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Monday, September 30, 2002

Citizens take to the streets to fight crime

By HENRY FREDERICK and DEREK CATRON | News-Journal Staff Writers

DAYTONA BEACH — In broad daylight, a lone man circles the vacant Port Orange home and brazenly peers through a screen porch at a table-setting worthy of a magazine layout. He tries the door, but the lock holds with a metallic rattle.

He retraces his steps across the spongy St. Augustine lawn, noting that all the windows are sealed and locked.

Satisfied, Jim Bult returns to his car.

To a passerby squinting against the morning sunlight, the white Chevy Impala might easily be confused with a city police cruiser, but the markings distinguish it as a "Volunteers In Police Service" vehicle.

Bult, 72, slides behind the wheel. In the front passenger seat, Mary Wittmeyer, 78, is completing paperwork on the house, one of 25 they'll check on this summer morning as part of the city's vacation house watch program.

Wittmeyer, Bult and the roughly 50 fellow officers in Port Orange's Volunteers In Police Service almost never find anything wrong. It is no coincidence that Port Orange -- home to the oldest such volunteer program in Florida, established in 1983 -- is also one of the state's safest cities.

Port Orange, with 45,823 residents, is ranked the safest city in Volusia and Flagler counties and among the safest in Florida with less than one victim of violent crime per 1,000 residents annually.

The VIPS program plays a role in that ranking, and its success has prompted other local police departments in Volusia and Flagler counties to follow Port Orange's example.

The volunteers, who carry no weapons and have no arrest powers, are used to augment the services provided by the 84-member city police force.

Charles Calfee, a retired FBI agent who lives in Southeast Volusia, said terrorist fears since the Sept. 11 attacks have prompted greater vigilance among citizens and reinforced safety in neighborhoods across the nation.

"People are actually making their communities safer," said Calfee, a criminologist and terrorism expert.

That kind of involvement is at the heart of Port Orange's success in holding down violent crime, Police Chief Gerald Monahan said.

So too is the high visibility of the city's police officers, known for following cars and enforcing strict adherence to speed limits and safety equipment -- from burned out headlights to improperly lit license plates.

Monahan makes no apologies for the work of his police force, pointing out his officers make over 15,000 contacts with motorists annually.

The reputation for safety brings benefits to the city, among them young families like the Nowells.

"We live in a close-knit neighborhood," Tina Nowell, 35, a teacher at Pathways Elementary School in Ormond Beach, said of her 20-home development off Spruce Creek Road.

"Ours is a small neighborhood where our neighbors are also our friends and watch out for each other," she said, while tending to her children, Hunter, 4, and Hailey, 1.

Nowell and her husband, Rob, 33, a truck driver, said they are pleased to see patrol cars drive by and neighbors who take the "Neighborhood Watch" signs to heart.

Those signs are becoming more common.

Ken and Pam Baker feel safe in the confines of their gated DeBary community.

Residents here take pride in their trimmed lawns and newly-built stucco homes that dot Spring Glen Drive. Everyone knows their neighbors by name, and the sheriff's station is only two minutes away.

But even here, the Bakers say you can never be too safe.

Every night, the 50-something couple takes a half-mile walk down their winding street, eyeing driveways for unfamiliar cars, looking for trespassers and checking nearby homes for broken windows. While the Bakers say they started walking for health reasons, many of their neighbors have taken their cue.

"Everybody's sort of looking out for each other," said Ken Baker, a high school teacher who -- along with his wife -- started the Spring Glen subdivision's neighborhood watch a year and a half ago.

The Bakers are among thousands of people in Volusia and Flagler counties who have adopted a two-decade-old concept that holds citizens, not just cops, accountable for keeping the peace.

While the Bakers' neighborhood watch group is still in its infancy, Aaron Floyd touts his neighborhood watch in west Daytona Beach as Volusia County's first.

Floyd introduced the idea to his neighbors in 1981, and they haven't canceled a meeting since.

His reason for doing it was plain and simple.

"I hate crime," he says.

Many of Floyd's neighbors -- a mix of retirees and working class families -- share his views, dutifully reporting shady characters to one another and to police. But the neighborhood of older, modest homes has its share of patchy lawns, peeling paint and vacant houses that draw criminals. At the same time, he says some of his neighbors still don't see the need to join the neighborhood watch.

"The police cannot fight crime alone," he said, pounding his fist. "The police don't always know where the criminals are hiding, but the neighbors do."

In a place where people sit on their porches and enjoy one another's company, Floyd says he can't stand to see criminals take advantage of law-abiding citizens.

"If I was the judge, they wouldn't be getting a break," he says.

In the group's 21 years, Floyd says they have helped shut down crack houses, track drug dealers and nab car thieves.

They get the job done by keeping in close contact with the police who patrol their streets, as well as with one another.

A similar battle is being fought on the beachside, where in some locations prostitutes, drug dealers and vandals run rampant through the aging community, tucked between T-shirt shops and liquor stores.

"In this area, you never let your guard down," said Frank Heckman, chairman of the 1,800-member Beachside Neighborhood Watch.

For Arnold Levine of Palm Coast, his Chevy pickup is his patrol car.

Before he comes home from his errands, he drives down the street next to his, just to check on things. Many of Levine's neighbors in the northern tip of Palm Coast do the same.

"It's very little effort, but it does so much," said Levine, chairman of the 85-home community's neighborhood watch started eight months ago.

Here, residents in $200,000 homes don't lose sleep over leaving their garage doors open or their belongings outside. Levine feels certain the group prevented at least three burglaries since then.

"It looks like those who have bad intentions are noticing that," Levine said.

Staff Writer Autumn C. Giusti contributed to this report.

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