BY CATHERINE TSAI
The Cincinnati Enquirer
DAYTON, Ky. -- Residents say law enforcement isn't the same since the new police chief came to town.
Dayton Administrator Dan Groth says that's what he wants to hear.
From November 1997 through April of this year, Dayton police made 92 arrests or citations for driving under the influence. In the six months prior to that, there were nine.
"We're finally enforcing the laws," Mr. Groth said.
But some in this city of 6,600 aren't so pleased.
"They're just getting too carried away," said resident Clay Henry.
As Police Chief Fred Hildebrant finishes his first year here, some residents are still promoting a handwritten petition they started in April asking police for more respect. Signers say they're tired of getting stopped for minor traffic violations or when they've done nothing wrong.
About 400 signatures have been collected so far, but organizers say they want more. None of the petitions has been turned in.
While petitions circulate, so do stories of police behavior that signers say is harassment. They say the change started after Chief Hildebrant took over last August.
The chief says officers are just doing their jobs.
City statistics show that while DUI arrests have increased, numbers of overnight hit-and-run accidents have dropped 70 percent since 1997. DUI arrests have remained high with 29 in May and June. In Dayton bars, cigarette smoke and cop stories swirl as neighbors swap tales.
Some patrons claim friends have been stopped while walking home from bars or been told to take glass bottles of ginger ale back inside the building. It's not all about drinking either, they say. Millard Cox said police questioned him late one night after he circled his block looking for a parking space.
"We know the cops have a job to do," said Laura Hammonds, who was born and raised in Dayton. "But they don't have to assume that everyone is drunk."
Ken Roberts, who has moved out of Dayton, said the stories have kept him away from the city's hangouts.
"I'm afraid to come to Dayton anymore because I might be pulled over and be harassed," he said.
Reactions like that have lowered business at several bars where stools start to empty at 9 or 10 at night, patrons say.
Mr. Groth and Chief Hildebrant said they're trying to clean up the town, not run businesses out of it.
"We are pleased that we are taking the drunks who are endangering the lives of our children, endangering the people of Dayton, off the streets," Chief Hildebrant said.
That confuses bar patrons, who say they've been stopped though they already walk home, get a ride or call a cab rather than drive drunk.
But according to city attorney Jack Fisher, 70 percent of DUI arrests between last November and April were of out-of-town drivers.
"I believe we're doing a service to the rest of Northern Kentucky by preventing those subjects from driving," Detective Mike Puckett said.
Mr. Fisher acknowledged complaints that DUI arrests have increased, but nearly all of them result in guilty pleas or findings of guilt, showing the arrests were justified, he said.
As for police presence, Dayton night owls claim officers park outside bars or look for late-night juvenile loiterers.
A random check by a reporter on a Saturday in early July showed just one police car on Sixth Avenue from 12:30 to 1:30 a.m.
Yet two weeks later, on a six-block stretch of Sixth Avenue, three police cars plus two officers on foot were spotted from 11:15 to 11:30 p.m. During that period, an officer stopped an out-of-state car for a traffic violation but did not issue a ticket.
Meanwhile, there's still grumbling around town about a larger police force that grew by three officers in the past year, despite a lack of major violent crime.
"Major crimes, we're way behind times, which is good," resident Mike Sucher said. "We're a little hillbilly town."
The police haven't irritated everyone. Some have tried to adapt to having more officers on the streets.
"In a way, I'm glad," said Janice Hensley, a bartender at Long Branch Saloon. "I know a lot of people are complaining, but I would rather there be too many than too (few)."
In City Hall, Mr. Groth seems to have put on a face of reconciliation. In early July, he agreed to have bar owners voice their concerns at a city council meeting.
"I even put them on the agenda to let them have their say, but no one showed up," Mr. Groth said.
Police maintain that they're too busy to sit outside bars.
"When you have that many bars, you're going to see someone coming out of a bar, just doing routine patrol," Detective Puckett said. "When you see that, you're obligated to do something about it." Some bar owners and residents have considered a protest march, but so far, one has not been organized.
