Last week's shooting death of Manchester Police Officer Michael Briggs has brought understandable scrutiny of crime levels in New Hampshire's largest city.
But there's little hard evidence to suggest that much has changed over the last few years.
New Hampshire Public Radio's Josh Rogers reports.
Earlier this week, on a front yard just feet from where Michael Briggs was gunned down…..More than 70 citizens gathered to figure out how to make their neighborhood safer in the face of what some see as an epidemic of unlawful activity…..Longtime neighborhood anti-crime activist Tracy Degges put things most starkly.
"I understand fear, and I understand lives -- we all have them. But if we don't do things people, we won't have a city left."
That same day, top state and city leaders met with law enforcement in Concord to address crime in Manchester. As he exited that closed-door meeting, Manchester Mayor Frank Guinta said his city has to come to terms with a new reality.
"New Hampshire and the entire southern tier is facing just a different kind of criminal mindset."
That mindset…..which Guinta and others say is coming to NH from south of the border -- is not simply more transient, but also more mercenary and more violent. Fighting crime was a key part of Guinta's platform when he ran for mayor and he says it's been a focus since his inauguration.
"What we have done is increase the complement of officers in Manchester. We have reactivated the net, the neighborhood enforcement team -- going out and looking for code violations and going out to property owners and bringing their buildings up to code -- that has been successful….and neighborhood watches. We now have 20 neighborhood watches in Manchester."
That said, the crime statistics from the Manchester police department don't show a dramatic increase in the number of arrests…..The totals for serious offenses -- murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault and felony property crimes -- differ little during the last three years…….In fact, the numbers show that in 2005 violent crime dropped 17 percent in the city…..Since then, it's remained more or less flat….Drug crimes, meanwhile, which many believe are fueling the city's problems, are up somewhat -- about 9 percent in the last three years. Manchester police chief John Jaskolka.
"We make a good deal of arrests, I'm not going to say they are spiking. But again, the population is up, the transient population coming into the city is up. Looking at the high intensity detail that we did, the 20 percent of the people that we dealt with were out of state -- years ago that would have been unheard of."
Jaskolka says those high intensity details were to crack down on so-called quality of life crimes -- public drinking, urination, loitering, loud music, etc. -- and he says they proved effective in quelling criminal activity in neighborhoods where it had been on the rise.
"As you deal with quality of life issues you come across other crime. That's what happened on the west side we started towing cars. We started summoning people for drinking in the streets and a lot of the problems went away."
That much is certainly the hope of city and state leaders……Governor Lynch has announced the state will send resources to Manchester to fund more high intensity details. The state will also provide Manchester with 4 state troopers for the next month and a half, and step of both liquor and drug enforcement efforts…….The Governor says the moves are worth it and says he doesn't care about the statistics.
"Perception is in fact reality, and if there is a concern about safety oin Manchester we need to address it and we will address it."
But for at least some of citizens in the neighborhood where Michael Briggs was killed, for the questions of public safety are plain fact…..Joe Levy lives 4 blocks from where Briggs was shot……an area that he says has several obvious drug dealers. Levy says Briggs' death changed his views about how to coexist with crime.
"I spoke to an officer last night I said I have a young family I don't need repercussions for being a rat in the neighborhood. And he points to me and says: 'That's the whole problem. All the time this goes one you sit here and say nothing --the next stray bullet could be through your house.' And you know he's right. I think somebody's on the right idea here. Unfortunately it brings the death of an officer to bring people together -- I hate to say that's what it takes."
Levy says he plans on joining a neighborhood watch group….., In the meantime, high intensity patrols in targeted Manchester neighborhoods are expected to be stepped up immediately.
