By Jane Prendergast
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Officers in Cincinnati's Robbery Task Force, who finish their first full week today, have made more than 70 arrests and are spending extra time on hot spots in three neighborhoods - Clifton, Corryville and Roselawn.

KEEPING WATCH

The neighborhood focus points: Corryville, where District 4's Violent Crime Squad has been working off and on for weeks. Roselawn, where senior citizens, many of them Russian Jewish immigrants, have been targets for young thieves. Statistics show that these happen often between 2:30 and 7 p.m., Lt. Jeff Butler said, so more officers will be assigned to the neighborhood at that time. Clifton, specifically Ludlow Avenue, which has been the site of about six purse-snatchings and street robberies in the last two weeks, Lt. Butler said. It's a common place, he said, for robberies around the holidays.

The annual holiday effort began Nov. 29, but a few officers started as early as Nov. 18. Their statistics through the end of November report six of 16 robberies solved, for an early closure rate of 37 percent. Lt. Jeff Butler, assistant commander of the task force, said he was satisfied with the preliminary number, but expects it to jump when he completes this week's reports.

Capt. James Whalen, task force commander, kept officers in their districts this year instead of making them into a centralized unit as in the past. Many of the officers are from the districts' Violent Crime Squads, with some from the Street Corner drug unit and others who do investigations.

"We're very happy with the decentralization,'' Lt. Butler said. "They're focusing where their problems are."

Officers have arrested 71 people, 62 of them adults. Thirty-six face felony charges and 38 people face vice-related charges (prostitution, liquor violations, etc).

They confiscated crack, heroin, marijuana and Oxycontin pills, as well as $2,011, three stolen vehicles and four guns.

The number of gun confiscations will rise dramatically next week, with District 1 officers recovering two guns Tuesday afternoon alone.

Both confiscations came from drug-surveillance work along Vine Street in Over-the-Rhine.

E-mail jprendergast@enquirer.com