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Sheriff’s department joins Weed and Seed
Seasonal law-enforcement sweeps will be citywide, police said.
YOUNGSTOWN — The Mahoning County Sheriff’s Department is joining other law-enforcement agencies in the North Side Weed and Seed anti-crime and neighborhood-improvement effort, city police officials announced.
Already participating in that effort are city and Youngstown State University police and Humility of Mary Health Partners police based at St. Elizabeth Health Center, said city police Chief Jimmy Hughes.
Because the sheriff’s department functions on a countywide basis and isn’t limited to the city, it offers a regional approach to criminal investigations from which the city can benefit, Hughes observed. “The additional manpower alone will give us a benefit. ... It’s a fresh set of eyes,” he said of sheriff’s department participation.
“We are pleased to welcome aboard the sheriff’s department as another component of our law enforcement,” said Terri Bryant, North Side Weed and Seed coordinator. “It is very important that we do not only crime intervention, but crime prevention.”
Weed and Seed is a U.S. Department of Justice-funded program that weeds out criminal activity in the designated neighborhood and seeds the area with neighborhood restoration programs.
The North Side Weed and Seed program is in the third year of its five-year term. A five-year Weed and Seed effort on the city’s South Side expired several years ago.
The North Side Weed and Seed office is at 976 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in the Youngstown Metropolitan Housing Authority’s Westlake Terrace housing project. Its anti-crime tip line is (330) 744-8989.
No sheriff’s department representatives were at a Wednesday news conference at the city police station to discuss details of sheriff’s deputies’ participation.
City Police Lt. Kevin Mercer said city police are also planning major sweeps throughout Youngstown this month, which will include the Weed and Seed participants and YMHA officials.
“This time of year, we have a lot of increases in robberies, burglaries and theft-related offenses, and we’re going to saturate the entire city to try to curb some of the criminal initiatives and activities,” Mercer said.
“The holiday season is a high-crime season for not only the North Side, but the communities as a whole,” Bryant said, emphasizing the importance of law-enforcement visibility and block watch vigilance at this time of year.
Mercer said he expects the sweeps will include special uniformed and plainclothes details of city police and agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
milliken@vindy.com