ACROSS THE CITY, WAR ON CRIME IS RALLYING CRY

Cleveland Residents, Officials Act To Save Neighborhoods

Judy Novak considers the neighborhood she lives in on Cleveland's
West Side a great location -- just a mile from Lake Erie and a few
blocks from the Lakewood border. But she's concerned about her safety.

Novak, 40, and her husband, Brian Egizii, 37, moved into the area 10
years ago. Lately, however, the neighborhood has changed. They and
their neighbors see more drug dealers and prostitutes on the street.
They say the lawbreakers are tarnishing the neighborhood.

Something had to be done, Novak decided. She started writing down
license numbers and turning them over to police. The couple even let
a detective use their roof to observe the drug sales. Their
assistance resulted in several arrests.

Like the Novaks, more and more Clevelanders on both sides of town
seem to worry about becoming crime victims. As Cleveland's population
continues to dwindle while the violence increases, city officials and
residents are realizing that the crime problem may be too much for
police alone to handle.

Novak and more than 100 other residents of Cleveland's Cudell and
Edgewater communities assembled on a warm night last month outside
Our Father's House, a church on Detroit Avenue, near West 112th
Street. The church is just a mile from where Cleveland Detective
Jonathan "A.J." Schroeder was fatally shot in late August.

"Put a stop to drugs, murder, evil, hate" read a leaflet that Pastor
C.E. Patterson had circulated to notify area residents of his
community meeting.

The 70-year-old pastor stood on the front steps of the church and in
sermon-like tones warned residents that unless they united to fight
the threat, thugs would take over the neighborhood.

"Drug dealers, pimps and prostitutes can be changed," Patterson told
the group. "Let's unite. Stop the blight and communicate."

Sixty-one people signed up to be crime-fighting volunteers that night.

For the 22,000 people living in the Cudell-Edgewater community, even
nonviolent crimes, such as car break-ins, create a fear that causes
residents to limit their activities, especially at night.

"You cannot leave anything outside," one resident of West 112th
Street warned. "It'll be gone in a minute." Thieves will grab
anything they can turn into quick cash.

Lt. Douglas Dvorak calls the crime problem - drug dealing,
prostitution, thefts - "quality of life" issues. He supervises eight
1st District detectives who focus on ridding the community of people
who degrade neighborhoods with their criminal behavior.

"A lot of police are frustrated with these criminals," Dvorak said.
The drug peddlers attract people who are drug dependent - those who
steal whatever they can get their hands on to feed their habit, or
women who sell their bodies for drug money.

What's worse, he said, is that they are becoming more violent and
many of them carry weapons.

Cleveland's population is declining for two reasons - schools and
crime, said Councilman Zachary Reed of the Mount Pleasant neighborhood.

Reed said he is hoping surveillance cameras can help curtail criminal
activity in his ward, among the most violent in the city. Cameras
already installed have reduced crime in some neighborhoods by 73
percent, he said. He plans to use federal grants to buy more cameras
and uses grant money to pay off-duty police officers to patrol
streets in his ward.

The councilman also has declared war on graffiti by quickly getting
rid of it. "If you let graffiti stay up, it buys into the perception
that it's a bad neighborhood," he said.

In Collinwood, Councilman Mike Polensek has started a program using
what he calls a Misery Index to target lawbreakers.

"We're sending hate letters to the individuals who have been
arrested, telling them that we are putting them on notice," Polensek said.

"The level of criminal activity and drug-related activity has risen
from one end of town to the other," he said.

"In some cases it's driving small businesses out and it's driving
homeowners out. We have got to draw the line. . . . Their behavior .
. . is unacceptable and I don't want them in my neighborhood."

Councilman Tony Brancatelli, who represents residents in Slavic
Village, said crime is their No. 1 complaint. As a result, he has
hired a retired police lieutenant to keep track of where the crime is
occurring and off-duty police to walk beats in the commercial district.

A common complaint from people throughout Cleveland is that landlords
do not do enough to screen tenants. Polensek plans to pressure
landlords to get rid of bad tenants. If the offender lives in
subsidized housing, he will ask housing officials to evict that person.

Judy Novak said she continues to see drug activity at a 19-suite
apartment building near her West Side home. She said the building's
landlord promised to do background checks on new tenants to weed out
troublemakers, but things have not changed.

The landlord, Isabella Barna, 62, said that if she eliminated all but
perfect tenants, the building would have an 80 percent vacancy rate.
Citing her mortgage and $10,000-a-year heating bill, she said she
cannot afford to run an apartment building without tenants.

Novak said she is afraid whenever she has to be away from home that
it will be broken into. Yet, she said she loves the neighborhood and
wants to stay.

Some officials who deal with crime problems daily say that residents'
fears may be exaggerated.

Birgit Hilliard, crime prevention program manager for the nonprofit
Cudell Improvement Inc., knows that some residents are scared, but
she assures them that the city and her organization are working to
improve safety in the neighborhood.

"I spend a lot of time observing faces," she said. "I talk to a lot
of people. . . We get names [of suspects] and see if we have anything on them."

Hilliard, who works closely with City Council members, keeps a
spreadsheet showing all crimes reported in the neighborhood for the
last three years and the names of arrested suspects. She sets up
Block Watch groups and phone chains to help keep residents informed
and reassures crime victims that people in the community care.

She gives her crime observations to 1st District detectives and four
off-duty police officers hired to walk beats along the area's main
thoroughfares. Merchants pay a monthly fee for the extra protection.