By Jane Prendergast
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Cincinnati Police announced its annual Robbery Task Force on Friday, with some new twists: officers staying in their neighborhoods and an experiment with crime mapping.

The command staff and task force supervisors will get weekly maps that show where robberies and other serious crimes occurred the previous week. They'll use them to plot strategy for the following week, Lt. Jeff Butler said.

The department's small crime analysis unit can produce such maps now, but doesn't do so as often. Officials on Friday also said the task force will be working more this year with neighboring agencies, and its statistics also will be available to Cincinnati so the city can see any links to crimes, for example, in St. Bernard or Norwood.

"If, for example, we see some robberies in Sayler Park,'' Lt. Butler said, "I can check Delhi's statistics, call them and say, `Can I have a couple guys work with us for a couple days?' Criminals don't just stop when they leave the city.''

More than 100 officers will work with the task force - about 30 of them from the current Violent Crime Squad in the five districts. Capt. James Whalen, commander of the task force, wanted them to stay in their respective areas.

"We've heard from a lot of neighborhoods - they love their cops,'' he said. "And they want their cops to be in their neighborhoods.''

In past years, officers were pulled from their districts to work on a more centralized task force. This time, they'll stay spread out but get help from officers in the Criminal Investigations Section, vice and Street Corner units.

There will be increased police presence downtown, with officers on foot, horseback and bicycles, Chief Tom Streicher said.

The task force's priorities will be violent crime, thefts from vehicles, serving warrants on fugitives and street-level drug enforcement.

E-mail jprendergast@enquirer.com