When armed citizens patrol the streets

A citizen patrol group in New Haven, Conn., says it's doing what police won't, but critics question its tactics.

from the June 27, 2007 edition

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Despite the EPDP criticism heaped on him, Chief Francisco Ortiz, a staunch advocate of community policing, says he "wholeheartedly" supports EPDP, though he made a point of officially not supporting their decision to carry weapons on patrol. He says neighborhood police patrols were reduced largely due to funding cuts.

"We used to get a lot of grants to help [with community policing] – a couple million dollars a year. But we lost those grants over the last six years," says Chief Ortiz. He explains the war on terror came at a price to community policing efforts that allowed officers enough time to work small beats and get to know the residents and their concerns. "The country shifted its focus. Like Cyclops with one eye, it took its eye off" community policing, he says.

Traditionally, community policing efforts encourage citizens to be the "eyes and ears" for police but to remain on the sidelines.

Neighborhood watch groups "should not be armed. Period.... They are not trained; they are not educated in the laws, and it is distinctively a law-enforcement function," says Robbie Woodson, program manager of USAonWatch, an umbrella group that oversees the national Neighborhood Watch Program. "Leave the law-enforcement activities to law-enforcement officials – and part of that is armed patrols."

Although Curtis Sliwa, founder and president of the international community policing organization Guardian Angels, strongly supports EPDP, he, too, is concerned about members carrying weapons. "The ingredients are here for a major problem," says Mr. Sliwa. "Lawyers are perched. The moment there's an incident with this patrol ... you know there's going to be some civil suit filed claiming that their client's civil rights were violated by arms-toting posses."

Armed civilian patrols may have a hard time meeting the higher standards authorities have adopted over the past 40 years for how and when to use firearms, says Samuel Walker, emeritus professor of criminal justice at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. "I'm not sure that these kinds of neighborhood patrols are aware of these kinds of rules.... The risk of them shooting someone who should not be shot is very high."

While armed civilian groups like the EPDP are rare, they are not unprecedented. In 2003, the "Oregon Rangers Association" raised eyebrows when it began patrolling Oregon's national forests armed with pistols and shotguns, intent on stopping crime in the wilderness and helping rangers stretched thin across the parks. With reports following 9/11 that terrorists planned to target Jewish neighborhoods, Rabbi Yakove Lloyd made international headlines when he announced his intent to organize civilian patrols armed with licensed firearms, baseball bats, and walkie-talkies through Jewish areas in Brooklyn, N.Y. The effort fizzled after a public outcry.

Crime overall in New Haven has fallen by 56 percent since 1990, according to New Haven's Uniform Crime Report.

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