG: 9512050006
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
Rallying in the streets is a first step toward mobilizing crime-haunted neighborhoods to banish drug trafficking and violence from their midst. The Rev. M. O. Marriner, the Grove Baptist Church minister who organized a candlelight vigil in downtown Portsmouth Saturday night, acknowledged as much in his speech to the hundred or so people who had assembled to express their unhappiness about the 37 murders chalked up in the city this year.
Next, neighborhoods and institutions must form a common front against crime. Pastor Marriner eloquently noted that ``The problem of crime is too big for the Police Department . . . or any one church.''
But a unified Portsmouth could drive out the barbarians. Noting that Portsmouth contains 200 churches,'' Mr. Marriner said, correctly: ``We must join forces. We must put our faith into action . . . and with that power we will succeed.''
We hope so. Neighborhoods united against crime can drive the hoods out. By demanding more police protection - and possibly surveillance cameras as well. By cooperating with the police in ways formal and informal, open and secret. By establishing Neighborhood Watch programs that encourage residents to monitor their surroundings and summon police to check out suspicious characters and deal with troublemakers. By working with municipal agencies and private and parochial institutions to keep youngsters busy in wholesome, supervised activities after school and on weekends and help them avoid drugs. By staffing homework clubs and forming alliances with Big Brother/Big Sister groups. By securing houses and businesses against intruders and installing security alarms to discourage break-ins. The more protected places in a neighborhood, the more likely that thieves, burglars, rapists and other wrongdoers will steer clear.
Criminals count on disunity to shield them from the law and its consequences. Disunity allows them to pick off their targets as terrorists and guerrillas do, at times and settings of their own choosing.
Portsmouth drug criminals are masters at intimidating witnesses whose testimony could put them behind bars or in the electric chair. Portsmouth's courts abet the initimidaters by being the slowest in Hampton Roads to place criminals on trial.
Although Portsmouth's crime rates are significantly lower than those in many Southern cities, they are the highest in Hampton Roads. And this year's slayings have exacerbated residents' fears for the safety of themselves and their children while presenting municipal and civic leader with an extremely tough challenge.
Fortunately, the Feds are on the case. The FBI has targeted drug gangs and drug chieftains who have terrorized so many in Portsmouth.
But law-enforcement works best when a concerned citizenry backs it in word and deed. Block-by-block hardening of attitudes against crime and grass-roots activity to enhance public safety would do wonders for the security of all. by CNB