THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 29, 1996 TAG: 9603270148
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY JANIE BRYANT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 193 lines
THE FIRES BEGAN WITH the porch of a vacant building. And by the end of February, there had been seven arsons in one month in the West Park View neighborhood.
Charles Hudgins, vice president of the civic league, found out about the problem after coming home to find a neighbor's garage burned down. The fire had melted the siding on Hudgins' garage as well.
Some of the arsons amounted to little more than smoldering attempts.
But it was definitely a neighborhood concern.
After an impromptu phone meeting, one of the residents went to Sean Dunn, one of the two community policing officers assigned to the neighborhood.
Dunn put a message out on the Police Department's Reverse 911 computerized calling service to every resident in the area, detailing the problem and announcing a special meeting the next night to discuss measures the community should take.
About 30 people showed up, including people Hudgins doesn't usually see at civic meetings.
Hudgins credits the Police Department's new calling system with linking people in the community and reaching those who otherwise might have remained unaware of the problem.
``It's brought that neighborhood together in some ways,'' he says.
In just three weeks, people in the community had put more than 300 hours into neighborhood surveillance.
That quick, far-reaching and effective communication was the kind of success Police Chief Dennis Mook envisioned when he first saw the Reverse 911 computer program at an International Association of Chiefs of Police convention.
``It struck me that this has a lot of potential,'' he says. ``We're asking the citizens and business managers and owners to be an active participant in solving crimes in the city.''
The department sent out its first message to introduce Reverse 911 six months ago. Since then, the computerized calling system has logged about a quarter-million calls, telling citizens about everything from community policing meetings to neighborhood crime trends.
When police got a call from Port Norfolk Elementary School that one of their students was missing, Sgt. Cathy Conners of Youth Services decided to ask the whole neighborhood for help.
She wanted people to keep their eyes open and to call if they knew anything about the child's whereabouts. But many residents just went out and started looking.
As it turned out, the child was not actually missing but had left the school with her mother that morning without school officials' knowledge.
Conners was relieved that things turned out all right, but she also was pleased to see how well the neighborhood mobilized to help. That was the first time she had used the Reverse 911 system.
``I was really impressed with it,'' she says.
She also was impressed by the residents' efforts.
``They know the neighborhood better than we do. They know where the kids play. They know where the kids hide out. They know where to look.''
Chief Mook also was happy to see the quick community response.
``Just that people saw a need to assist without even being asked was very heartening to me.''
After the child had been found, the department sent out a second message letting people know - another feature of the calling program Mook considers important to increased community involvement in police efforts.
``People want feedback,'' he says. ``They want to know whether their contribution is worthwhile or not.''
A product of Sigma/Micro Corp., Reverse 911 was developed in 1993 and went national in 1994, according to Jacqueline Bianchi, an account representative with the Indiana-based company.
The system was originally designed for tornado warnings, which turned out to be ``absolutely not feasible,'' she says. ``You would simply have to have hundreds of telephone lines to be able to contact a whole city within minutes.''
So the program was reworked for the Merrillville Police Department in Indiana, which was looking for better relations and communication with the community.
Since then eight communities in Indiana are using the program, and two in Michigan and Illinois are about to go online, Bianchi says.
Portsmouth was the first police department in Virginia to go online, she says, followed by Arlington County and, this month, Hampton.
It cost Portsmouth about $36,000 and was bought through a crime prevention grant, according to Sgt. Jon Holloway, who manages the program.
Holloway, who also commands the department's criminal analysis and intelligence unit, says that residents have the option of not being listed in the computer system but that so far less than 2 percent of those called have asked to be taken off.
About 75 people have called the Police Department to add their unpublished phone numbers to the phone roster, Holloway says.
``I think people in Portsmouth right now are pretty supportive of any kind of effort to help them combat crime.''
The calling system has definitely been a plus for the city's new community policing officers, who find it a great way to communicate with the residents in their assigned areas.
Officer Brian Abdul-Ali showed up to set up a booth on the community policing program at a neighborhood school's health and science fair and found out there had been a snag in publicity.
He had Holloway launch a call to the whole neighborhood. About 150 people showed up, and some of the people Abdul-Ali talked to told him the call was the first they had heard about the fair.
Abdul-Ali says he is planning to use Reverse 911 soon to set up a hotline on drug activity on certain streets.
``I think it's a great system. We can cover so much distance and get so much information in a short amount of time that it's unbelievable.''
Detectives also are beginning to see the system's merits.
Larceny Squad Det. R.L. Davis is getting ready to use it to alert senior citizens to some flim-flam artists who have been going door to door offering repair services. And the detective recently asked Holloway to place a call to residents of several neighborhoods about a rash of stolen city-issued garbage cans.
``We had about 15 garbage cans stolen over a period of the last two months,'' Davis says. ``I think it's a group of kids that are breaking into automobiles and using them to hide their stuff in.''
Davis got several calls back from citizens who had seen something or who knew where a garbage can had been dumped.
Calls also have gone out in hopes of getting clues to malicious woundings and unsolved homicides.
Burglary Squad Det. George Brozzo used the system twice to get information and alert residents of neighborhoods that were seeing an especially high number of burglaries.
There had been about 80 burglaries in Fairwood Homes in about a three-month period, Brozzo says. The calls he got back reinforced information he already had and will probably help him make an arrest.
And the burglaries in that area dropped significantly after the calls went out, he says.
That's not unusual, according to Holloway.
Often the calls that go out to residents are also sending a signal to the criminal that a lot of eyes are now open, he explains.
Likewise, fires in West Park View stopped after the calls went out to residents about the arsons.
``It prevents as much crime as it solves,'' Holloway says, ``and also gives us the kind of interaction we need with the community.'' MEMO: The Reverse 911 system includes residents with published phone
numbers. The phone numbers are kept confidential and not given out or
used for solicitation purposes.
People with unpublished numbers who would like to receive Police
Department messages may call Holloway at 393-5427 and leave a message on
his voice mailbox by pressing 284. To be listed, the department needs
your name, phone number and address.
ILLUSTRATION: [Cover, Color photos]
REVERSE 911
``It's brought that neighborhood together in some ways.''
- Charles Hudgins
West Park View
``I think people in Portsmouth right now are pretty supportive of
any kind of effort to help them combat crime.''
- Sgt. Jon Holloway
Police Sgt. Jon Holloway manages the Reverse 911 program, which cost
Portsmouth about $36,000 and was bought through a crime prevention
grant. Residents have the option of not being listed in the computer
system.
Staff photos by MARK MITCHELL
Charles Hudgins, vice president of the West Park View Civic League,
checks the fire-damaged door of a house in the neighborhood. Hudgins
credits the Police Department's new calling system with linking
people in the community and reaching those who otherwise might have
remained unaware of the arson problem.
GRAPHIC
REVERSE 911 How it works
1. A message is composed on the computer's word processor so that
it can be read off the screen when the message is recorded.
2. The system operator, using a phone connected to the system,
records the message on the computer. The message is digitized into
the computer's memory.
3. The system operator chooses the lists and geographic zones
that will receive the call. Every listed phone number in the city
is stored in the computer's memory, as well as a list of map
coordinates.
4. The system operator looks at the map, chooses the coordinates
that match the area to call and gives the computer the command to
start calling.
5. The computer uses multiple phone lines to make nine calls
simultaneously and continues calling until all numbers selected have
been called or the operator tells it to stop.
The system is set up to make calls from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Messages are played twice to make sure the full message comes out on
answering machines.
If no one answers or there is a busy signal, the phone number
automatically goes to the bottom of the phone list and is retried -
usually two more times.
SOURCE: Portsmouth Police Department
by CNB