Gilroy Police Department Chief Denise Turner says downtown is as
safe as almost anywhere in the city. And she wants to prove it.
Police will now focus more on Downtown Gilroy, Turner said, as
part of a new project to determine what about the area is unsafe
and what is just a misconception.
Gilroy Police Department Chief Denise Turner says downtown is as safe as almost anywhere in the city.
And she wants to prove it.
Police will now focus more on Downtown Gilroy, Turner said, as part of a new project to determine what about the area is unsafe and what is just a misconception.
The GPD will hold a public meeting from 10 a.m. to noon Wednesday in the department’s community room to formally announce the new plan – known as problem-oriented policing and to hear residents’ concerns about public safety in Gilroy, Turner said.
Rowdy bar patrons, unrepaired buildings and other factors make downtown appear unsafe, but if police, city officials, local business owners and residents commit to improving the area, the project will result in an improved image for downtown, Turner said.
“They will see clearly there is not a predominance of crime in our downtown,” she said. “It’s just a perception.”
Turner said the ambiguity of where exactly downtown ends and begins also has contributed to differing opinions on the area’s safety. One of the goals of Wednesday’s meeting will be to define what streets are considered part of downtown, she said.
Turner said the department decided to undertake the new project after local developer Gary Walton and other business owners expressed concern over downtown safety.
Gilroy City Councilman Dion Bracco said during the Council’s goal-setting session Friday that downtown was “getting a bad rap.”
“I’ve never felt unsafe downtown,” Bracco said.
Councilwoman Cat Tucker said she had overheard a resident eating at OD’s Kitchen on 28 Martin St. say they would never come downtown if it weren’t for that restaurant.
Even if there aren’t more crimes being committed downtown, some residents still feel uneasy going there, Tucker said.
“The perception is there,” she said.
Walton has pushed for new, white halide bulbs to replace the current yellow ones as one way to improve the perception of downtown.
Other downtown business owners have said the area’s 28 unoccupied unreinforced masonry buildings don’t make downtown a welcoming visit.
“I look at crime stats and I look at the entire community, and there’s really not a higher level of crime downtown, but the people who live there or work there or have businesses there think there is,” Turner said. “So it’s a process of going through and looking at really what the stats are, what the reality is and considering what the perception is.”
Problem-oriented policing occurs when isolated pieces of police business are subject to up-close examination in hopes of learning about a problem and discovering new and effective strategies for dealing with it, according to the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing, a nonprofit organization comprised of police practitioners, researchers and universities dedicated to the advancement of the plan.
Turner is also promoting a website called crimereports.com, which receives information from the GPD and allows residents to view and follow recent crimes. The site will have the ability to separate crime statistics by neighborhood in the future.
Turner said the new policing plan will reveal downtown in a much clearer, more accurate image.
“We’re going to take a look at it and say, ‘Is there a problem? And if there is, how can we address it?’ ” Turner said. “Because it’s really not just a police problem. It’s all of ours. It’s the business owners, it’s the landlords, the police, the Council, the city workers. We all have to work on the problem.”
Downtown’s most-recurring crime issues are related to downtown bars, Turner said.
“They’re noisy, there’s a lot of drunken incidents related to them and I think that creates fear,” Turner said. “We’ve had shootings and stabbings and fights related to drunkenness. We’re going to start looking at all those different facets and figure out how … (to) try and solve it.”
The GPD could send more police to downtown night spots or work with other agencies to quell violent activities, Turner said.
Turner said downtown also suffered from what’s known as the broken windows theory – a belief that crime can be prevented in certain areas if they are well-maintained aesthetically.
“We’ll be looking at the blight problem downtown,” Turner said. “If there’s garbage, if there’s graffiti, if there’s vandalism, if there are broken or abandoned buildings, unoccupied buildings, those are things we need to really work on because then people aren’t going to be as fearful about coming downtown.”
Downtown Gilroy’s attempt at a revival will partly be dependent on how safe residents think the area is, Turner said.
“Because if the perception is there, that’s part of reality,” she said. “People won’t come there, they won’t shop, they won’t eat if they believe it’s unsafe.”
