Reply With QuoteAh...sprawl....
Since this pertains to my neighborhood, I found it interesting. Thoughts?
Eggertsville leads town in criminal activity
Tops Amherst in thefts, burglaries; residents concerned
By Sandra Tan
News Staff Reporter
Updated: March 02, 2010, 11:13 am /
Published: March 02, 2010, 8:27 am
Amherst may tout its reputation as one of the safest communities in America, but you won't find many smug Eggertsville residents. There certainly are some anxious ones, though.
Just ask Bob Mason, whose service station on Grover Cleveland Highway was held up four times in 2008 and burglarized three times in 2009 and once in January. "The area's just disintegrating," he said.
Some neighborhood residents agree and voiced their concerns at recent public meetings. They said crime is on the rise in the old and densely populated community in southwest Amherst.
But crime and population data paints a more complex picture of a changing community not unlike many other first-ring suburban neighborhoods bordering Buffalo.
Amherst police know the Eggertsville neighborhood as Patrol District 4. Last year, it accounted for a quarter of the town's robberies, as well as the town's only homicide, according to police data.
When you exclude the patrol district that contains the Niagara Falls Boulevard retail strip, including the Boulevard Mall, District 4 also accounts for a quarter of the town's nonviolent thefts.
Police Chief John Askey said crime is not increasing in Eggertsville. It has always been high Τ by Amherst standards. The neighborhood tends to see more robberies and more weapons-related crimes than other parts of town, he said. "It's been that way my entire career," said Askey, who has been with the department for 23 years.
A five-year look at seven serious crime categories in the Eggertsville patrol district shows no continuing overall growth trend, though robberies did spike in 2008.
A periodic look at Eggertsville crime statistics going back 20 years shows that in most serious crime categories including assault, robbery and burglary there is no overall increase in the number of incidents and that in some cases there is an actual decline.
The only exception is larcenies nonviolent thefts that do not involve trespassing or break-ins and that include purse snatchings, shoplifting and car-related thefts. These types of theft have risen over the past 20 years.
Eggertsville borders the city's University Heights neighborhood, which is wrestling with violent crime.
"Let's face it. It's not a secret," Askey said. "Where you border the city, it's a high-crime area."
The term "high crime" is relative. Since Amherst is a low-crime area, it takes only a few cases to make Eggertsville seem crime-ridden when, by most city standards, it would be considered a place of relative peace.
For instance, while a quarter of the town's reported robberies and felony assaults occurred in Eggertsville, that amounts to only 12 robberies and 12 assaults reported for the entire year.
University Heights had three homicides last year and three to four times the number of other violent crimes, including assault, rape, robbery and burglary, according to the Erie Crime Analysis Center.
Larcenies are another story. Even compared with University Heights, Eggertsville's larceny numbers are high. Of all serious crime, larcenies and burglaries remain the most troublesome for Eggertsville residents.
In the past four years, the community has reported 1,066 larcenies, more than any other Amherst district except the Niagara Falls Boulevard retail area where shoplifters dramatically skew the numbers. Eggertsville also had 188 reported burglaries in this period, more than any other patrol district in town.
Crime concerns brought several residents to the microphone at a recent Town Board meeting to complain. The Eggertsville Community Organization also had the police chief talk with residents at a recent meeting.
Snyder resident Marjoe Ward, 51, told the board her son was robbed last fall while biking down Allenhurst Road, where a large, low-income housing project is located.
"They ripped his shirt and scraped his arm, and he ran like crazy," she said later. "They said, "Get off the bike and get the hell out of here.' "
She also said she doesn't believe police assertions that crime isn't on the rise.
"There's probably a lot of things going unreported," she said.
Mason, who has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in the strip plaza where his service station is located, said he used to make a good living from his Eggertsville businesses but hasn't made money in the last three years.
What he has received instead are bricks through his side window from a burglar who made off with cartons of cigars and cigarettes four times from June through January before police arrested a suspect after following his tracks through the snow.
"I'm not the only one," Mason said. "It's happening all over the town."
Council Member Mark Manna, an Eggertsville resident, said the neighborhood is having increasing problems with graffiti and property neglect. He also said some residents believe the community is still safe but not as safe as it used to be.
"But for Amherst, we have a different perception of what is safe and what is not safe," he said.
While some Eggertsville residents said they wished that police had a more permanent presence in the community, none found fault with police response time.
Resident Dave Sampson said he believes, like the police chief, that Eggertsville crime isn't up. But he added that it takes only a few serious incidents happening close together to make it seem that crime is on the rise.
Both he and Askey also have made the observation that the neighborhood has become more racially diverse over time. It's an observation that may feed the growing crime perception.
"No one really wants to talk about the race component," said Yvonne Downes, a criminal-justice professor at Hilbert College in Hamburg who specializes in diversity issues related to the criminal-justice system.
According to the U.S. Census, from 1990 to 2000, the Eggertsville community saw an 8 percent decline in its overwhelmingly white population and a 33 percent increase in its black population.
Many of the minority residents are living in regular apartments or one of two subsidized housing complexes in the community.
The Allenhurst Apartments, a sprawling development of two-bedroom town houses, frequently get criticized as the source of many neighborhood problems.
Downes said a nuanced dynamic is at work in Eggertsville, as it is in many other first-ring suburbs. As longtime residents age, they become more fearful of crime, she said. In addition, more crimes are committed by young people, and in this case, many of the younger people in the community are black.
Renters are more likely to commit crimes, she said, and poorer populations are more likely to be charged with direct, theft-related crimes. African-American young men commit more crimes, she added.
"It is both true and exaggerated in the minds of many Americans," Downes said. "When you see more young black men on the streets, you fear crime more. It's unreasonable, but it's who we are. It is as true for black Americans as it is for white Americans."
Askey said that while many crimes are indeed traced back to the Allenhurst Apartments, many of the most serious crimes including the last homicide are committed by visitors from the city and not the residents themselves.
Lisa Burgess, an Allenhurst resident and nursing student at Erie Community College's North Campus, told members of the Eggertsville Community Organization that she was saddened by their concerns about crime, but she also asked them to withhold judgment.
Burgess, 33, used to live in a dilapidated apartment in Buffalo's Central Park. She recalled trying to raise a 2-year-old son in the drug-ridden community.
Mushrooms grew through the rotting floor of her kitchen, she said, and she often fell asleep to the sound of gunfire. When the Allenhurst Apartments manager offered her the chance to move 12 years ago, she felt that she had been delivered by God.
Her son, now 14, got a great education in Amherst and was just recently accepted into St. Joseph's Collegiate Institute. She expects to graduate with her nursing degree in two years.
"There are taxpayers in Allenhurst, believe it or not," said Burgess, who did collections work before returning to school. "There are a lot of honest people that live in Allenhurst. There are a lot of people who care about the community, but because we're so divided as a community, we don't know how to come together."
stan@buffnews.com
Ah...sprawl....
I agree; sprawl is the root of all crime, in fact the root of all evil. If it weren't for Eggertsville and places like it we could all enjoy living in killling zones like the east side.
from NEWS
Eggertsville leads town in criminal activity
Tops Amherst in thefts, burglaries; residents concerned
By Sandra Tan
..Council Member Mark Manna, an Eggertsville resident, said the neighborhood is having increasing problems with graffiti and property neglect. He also said some residents believe the community is still safe but not as safe as it used to be.
"But for Amherst, we have a different perception of what is safe and what is not safe," he said.
While some Eggertsville residents said they wished that police had a more permanent presence in the community, none found fault with police response time ..
The Police Department operates from their building in Audubon, and their presence may be needed in Eggertsville with a storefront in that neighborhood perhaps. There was a program in Buffalo referred to as COPS and it involved satellite offices for the presence factor. It could be manned by a civilian from Police for complaints.
It would help to show that Amherst cares about all its residents. It could have the same positive effects that the Eggertsville Community Center has. Now there is an idea- have the presence near that community center.
Sounds like you will eventually get your chance, slick.Originally Posted by grump
Being black doesn't result in being a criminal, but being uneducated, undisciplined, or unable to envision a future does.
Look what happened to Chuckie Cheese when the rift raft discovered it. Wasn't "Bags of Money" a regular there?
just ban section 8 housing...
"I know you guys enjoy reading my stuff because it all makes sense. "
Dumbest post ever! Thanks for the laugh PO!
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