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As you have seen the 3900 block is the epicenter of crime on Chamberlayne Avenue. You can look at the block and see part of what the problem is: Except for a small office building and the fire station, the block is solid apartments.
Until March 30, 1999, the police refused us the crime data by address, but they give out the calls for service. Unfortunately the latter come as hard copy, not a computer file. So Capt. Winnie and John spent much of two weeks punching the 1999 Chamberlayne Ave. service calls (2581 of them for the stretch North of Brookland Parkway, i.e., 3000 block and north) into Excel. They had the entire year, less part of March 20 through March 24 where the printer garbled the sheets. The results are illuminating.
First, here is a list of the most common of the 2581 service calls:
Item Total % Unk 476 18.4% Disorderly 325 12.6% Domestic Trouble 301 11.7% Silent 911 248 9.6% Noise 161 6.2% B&E 86 3.3% Vice offense 64 2.5% Assault 63 2.4% Promiscuous Shooting 63 2.4% Missing Person 59 2.3% Wanted Person 58 2.2% Stolen Vehicle 56 2.2% Accident 54 2.1% Vandalism 53 2.1% Larceny 52 2.0% Burglar Alarm 45 1.7% Fight 37 1.4% Assist EMS 36 1.4% Mental Subject 35 1.4% Hit & Run 24 0.9% Armed Person 22 0.9% Missing Juvenile 18 0.7% Fire 16 0.6% Prowler 12 0.5% Traffic Complaint 12 0.5% Person Down 11 0.4% DOA 10 0.4% Smoke inside structure 10 0.4% About a quarter of the calls are for reasons that are not identified. Another quarter are disorder and domestic disorder. The rest are as you see. Basically these numbers count the number of times something provoked somebody to call the cops. Call them a basic measure of disorder if you will.
Here are the addresses with the most calls. 4930 is the BP station. The yellow denotes adult homes; the rest appear to be apartment complexes.
Addr Total Owner 3207_11_15 154 Court Assoc 3905 to 43 145 Bellevue Apartments 3918_20 127 Americana Assoc. 3505 115 Bernstein Assoc. 3210_12 95 B&N Assoc./Premier Care 4301 to 27 81 Chamberlayne Investment 3916 75 Woelfl 4801 to 19 71 Chamberlayne Investment 4930 60 Southern Retailers 3401 58 DLM Corp 3206 55 Page 3006 47 Court Assoc 3603_5 39 Zacharias 3406 36 Court Assoc 3813 35 Bellevue Apartments 3810 34 Beekne Inv. Co. Note that the 3207-11-15 complex had more calls than the long block of the Bellevue Gardens in the 3900 block.
The 3900 block, which is adjacent to our neighborhood, is a story in its own. The problems are not evenly distributed.
We see the same thing on either side of the street. On the East, the big Bellevue Gardens complex has hotspots that clearly need attention:
Address Total 3905 10 3907 13 3909 6 3911 5 3913 2 3915 5 3917 5 3919 6 3921 7 3923 3 3925 5 3927 4 3929 4 3931 5 3933 5 3935 37 3937 4 3939 3 3941 2 3943 14 The pie chart makes the case even more clearly:
Thus we see that four of the twenty addresses in the Bellevue Gardens are generating over half the police calls. This plainly is a management issue.
The west side of the 3900 Block is even more interesting:
Abbey Square (3918-20) and the Redwoods (3916) are generating 61% of the calls for service. The complexes farther toward Laburnum Ave. are doing much better. We think it is time to find out what some landlords are doing right and get it done everywhere on Chamberlayne.
Back at 3207-11-15 there is some Bad Stuff, including what looks like probable cause for a wall-to-wall fire inspection:
Item Total Unk 26 Domestic Trouble 23 Disorderly 15 Noise 11 Silent 911 11 Stolen Vehicle 9 Vandalism 8 Wanted Person 7 B&E 6 Assault 5 Recovered Vehicle 3 Armed Person 2 Gas Leak 2 Hit & Run 2 Serve Warrant 2 Smoke inside structure 2 Suspicious vehicle 2 Vice offense 2 Apartment Fire 1 Assist EMS 1 Assist Landlord 1 Assist w Vehicle 1 Fire 1 Fire 1 Found Property 1 Holding Person 1 Indecent Exposure 1 Juvenile 1 Kitchen Fire 1 Mail taken from mailbox 1 Missing Person 1 Person Down 1 Promiscuous Shooting 1 Smoke Alarm 1 3207-11-15 may have improved a bit over the year
but Abbey Square was getting worse
As we mentioned above, even after lots of police attention, heavy duty efforts by the neighborhood (ask Meg Lawrence or Norma Murdoch-Kitt if you want to hear an awful story), and Operation Squalor, the Redwood Apts at 3916 still are a problem with 75 calls.
The Bellevue experience suggests that the focus on the lawbreakers is the wrong approach and the landlord is the key to the solution. Arresting a drug dealer, for example, just means the rest of us pay to feed and house him in jail while another pops up before you can say "drug dealer!" It is the landlord who can be selective about the tenants, evict the drug dealers, and enforce the rules. If the landlord wants the place clean, it will be clean. See the comments by one landlord for some thoughts on this subject.
Our Safety Committee is targeting these problems: Make a worst-first list, work with the neighborhoods, and use all the civil, criminal, and bureaucratic tools.
Stay tuned.
In the meantime we now have the offense data by address.
NOTE ADDED ON APRIL 23 2000: At the BCA meeting on April 18 Capt. Kiniry showed up with a copy of the arrest reports for Chamberlayne Avenue and a list of calls for service based on vice complaints. The arrest reports tell a tale of concentrated problems at the Redwood and Abbey Square. The vice complaints tell a similar story. Here are the 1999 vice calls on Chamberlayne north of Brookland Park showing totals by address for the high density addresses, and % of the 64 total.
Address Total % 3900B
10 15.6% 3920 9 14.1% 3918 5 7.8% 3006 3 4.7% 3916 3 4.7% 4904 3 4.7% 3211 2 3.1% 3816 2 3.1% 3933 2 3.1% 3935 2 3.1% 4313 2 3.1% 4802 2 3.1% 3200B
2 3.1% Note: We think the "3900B" entry denotes calls for the 3900 block.
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Last updated 02/24/02
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Butcher