July 28-August 3, 2005

city beat

The Not-So-Mean Streets: The Police Department says that improved community relations and pro-active cops have lowered Center City crime. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

Safety and Numbers

Despite three high-profile cases, some say Center City crime is actually down.

by Jenna Portnoy

They are looking over their shoulders more often, riding the train with friends and gripping key-chain pepper spray cannisters, just in case. Despite a four-year overall decrease in crimes in Center City, a recent eruption of high-profile violent offenses has prompted many women to rethink how they carry themselves downtown.

"As a woman, I'm constantly tempted to get a bigger and better weapon than this little can of pepper spray," says Melissa Rabin, a twentysomething with wavy brown hair who has considered buying a $1,000 Taser for protection.

Some homeless men are milling about near 11th and Market streets, where Rabin waits for a bus. She's just a few blocks from the sites of three incidents that have called into question the safety of the city's business district.

First was the murder of Patricia McDermott — a 48-year-old mother of two — as she walked to work on Ninth Street near Market the morning of May 17. Juan Covington followed her off the Route 33 bus and shot her in the head. (Police now say Covington admitted to or may have links to six other shootings, which puts him in the category of serial killer.)

Then, on July 18, a 24-year-old woman was dragged beneath a subway platform at Eighth and Race streets, beaten and sexually assaulted. Police say the homeless half brother of the man initially accused of the crime actually committed the beating and rape.

Finally, two days later, a man took off his clothes at Ninth and Market streets, climbed into a police cruiser and struggled with an officer. Both men went for the policeman's gun and several shots were fired, killing the naked man. The cruiser continued down Market, colliding with a New Jersey Transit bus.

The timing and violent nature of these crimes seem to suggest that Center City is a dangerous place to be. But police and other officials say there has been an overall decrease in crime.

"One murder or one rape is too many," says Inspector William Colarulo, a Police Department spokesman. "However, I don't believe the Covington case or the rape at Eighth [and Race] should cause the perception that Center City is not safe."

In fact, a look at major crimes in the two districts that make up Center City shows no sharp overall increase from the first half of last year to the first half of this year. (The statistics cover the beginning of January through the end of May.) There's been an uptick in certain categories — notably aggravated assaults, which are up about 18 percent — but taken as a whole, the crime picture hasn't changed much. There were 20 rapes in both periods and the number of robberies decreased by almost 50 cases. However, there was one murder last year compared with three this year.

Louis Schlesinger, a professor of forensic psychology at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, warns people not to take the uptick in deaths as an excuse to panic.

"This doesn't mean anything. Let's say your town had no murders for 10 years. Then, there was one murder. How much did crime go up? Well, it went up 100 percent," he says. "They don't indicate a crime pattern and there's absolutely no reason for people to become alarmed and change what they do."

Center City District (CCD) Executive Director Paul Levy agrees. He points to CCD statistics from 2000 to the end of 2004 that show a 25 percent decrease in all crimes and a 30 percent decrease in auto theft. When asked in a survey about their comfort level in Center City, about 75 percent of respondents said they felt safe always or most of the time.

When the CCD asked individuals what it could do better, the top two answers were reducing the number of aggressive panhandlers and people sleeping on sidewalks.

Levy says these results are particularly telling since Covington, the rapist and the naked man were reportedly all homeless at one time and may all have suffered from mental problems.

The number of homeless people always goes up in the summertime, but Levy says the agency "has been sending a signal to the city in the last several weeks that the number of people on street is going up slightly." CCD's 42 unarmed officers do "continuous outreach" and the state of Center City is "dramatically better" than in past years, he says.

Still, Levy said that the perception of danger can be just as detrimental to Center City as an actual increase in crime because fear can keep suburbanites and conventioneers from making the city a destination. "In our experience over the last 15 years, so long as the overall experience of everyone is getting better, we fully expect this to be a very unfortunate coincidence," he says.

Colarulo gave several reasons why the number of crimes has decreased over the past four years: Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson has established a relationship with the community so people are more likely to report suspicious activity; police supervisors have to explain what they're doing to combat specific crimes; and police are generally trying to be more pro-active when they see signs of a problem.

"There is absolutely always a need to be aware of your surroundings — not necessarily because you could become a victim of a crime, but because we want to help each other out and because of the recent events in London," Colarulo says.

As city police added patrols, SEPTA also made efforts to help riders feel safe. SEPTA spokesman Jim Whitaker says the system was already on a heightened state of alert after the first London bombings, but officials further stepped up security around the Chinatown El station after the rape.

Emerging from underground at Eighth and Market streets, Linda Casey, 48, says she's more cautious about doing errands after work at night. She lives in New Jersey, but has worked in the city for 33 years and considers Center City her "escape."

"I feel fairly safe," she says. "There are always people down here on the New Jersey line. But with everything that's going on, that doesn't really give you comfort because you don't know if they are there for good or bad."

Major Crime Offenses
Crime Classification	6th District		9th District
	Jan-May 2004	Jan-May 2005	Jan-May 2004	Jan-May 2005
Murder	0	2	1	1
Rape	7	11	13	9
Robbery	182	159	139	114
Aggravated Assault	86	101	61	73
Burglary	114	120	143	158
Theft	1157	1169	936	1043
Stolen Vehicle	202	111	109	116
Total	1748	1673	1402	1514
Source: Philadelphia Police Department Research and Planning Unit