In the predominately African-American neighborhood of Evanston, business owners are blowing the whistle on drug dealers. Residents are filing police reports. Police officers are working closely with residents.

        In Evanston, a neighborhood once considered among the city's most troubled, such collaborations between police and residents are virtually brand new.

        A year ago, police officers there had a reputation for riding in their patrol cars with their windows rolled up and hands on their guns. Distrustful residents, meanwhile, were reluctant to share information that might lead to arrests.

        “I think a lot of residents saw the police as persecutors, not law enforcers,” said the Rev. Peterson Mingo, pastor of Evanston's Christ Temple Baptist Church. “And I think police viewed the residents as perpetrators, not partners.

        “The cops looked upon the neighborhood as a fortress against them,” he said. “And the neighborhood looked at the police as invaders. There was a lot of suspicion on both sides.”

        Now, however, Evanston is the proving ground for one of the more tangible programs created by Mayor Charlie Luken's race-relations task force, Cincinnati Community Action Now (CAN). The program, dubbed the Cincinnati Plan, teams police with civilians to explore ways to reduce crime.

        What's happening in Evanston offers a glimpse of how this effort may work citywide.

        The Cincinnati Plan is a copy of a nationally acclaimed program started in Boston in 1992 that mobilized police and black churches. The National Ten-Point Leadership Foundation's program has dramatically reduced crime and homicides in Boston during the past decade and has become a model for reducing black-on-black crime and improving police-community relations.

Evanston among first

        Cincinnati's version combines problem-oriented policing and so-called “Weed and Seed” programs with juvenile community courts and young street volunteers. Evanston was one of the first communities exposed to the Cincinnati Plan because CAN leaders felt the commission could piggyback on the problem-oriented policing and federally funded drug and crime prevention programs already under way there.

        CAN volunteers worked to launch juvenile community courts into Evanston so first-time juvenile offenders could have their court proceedings near home. The commission organized classes to train residents and church leaders how to interact with police. CAN also started recruiting young volunteers to patrol the neighborhood and steer kids away from drugs, violence and gang activity.

        “The police and the community have a common need to see crime reduced,” said CAN co-chairman Ross Love. “The level of crime in our city is unacceptable and we have to work together to get this fixed.”

        The Cincinnati Plan has created a new, spirited level of cooperation between police and African-Americans in Evanston, the Rev. Mr. Mingo said.

Police image changing

        “There is not an atmosphere of distrust anymore. It's an atmosphere of let's-wait-and-see,” he said. “There's been a whole lot of progress.”

        Police who patrol the neighborhood are starting to reach out to residents and relax their authoritarian image.

        Foot patrols are becoming more common and officers are working closer with civilians to develop strategies to weed out drug dealers. The district commander even reassigned a few officers who the Rev. Mr. Mingo complained were harassing black youths.

        Meanwhile, outside the Evanston Community Center, residents have hung a banner that reads, “We support our police and firefighters.”

        The Rev. Mr. Mingo said he recently saw a group of neighborhood kids run up to two officers, wanting to be photographed with them. And last Saturday, a couple of officers showed up to a community carwash at the Rev. Mr. Mingo's church to have their cruiser cleaned.

        “That is almost unheard of in Evanston,” the Rev. Mr. Mingo said. “But it shows that there has been a complete change in the way the community feels about police and vice-versa.”

        That attitude change didn't come without some resistance. Cincinnati Police Sgt. Andre Smith, a beat cop in Evanston, said he would be the first to admit he didn't buy into the program, particularly when he heard of CAN's involvement.

        “I thought it was a joke,” he said. “I figured this was just going to be another feel-good thing that wouldn't really amount to much in the end.”

Police sergeant converted

        But after months of working under the Cincinnati Plan, Sgt. Smith counts himself among the converted. In fact, he has become sort of an informal liaison among Cincinnati CAN, the community and District 2 police officers.

        “This model works and if there is serious application of this concept, we as a city will go a long way,” Sgt. Smith said. “What I find profound is that there are only two neighborhoods practicing this right now (Evanston and Madisonville). We should be at a point where all of our neighborhoods are practicing this concept.”

        Sgt. Smith meets with a group of about seven Evanston residents every other Wednesday at District 2 headquarters to talk about what they view as crime problems in their neighborhoods. Once those have been identified, the two sides explore ways that they can work together to solve the situation.

        One example of how this collaboration works best occurred several months ago when residents began complaining about empty milk crates left in the parking lot of Sam's Grocery Corner Store on Woodburn Avenue. The residents complained that drug dealers were using the crates as “lawn chairs” to conduct their business.

        Police asked the store owner to start locking up the milk crates. Within days, the drug dealers moved on.

        “It is those little things that give you credibility with residents,” Sgt. Smith said. “Now, that didn't eliminate the drug problem entirely, but it helped to give those residents peace of mind.”

Business owners buy in

        Business owners are starting to buy into the partnership. In February, Edward Perkins, the owner of Perkins Bar Cafi, aided police with a drug sweep that nabbed about 15 suspects. Unbeknown to the owner, Sgt. Smith said, drug dealers often used his Montgomery Road establishment as a haven when police pulled up.

        “We asked him to cooperate with us and close his bar down early every night at 9 p.m.,” Sgt. Smith said. “We told him we knew he'd incur some financial loss, but at least he wouldn't have to hire a lawyer if we came up in there and caught someone up in his bar.”

        Some of his fellow officers at other districts laughed at the idea.

        “They didn't think it would work. They said he'd never do it, because it was something that had never been tried before,” he said.

        But the owner agreed.

        “We took a different tack and because of what (the owner) did, we were able to arrest some people and push other drug dealers to a different block. So now we are concentrating our efforts there,” Sgt. Smith said. “This is like a war; you take one hill at a time.”

        Mr. Perkins, 73, said he agreed to close his business early for six months because he wanted to see the drug problem solved as much as the police did. Mr. Perkins said he couldn't be there to watch his bar 24 hours a day and most of the “crazy stuff” happened after 9 p.m.

        “There was so much drug activity on that corner that I really had no choice,” said Mr. Perkins, whose business has been an Evanston mainstay since 1958.

        “They could have easily closed me up. But by being in the community as long as I have been, I think the police gave me a little leeway.”

        Police in Evanston have become more accessible to the public — a change Sgt. Smith credits to CAN and the leadership of District 2 Cmdr. Capt. Michael Cureton. Officers regularly attend community council meetings and it's not uncommon to see an officer playing basketball with neighborhood kids at the recreation center when his shift is over.

        “Sharing power with civilians is something that police are not used to doing,” Sgt. Smith said. “It has been a difficult transition, but I find it a necessary one.”

        Assistant Police Chief Rick Biehl added: “If crime is allowed to be only a police problem, I don't see much improvement in any of the problem areas in our community. Our officers can no longer afford to say "Move along, this a police matter.'

        “That is the worst message we could send to a citizen. It probably never should have been a message,” he said.

        The Rev. Mr. Mingo said the CAN commission deserves some of the credit for helping to transform his neighborhood.

        “My dream is to be able to walk down the streets of Evanston when I'm 60 with $20 in my hand and not worry about being mugged,” the Rev. Mr. Mingo said.

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