YOUNGSTOWN Slayings subside in a safer city

Police attribute the lower rate to a cooperative law-enforcement effort.
By PATRICIA MEADE
VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Nora Seivert just has to count heads at SNOOP block watch meetings to know that the city is safer.
"There's been fewer people at the monthly meetings, and fewer people at the meetings means crime is down. I like it that way," Seivert said. "Things were pretty bad for a while."
It didn't surprise the 71-year-old Neilson Avenue resident to learn that homicides decreased dramatically this summer. Between late June and early September, the city recorded one homicide.
During the same 10-week period last year, the city had 10 homicides, and over the previous nine years, the city had an average of eight to nine slayings during that time span.
Seivert said she has noticed that her South Side neighborhood has been relatively quiet.
Police, Seivert said, have been "on the ball."
"We had drugs being sold across the street, but that stopped," Seivert said. "I think we have people [in the block watch] who care. They get in their cars at night and drive around and report what they find."
GRIP participants
At a press conference scheduled for Friday, Police Chief Robert E. Bush Jr. is to welcome local, state and federal officials who participated in the Gun Reduction Interdiction Project this summer. Many credit GRIP for reducing not only the homicide rate but also crime overall.
The guest list includes U.S. Attorney Greg White; representatives from the U.S. Marshal's Service; bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; Drug Enforcement Administration; FBI, Mahoning County Sheriff's Department, Adult Parole Authority; city and county prosecutors' offices; churches; schools; and more.
Lt. Robin Lees, Youngstown Police Department spokesman, said the homicide rate this summer has been "flat -- the least we've seen in eons." He attributed the drop to the overall law enforcement effort that included GRIP, the Mahoning Valley Violent Crimes Task Force, the city's Street Crimes Unit and vice squad, Weed and Seed and more.
Old warrants
Deputy U.S. marshals, working staggered hours with county deputies and parole officers, have been converging on neighborhoods to arrest on old warrants and take into custody people wanted for probation violations, Lees said.
The concept, Lees said, was zero tolerance.
The result was more than 350 arrests on charges that range from murder, sex offenses and felonious assault to driving under suspension and weapons and drug offenses. Roughly 50 more, about half of whom were loud-music violators, received summonses in lieu of arrest.
"We got everything," Lees said. Some of the defendants could face federal prosecution.
Bush said GRIP disrupted the criminal element in town. "They couldn't ride through the city without looking over their shoulder."
Even before GRIP, the Street Crimes Unit was out targeting specific areas, he said. "We had to do something -- like firefighters, we go where the fire is."
Bush said the next goal is to reduce auto theft.
meade@vindy.com