East Atlanta neighbors stand up against crime (1)
Self-policing residents employ new-fangled technology and old-fashioned cooperation to combat crime.
Last summer, when several homes on her Ormewood Park street were hit by burglars – some more than once – Donna Williamson decided she wasn’t going to wait her turn to get robbed.
She posted a meeting notice for anyone interested in finding ways to deal with the crime wave. Then, a few days prior to the July 2 meeting, a woman was abducted from the nearby East Atlanta Village at gunpoint and forced to withdraw money from an ATM before being released. For Williamson, that was the last straw.
“I said at the meeting I didn’t want people to simply sit there and moan and bitch about what someone else should do about the problem,” she recalls. “We need to do it for ourselves.”
The result was Safe Atlanta For Everyone, a group of about 50 East Atlanta and Ormewood residents who walk their nearby streets to keep an eye out for suspicious cars and hand out occasional flyers listing safety tips.
If SAFE sounds reminiscent of a neighborhood watch from a bygone era when neighbors actually bothered to learn each other’s names, that’s intentional. But technology has brought improvements. These neighbors also Twitter and blog and use an arsenal of virtual tools to keep each other informed – often in real time – of the latest crimes and suspicious behavior in their community. Instead of waiting for the criminals to come to them, they post mugshots online, swap “be on the lookout” notices by e-mail and even track the whereabouts of shady characters so folks down the block can see them coming.