How Wilmington’s Leadership Keeps The Tale of Two Wilmingtons Narrative Alive
This time, I ask you to compare the reactions to two important developments:
Six people shot in Wilmington in 24 hours:
Wilmington leaders said they are fed up with the increase in crime, saying more must be done to combat its causes in the city.
“We want to do anything necessary to clean this up,” said Richard Smith, president of the state NAACP. “People are scared. You’ve got thousands of dollars in guns on the street with people killing each other.”
“I am angry at myself for sitting on the sidelines,” said New Castle County Councilman Jea Street, speaking during the public comment portion of a Wilmington City Council meeting.
Street said he wants to see more programs implemented and questioned if the federal Violence Reduction Network program announced last year has been put in place and is being effective in Wilmington.
“What has been reduced?” he asked. “Nothing has been reduced. Nothing has changed.”
Council President Theo Gregory said he will look into the implementation and effectiveness of the VRN program, but agreed that the city is lacking in its social service offerings to residents.
Got that? Then there’s this — City safety a piece of Wilmington’s pitch to Chemours:
“A number of department heads have met with senior levels of Chemours management to ensure they have their needs met, and public safety is one of them,” said Wilmington Economic Development Director Jeff Flynn, who has been involved in talks with executives on behalf of the city. […]
[…]“We have not asked that they take specific actions, but we have asked about their plans for enhancing safety in the downtown area,” Smith said in an email, adding that some employees also have been the victim of theft. “It’s likely that other companies with a downtown presence have had similar discussions with local officials.”[…]
[…]Williams said the incident was a shock to the city. It was unusual for the area around Rodney Square, which typically sees more issues like property crime and robberies, city crime data shows. Thirty incidents of minor crimes like theft, assault, larceny, burglary or obscenity were reported within five blocks of the DuPont Building during September.
“It was a blow to us. It felt like somebody sucker punched me after I had been building up this protection and positivity downtown,” Williams said.[…]
Interesting, right? An effort to present a “Safety Package” in one of the safest parts of the City is on offer to keep Chemours here. But — and you can see it in the response to the 6 shootings in 24 hours — that there is NO such “Safety Package” on offer to the residents of this City who are working hard to stay here. I understand from some Riverfront residents that there is a service offered by (either Downtown Visions or the WPD or both) to escort Riverfront residents from the train station back to their homes. Which is completely remarkable to me — I live about the same distance from the train station and am not eligible for any such escort. But once again, we find that the City is still more invested in some parts of the city than they are in other parts.
While no one should have to live with the petty crimes that some folks downtown live with, it is the shootings just a few blocks away (think 7th and Washington) that is the genuinely scary crime. This is the crime that gives the city its bad reputation. This is where some of the petty crime that happens downtown starts from. And yet — in spite of efforts from people like Councilwoman Loretta Walsh — the City has yet to step up to address the issues emanating from that corner in any real or effective way for all of the rest of us. It is not just 7th and Washington, either — there are other hotspots in the city as well, but these aren’t being addressed either. It is pretty clear that they’re not going to implement much of the WPSSC report recommendations, but they will work at making people who work at Dupont feel safer in the kind of safe zone that much of the rest of the city wishes they had. So all of Wilmington gets to watch its leadership do a considerable about of tap dancing to reassure the people at Dupont and continue to watch its leadership fail to grasp the fundamental problem here.
On Thursday, there is a meeting at City Council which will in part provide an update from Chief Bobby Cummings on their implementation of the WPSSC recommendations. This is meant to be an accountability session from Theo Gregory, which I predict will simply be grandstanding from both. No answers, no solutions, no accountability — certainly. Theo Gregory had his chance at accountability when he had a budget to get approved. And now he has no leverage and hasn’t a chance at any of the accountability that EVERYONE in this city deserves.
Tags: City of Wilmington, Council President Theo Gregory, Featured, Mayor Dennis Williams, WPSSC
Anyone want to take bets on how many times the Chief will say he doesn’t have a statistic on crime rates or numbers of officers or other such factual data the council asks for, but tells them he will get the info to them later?
Happens every meeting, which kind of diminishes the point of “public” meetings.
I am of two minds on Downtown Visions. I like what they do outside (eg., relatively benign safety presence, non-violence intervention), but as a News Journal article documented a few months ago, they have a very suspicious surveillance operation going on inside.
Anyhow, anyone inside the Downtown boundary is eligible for a DTV escort from a business to their car or home. I happen to know this for a fact. So, Cass, you are eligible for the safety-escort service if you wanted it.
The only restriction is that DTV can only do it inside the “Downtown Business Zone” so you’ll have to double check where exactly that is. I think the WPD need to be involved on the south side of MLK/Riverfront because that’s outside the business district. But it’s my understanding DTV will hand off the WPD or vice versa in that case.
I wonder is the schizophrenia is induced by the fact that one facet of problem (business district during business hours) feels manageable and one (guns, drugs, poverty, youth without prospects, etc) feels intractable. ??
I agree with Jason, but I would add that his definition of “business hours” has to include the evening to encompass serving the dining/entertainment venues along Market Street.
And I’ll disagree with Dorian’s characterization of a “suspicious surveillance operation,” since two of the key issues there are that many cameras weren’t working and the monitoring operation is understaffed.
Back to Jason’s point — if you take a look at the map of what is described as the downtown business district [http://downtownwilmingtonde.com/neighborhood/], you will see that, aside from the upscale upstairs apartments on Market, there’s very little residential included. (Even the middle-class Midtown Brandywine neighborhood is carved out)
There’s a big difference between preventing crime in an area where most of the people are going about their business in offices and shops and in those neighborhoods where guns, drugs, poverty and youth with little to look forward to are prevalent. Foot patrols and Downtown Visions “ambassadors” can handle the former; the latter requires not only more effective policing but also better education and more job opportunities.
As for Cass qualifying for an escort, it’s worth a phone call to check, but I wonder whether the Ambassadors would walk with her outside the boundaries of their own safe zone.
You are correct about the final bit. The DTV Ambassadors are prohibited by charter/rules to escort anyone outside the predetermined downtown zone. However, they will coordinated with WPD if you ask. That’s what the Executive Director told me anyway.
As far as DTV’s use of CCTV (and other experimental surveillance tools), I’ll just suggest you reread the News Journal article more closely first. Additionally, I suspect I may know a little more about it than you might suppose I know. It’s extremely suspicious. I’m not accusing anyone of anything illegal, but I believe if the full workings of the program were known it would be extremely controversial.
i’m definitely outside of the DTV business district.
And the DTV camera operation has long been plagued with multiple suspicions about the integrity of that operation. I’ve had more than one WPD officer tell me how they think that the monitors might be in cahoots with the people being monitored. Nothing they can prove (yet), but that suspicion is very old indeed.
Those suspicions are one of the reasons why the WPSSC recommended that a light-duty WPD officer be assigned to oversee that operation. And that was immediately shot down by the Chief. It would also help if there were *more* monitors (which are coming, if they aren’t already there) and if there was a formal protocol for managing the video once it is recorded.
The Chemours complaints are pure bullshit, offered as an a priori explanation for its all-but-certain move out of the city. The killer was deranged; that could have happened anywhere.
Until someone gets the police on the street instead of wherever the fuck they are instead, this will continue.
With apologies to Jason, PUT THE MOTHERFUCKING POLICE ON THE MOTHERFUCKING STREETS, MOTHERFUCKERS!
I think I have just agreed with Geezer for the first time ever!
I’m not as eloquent as Geezer, but he’s correct. I’m a city resident who’s all over the city and I rarely see a cop. Where are the cops?
One lives down the street from me (south of the canal).
If they put the cops on the street, they wouldn’t be available to sit next to the chief while he makes promises to Chemours.
I do see police but not nearly as often as one would think they would be driving by, especially in so called hot spots.
Was out with a crowd of folks last night on Concord Ave., probably out about an hour and I don’t recall seeing one patrol car come by, though I guess I could have missed it. Though one would think they would stop and inquire why this crowd was standing on the corner.
Cassandra, as a City of Wilmington employee, I can say your posts are pretty much always 100% on point.
Thank you, LashLarue!
I don’t think that the Chemours complaints are entirely BS. I know a business owner with a facility close to downtown whose employees are pressuring them to get out of there. I don’t doubt that other employers get the same pushback, especially since there doesn’t seem to be much improvement in the headlines. Still — Chemours employees are in one of the safest parts of town. Downtown is bordered by West Center City which provides some of the criminal activity that continues to plague Downtown, but getting to one of the roots of the issues seems to not be of interest to the city.
NCCo PD has been providing some supplement to the WPD by patrolling in West Center City and Downtown for some periods — thanks to Matt Denn who made the ask. I am not sure how long that will last — I saw plenty of NCCo PD activity the first week they started and have seen less over the past weeks. That may just be a function of my schedule, though.
County mounted patrol that was at RS/Downtown left the weekend before last due to a prior engagement. Word around the water cooler is they are not coming back, although I am not sure. Their Mobile Enforcement Team has also ended it’s operations in the city.
Yikes – MOVE if your still living that hell hole.
Combating Crime in Wilmington, DE
GUEST OPINION
By: Steven Washington, M.Ed
How do we combat crime in Wilmington, Delaware? It appears that nonsense shootings are happening almost daily and we constantly look for solutions. Have we exercised every avenue or do we really want it to stop? We really must become proactive and not reactive.
I would like to introduce safety right in the palm of your hand via your mobile phone. This app will help deter crime and build communication. Don’t hesitate to visit my web-site: http://www.ubnappd.com/sw71
UbnAppd is a video recording and safety alerting app:
What would you do if you got pulled over by the Police, walking alone or had an incident with someone? Would you want an eye witness?
Parents, Do you worry about your kids safety? Would you want to be alerted within minutes of an incident they have?
UbnAppd is an app that records video, alerts emergency contacts within minutes of an incident & tracks GPS location. Once video is uploaded video can’t be deleted for 30 days and has an emergency panic button alert system
Be proactive instead of reactive to incidents or crime to help keep you and your loved ones safe in today’s unpredictable world.
Cost is $2.50 a month ( billed annually ).
Would you rather be safe or sorry? UbnAppd is a no brainer to have on everyone’s phone.
So I would use this if I was being ub-napped?
Pardon me, sir, while I unlock my phone, scroll through and find my ubNapp app, so I can record this effectively.
Once uploaded to your mobile phone, the App will show on your home screen and you will not have to scroll to find the app. Go to website and look at the video. A needed application in the Wilmington community. Curious why Wilmington will not use to combat crime. A true game changer!!!
Maybe because in a city where looking like you’re cooperating with police even by phone can be potentially dangerous, posting a video of criminal behavior with your unique content ID on it is …
Be mindful, the app is a safety app, not a security app. This app is for proactive people not reactive people. Have you noticed that our politicians in Wilmington, Delaware react to issues. We need to be proactive. The reason why we have not witnessed positive change is because our leadership throughout our local government display a fixed mind-set, in a reactive city, with a good old boy network. In order for positive change to take place, the leadership must grow their brains which entails having a growth mind-set, in a proactive city, with the demise of the good old boy network. There can not be good change without good sense. (change – cents) do the math.