WEST CHESTER TWP. — Another violent incident this week at an apartment complex with a rising crime problem has police officials promising a crackdown. A regular patrol there was yanked last year because of a lack of officers.

        Meadow Ridge Apartments off Muhlhauser Road has been the scene of several incidents this summer, and the number of offense reports taken there this year, 173, is close to outpacing last year's total number of 179.

        Calls for service are also up compared with this time last year and now stand at 565, compared with 638 overall last year, records show.

        “It's a mess,” West Chester Police Sgt. Steve Oakes said. “It's low-income housing there, and for some reason we seem to have an abundant amount of calls over there.”

        On Wednesday, a 23-year-old woman was forced at gunpoint into her apartment in the 5300 block of Aster Park Drive and held against her will for more than three hours by an ex-boyfriend.. She called police after the gunman left in her car, which officers recovered Wednesday in Lincoln Heights.

        Vegas Huffacker, 21, of Lincoln Heights, is wanted on kidnapping and aggravated robbery charges.

        Most of the incidents at the complex have been occurring in the 5200 and 5300 blocks of Aster Park Drive, records show. On Sept. 1, police arrested a felon there who was wanted in connection with the Aug. 31 beating death of an 85-year-old man in his Sycamore Township home.

        In August, an 18-year-old girl was raped in an apartment there during a party; and last week, three people were robbed at gunpoint as they left an apartment at 12:40 a.m. The gunman wore a black ski mask, fled with their wallets and remains on the loose.

        “I went up there campaigning and went to about four doors and said, "Let me out of here,”' Trustee Dave Tacosik said. “It's a rough place.”

        The complex, opened in 1997, holds about 900 people in 356 apartments and has a tax-credit program for low-income residents. “I'm just amazed at how bad things are getting,” said Lorna Hance, who lives in an apartment on Aster Park drive with her three young sons.

        Ms. Hance and other parents said they are so fearful now in light of rising crime, they are afraid to let their children out to play. Recently, Ms. Hance said, police apprehended a man at gunpoint 20 feet away from her front door, and she has witnessed marijuana sales in the parking lot. She also suspects there is gang activity at the complex.

        “I hate it here,” she said in her kitchen on a recent morning. “The city is coming to us. We've been in West Chester five generations and I'm watching it go to hell right before my eyes.”

        One of her neighbors, Charles Williams, called for more police patrols.

        Mr. Williams and other residents say the complex should be required by the township to pay for 24-hour off-duty police security patrols if it is going to continue to be such a den of violence.

        “That will help deter some of the things happening here that shouldn't,” he said.

        “It was real nice here a couple years ago when we moved in; but now it's getting bad, more ghettoized.”

        The complex's manager and owners refused comment Thursday.

        Trustee Catherine Stoker called for owners to work with the community and police to curb crime.

        “That is not the life we associate with West Chester, and it has to be nipped in the bud,” Ms. Stoker said. “The complex owners certainly need to be held accountable, and any laws we can hold them to we will. It's imperative to get more police out there.”

        A regular police patrol in the complex ended last year. The department is hiring more officers and hopes to have 81 by January; there now are 73 officers.

        Police Chief John Bruce said Thursday that more officers will hit the complex within two weeks.

        Ms. Stoker said she and other West Chester officials have feared low-income apartments owned by out-of-state companies such as Meadow Ridge that have sprung up would bring problems.

        “A community is more stable if housing is owned, and now I'm afraid we're reaping the consequences,” she said. “People who own where they live don't seem to have as high a crime rate.”

        Serious crime — such as robbery, assault and auto theft — rose 15 percent in West Chester from 2000 to 2001 and is estimated to increase 18 percent this year, police records show.

        The rise in crime is attributed in part to the area's housing and business growth.

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