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Published: 9/4/2011 - Updated: 5 months ago

Toledo neighborhoods weigh private security

Residents hope to keep crime out

BY TAYLOR DUNGJEN
BLADE STAFF WRITER

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The graffiti was bad, but manageable.

And the kids out after curfew were a nuisance, but easy enough to control by spending a few hours each night on bike patrol enforcing city codes and rules. But now there are break-ins and kids with guns. It’s more than residents from South Toledo’s Arlington neighborhood can handle on their own.

Increasingly, it seems, neighborhoods in the city of Toledo are considering paying extra for private security to patrol their streets to keep crime out.

The Old West End has had private security since 1981. Now, at least two other neighborhoods — Arlington and West Toledo’s Old Orchard — are considering hiring private security.

“In the early ‘80s, when I was still in college … instructors were telling me back then that there was going to be a huge turn toward private security, and I’ve seen it,” said Toledo police Chief Mike Navarre.

Private security, Chief Navarre noted, is a growing trend across the country.

With a gun on his hip, Signal 88 patrol officer Greg Bowman pulled out of the Seaway Market parking lot on Cherry Street and headed toward the Old West End. A Toledo native, he has been working with the private security company for the past year, getting to know the area residents and keeping an eye open for anything that looks out of place.

After a year of driving the same streets, it becomes easier to spot what doesn’t belong, he said. He knows many of the residents by their first names, where they live, and bits of their personal life. He’s a little less like a security officer and more of a vigilant neighbor.

The first order of business was checking on a vacant, boarded-up home where a neighbor reported a man trying to force open a door.

Toledo police had been to the property, but Mr. Bowman, who checks the area every time he’s on patrol, visited to look for anything out of the ordinary. He pointed to a ground-floor window where the boards have been pulled away, a sign that the house has been broken into again.

Signal 88 took over the patrol a little more than a year ago, but there has been a security presence since May, 1981.

At the time, Old West End residents told The Blade that there was no particular event that pushed them to private patrols, but reports from the early 1980s suggest that burglaries were on the rise across the city. When the service made its debut, about 300 residents subscribed.

An official number of current subscribers wasn’t available, but about a third of the residents pay for the service, said Liz Hazel, Old West End Security resident manager.

Subscribers pay $25 a month for the neighborhood patrol. A handful pay an additional $15 for driveway checks. For the extra fee, Signal 88 will pull into the driveway and do a check of the property from inside the marked vehicle.

It’s impossible to say how many crimes have been prevented, but Ms. Hazel said “having the patrol does discourage crime.”

That’s what the other neighborhoods want — a visible presence to let trouble makers know there are people watching.

Arlington

The Arlington Neighborhood Association hosted a meeting at which Signal 88 could pitch its services, and, although an official decision has not been made on hiring, it seems like a no-brainer, said Cooper Suter, an Arlington resident.

“It’s something between the random guy barking ‘get off my grass’ and police on the corner,” he said. “It could be a deterrent.”

Mr. Suter has lived in the Arlington neighborhood for 20 years. The neighborhood is great, he said, but in the past three years he’s seen it go from not bad to almost scary.

He’s had a gun pointed at him, seen “kids” — which he defines as people anywhere from 15 to 25 years old — gather in gangs, and watched people pull out guns during a fist fight.

Once, a kid with a gun started harassing a neighbor’s husband just to get a reaction.

“Can Signal 88 fix that? No. But can Signal 88 along with the neighborhood association and neighbors who care about the block where groups of kids are misbehaving and make them feel unwelcome? Yeah,” Mr. Suter said.

The patrol, Mr. Suter said, isn’t to replace police, but after hearing Chief Navarre say that there aren’t enough police officers, residents started to talk about private patrols.

At a meeting on Monday with Councilman Tom Waniewski and Chief Navarre, an Old Orchard resident suggested they explore the option.

“We have a lot of friends in Old Orchard,” Mr. Suter said. “They have no idea what they’re in for if they don’t stop it now.”

The Old Orchard meeting was prompted by increasing safety concerns after a woman was raped near a street corner during the early morning hours last month.

A resident at the meeting of nearly 100 people asked Chief Navarre what he thought of private patrols and if that would be an option for Old Orchard.

Other residents seemed to support the idea, and Mr. Waniewski said he and his assistant would look into the financial feasibility of the services.

North Toledo

In North Toledo, United North pays for off-duty officers to patrol the neighborhood. Putting residents on foot patrol was tried, but weather and time commitments ended the program, which lasted for about a year.

The off-duty officers have had a detail in the One Village neighborhood for about 10 years, said United North Chief Executive Officer Terry Glazer.

“We didn’t use private security because they didn’t have the same powers that off-duty officers have,” Mr. Glazer said, adding that other neighborhoods in North Toledo use off-duty police, uniting the north end. “It’s a lot more effective than private security. It’s more money, but [private security] can only drive around — they don’t have arrest powers and that makes a big difference.

“Plus [off-duty officers] communicate with on-duty officers so they can coordinate strategies, so it helps in that regard as well,” Mr. Glazer said.

Mr. Glazer is right — private security officers don’t have arrest powers, unless they’re exercising a citizen’s arrest.

“We’re there to observe and report,” said Mario Bernardo, owner of Signal 88. “If our guards are experiencing illegal activity … our job is to take as much control as possible but not put my officer in harms way, but be able to contain the situation and have them call 911.”

Of the eight Signal 88 employees, several work in law enforcement as sheriff’s deputies, or are firefighters and paramedics, Mr. Bernardo said.

Mr. Bowman, a firefighter and paramedic, has used his job training to help with his Signal 88 patrols.

During a patrol at Moody Manor in North Toledo, a boy was shot in the arm.

Mr. Bowman, who had his paramedic kit, was able to dress the boy’s wound, and he took him to a hospital for treatment.

Mr. Bernardo said his officers understand they are not police, and they don’t act as such. They’re an extra set of eyes and ears for the neighborhoods that hire them.

“They’re not a substitute for a municipal police department, but sometimes they can provide a patrol to specific areas when people are willing to pay for their services,” Chief Navarre said.

“When it’s time to respond where an arrest is possible or necessary, you need certified police officers,” the chief added. “When it comes to an investigation, you need certified police officers.

“If it comes to a situation where you’re trying to deter crime with high visibility, that’s more of private security, because it’s a lot more inexpensive than municipal police officers.”

Elsewhere

Some areas — even in Ohio — have gone a step further by seeking their own police forces.

In Cincinnati, for example, the city charter declares that private police may operate — with full police power — when hired by private entities in the city, said Nick Ligon, Cincinnati private police chief.

But in Cincinnati private patrols aren’t allowed to monitor city streets, the chief added.

“Under our rules that we have here, we can’t patrol a specific neighborhood because it’s not privately owned,” Chief Ligon said. “We can’t take work away from the city. … The city doesn’t want us doing their job. They just want us to be another set of eyes and another body to assist if need be.”

The private police in Cincinnati have existed since 1914 and can act as police only within the city limits.

The nonprofit organization currently has nine officers — several years ago there were more than 100 — who are hired, mainly, to police theaters, church events, and apartment complexes.

They wear police patches on their uniforms, carry guns, fill out reports and paperwork, and go through the same academy as city police, but still there are limitations.

For instance, the private police cannot transport prisoners, Chief Ligon said. They also cannot drive marked patrol cars.

Neither the Ohio Revised Code nor the Toledo Municipal Code directly address whether municipal residents can hire and create their own private police forces — versus private security patrols — but Toledo’s laws do spell out that the director of police operations in the city must be the chief of police.

In Toledo, Chief Navarre said he expects the private security trend to continue.

“Where it used to be that police patrols would spend the majority of the night on patrol, now I think they’re spending the majority of their time responding to calls for service,” Chief Navarre said. “[Private security] serves the void that municipal police officers literally don’t have the time to perform like they once did. You’re going to see that trend of private patrol continue.”

Contact Taylor Dungjen at: tdungjen@theblade.com or 419-724-6054.