GINTER PARK RESIDENTS WEIGH ANTI-CRIME STEPS

Last week's gunbattle in a North Richmond alley may have resulted in
only a leg wound, but residents in the Ginter Park neighborhood felt
it in their hearts.

More than 50 of them wedged into a stuffy room made for 25 people in
the Ginter Park Library last night to brainstorm about what to do
about neighborhood drug dealing, prostitution and landlords who turn
a blind eye to lawless renters and loiterers.

"I haven't looked down so many [gun] barrels since I was in
Vietnam," said Larry Mier, resident and block captain of the 4800
block of East Seminary Road. "At least there, I got to shoot back."

Mier, a former IRS agent who said he served in an Army field
artillery unit in Vietnam in the early 1970s, told of twice being
the victim of attempted armed robberies.

Another neighborhood resident in attendance reportedly straps on a
pistol just to take out the trash.

"It's just a matter of time before there's a carjacking," one woman
said as her neighbors nodded in agreement.

Along with rising property values, the Chamberlayne Avenue and Brook
Road corridor just inside the city limits has seen a surge in the
kind of lawless defiance that plagued sister neighborhoods closer to
downtown, such as Battery Park.

"These guys are thugs," Mier said, referring to the brazen invaders
discussed during the meeting. "They've got the organization out there."

A member of the Battery Park Civic Association offered some pointers
on how that residential organization got the lawless element moving
out by taking photographs, walking the streets and confronting trespassers.

Much of the meeting focused on how to pressure owners of apartment
buildings and subdivided homes to be more responsible and sensitive
to neighborhood concerns.

Specific addresses and management firms were mentioned.

"We've got to go after these guys," Mier said.

They talked of getting cameras on the worst corners, such as
Chamberlayne Avenue and Watkins Street. Better lighting and
no-parking zones were also discussed.

Richmond police Lt. Tim Morley told them it's a job the police can't
handle alone.

"We try to be as creative as we can . . . as aggressive as we can,"
Morley said. "We depend on every one of you here -- and more."