AGENDA #11d

BUDGET WORKING PAPER

TO:                  W. Calvin Horton, Town Manager

FROM:            Gregg Jarvies, Police Chief

SUBJECT:       Northside Status Report

DATE:             April 27, 2005

The purpose of this memorandum is to respond to a question raised at the April 6 budget work session regarding the status of police operations in the Northside community.

The Department continues to concentrate on the Northside neighborhood using a team of officers dedicated to patrol functions in residential areas west of Church Street.  The platoon of officers originally consisted of eight officers.  That number has been reduced to six due to the nine vacancies currently carried by the department.  When they are available we are using our narcotics officers to fill in the vacant positions.  However, the work schedule of these narcotics officers does not lend itself to making them available for regularly scheduled patrols in the neighborhoods.

The scope of coverage for the team of six officers has been expanded to include not only Northside but the Pine Knolls community and the western portion of the Central Business District as well.  Officers have reported that all three areas are being impacted by the same small group of drug dealers and associates who are wandering from one neighborhood to another.  On Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights the Northside team also helps maintain order at closing time at two or three downtown clubs where many of these same people hang out.

Between January and mid-April of 2005 Northside officers have made 52 arrests for offenses that included drug possession and sale, Driving While Impaired, prostitution, possession of stolen property, assault, and drunk and disruptive.  During the first three quarters of FY 2004-05 fifty-one drug arrests have been made in the Northside and Pine Knolls neighborhoods, down 19% from this time last year. In the past four months, four drug raids have been conducted in the neighborhoods.  Drug investigations continue.  

While the rate of robberies dropped in Northside, the number of aggravated assaults rose from eight to twenty.  Some of these assaults occurred on the street; others took place inside private residences. 

Community Watch programs, youth programs at the Hargraves Community Center, summer employment programs, and neighborhood clean-up initiatives continue in an effort to enhance our contacts with residents and to do our share to improve the quality of life in the two residential neighborhoods.