October 22 Neighborhood Watch Meeting has Substantial Turnout

By: Kim Davis (Old North Knoxville webmaster)
October 31, 2002

A Neighborhood Watch meeting was held Tuesday, October 22nd at the Fourth Presbyterian Church.  The purpose of this meeting was to meet with Captain Jack Jinks and to meet Old North Knoxville's (ONK) new Knoxville Police Department (KPD) beat officers that were put into place as a result of the redistricting of our area from East District to Central District on October 13.  

Our hats are off to Rena Webb, the co-founder of ONK's neighborhood watch (along with her husband Greg Webb) for publicizing this meeting via email and fliers.  The meeting room was full, not only with representatives from ONK, but a healthy smattering of Fourth and Gill residents.

Captain Jinks, who has been in police duty for 28 years, first explained why ONK was redistricted:

• A need for more geographic definition
  
• An analysis of crime patterns indicated the potential for better response times with the new districting
  
• A desire for the most efficient grouping of districts considering the density of the area consisting of ONK, 4th and Gill and the Mission District (all now part of the Central District).

Much of the meeting was spent addressing various concerns of the citizens, such as why bicycle patrols were never implemented despite promises to do so, why KPD would not allow ONK hire an off-duty officer, and individuals' observations of car break-ins, vagrants, and prostitution that they had been confronted with.  Captain Jinks responded that he cannot answer questions about the history of such incidents, but can only promise to do the best job he can addressing these concerns with his team of officers in the future.  He repeatedly stated that the new beat officers have been hand-picked to deal with such situations and that if ONK felt they had to hire an off-duty officer, then clearly KPD would be letting the citizens down.

Suggestions that were floated during the meeting included:

• Starting a neighborhood watch for Fourth and Gill
• Working towards developing a city ordinance to eliminate right-hand turns in ONK during early morning hours (to discourage constant cruising) and
• Using KPD Cadets to ticket illegally parked and unregistered cars.
[1]

To KPD's credit, heightened police presence is already evident in ONK.  A prostitution sting recently occurred, resulting in the numerous arrests of perpetrators and their clients.[2]   Patrol vehicles have been seen monitoring areas widely known to be the origins of  problematic activities.  I even saw someone pulled over for a traffic violation the other day!  Truly a rare event.

An excellent way to be in touch with others in ONK and Fourth and Gill concerned about criminal activity in our neighborhoods is to subscribe to "37917," a Yahoo group.  Go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/37917/, and follow the instructions of how to join.  Currently this list has 32 members and is rapidly growing.

Captain Jinks also suggested that the non-emergency number, 215-4010, is better for calling in about non life-threatening situations due to the heavy competition (and potential communication breakdown) that one must deal with when calling 911.

[1] The police cadets are already writing tickets during the day on a regular basis, as reported at the November 21 neighborhood meeting. A regular KPD officer continues this practice at night.

[2] Forty arrests during the month of November, according to the KPD.