By Joe Olivieri

Neighborhood watches help lower crime rates, police say

Police say Southwest Austin does not have a major crime problem. Residents aim to keep it that way.

Local communities are strengthening neighborhood watches as a way to stay safe. Residents are also joining Nextdoor.com, a "virtual neighborhood watch" and online social network where users can post public safety information.

Barton Hills resident John Luther said residents are banding together to be the solution to reducing crime.

"The reason that people are getting involved is that law enforcement is under more strain and required to patrol more territory," he said. "They are unable to patrol the neighborhoods with the frequency they did in the past. It is up to the neighborhoods to pick up that slack."

Crime trends

Community Impact Newspaper defines Southwest Austin as being south of Ben White Boulevard, west of I-35, north of FM 1626 and east of FM 1826.

That area includes APD dispatch districts "David" and "Frank," although Frank district also includes part of Southeast Austin.

Southwest Austin has a low violent crime rate compared to the rest of the city, Austin Police Commander Todd Gage said.

Southwest Austin had three of the city's 28 homicides in 2013, and the victims were somehow connected to the perpetrators, Gage said.

As for individual robberies, David district had 30, and Frank district had 66 in 2013, he said. By comparison, the East Austin district had 80, the Northeast Austin district had 133 and there were 603 robberies citywide.

Southwest Austin's property crime rates are trending down, but the area is an attractive target for property crime because of its dense population of homes, Gage said.

APD tracks residential, vehicle and business burglaries and vehicle theft.

"Of all of those categories, 14 to 16 percent of that crime is in [Southwest Austin]," Gage said. "It's kind of low, but we still have some challenges."

Neighborhood watches

There is no one type of neighborhood watch—area residents have done everything from holding monthly meetings and designating block captains to conducting patrols, Luther said. Neighborhoods often maintain Facebook pages and mailing lists.

Luther's neighborhood of Barton Hills was the first in Austin to perform volunteer patrols, he said.

Luther said he partners with police and Travis County constables to train residents. Barton Hills has roughly 30 volunteers who serve as eyes and ears for the police.

"We are never armed, and we never get out of the car," he said.

Every day residents take turns putting magnetic "Neighborhood watch" signs on their cars and driving random routes through area streets. Volunteers' detailed knowledge about their communities, such as when to expect certain cars in certain driveways, helps them in their patrols, he said.

Luther said volunteers look for open doors and signs of forced entry as well as cars backed into driveways with trunks open.

"We talk to [convicted burglars] who have been incarcerated, and they say when they are looking for a neighborhood to hit, if anyone on the block looks like they are paying attention, they go somewhere else," he said.

Communities with block captains divide their neighborhoods into blocks. Block captains are residents who pass on their training to their neighbors and help organize heightened awareness on their blocks.

Luther said he also teaches residents tricks to make homes safer. Installing longer screws to strengthen a deadbolt—a $1 renovation—can stop a burglar from kicking in a door, he said.

Nextdoor.com

APD announced in December it would partner with California-based website Nextdoor.

Site spokeswoman Kelsey Grady said the site has a bottom-up approach: Residents draw the neighborhood boundaries, invite neighbors to join, and foster and manage the individual sites themselves, she said.

"We are simply giving Austin and cities across the country an easier way to facilitate neighbor-to-neighbor communication," she said.

Crime is not the only topic on Nextdoor; contributors can post anything from missing pet alerts to ads that offer handyman services, Grady said.

Police can post messages to Nextdoor and receive responses to their posts, but they cannot browse the site or collect information, Grady said. Police can target specific posts only to an affected part of town, she added.

"This morning there was a lockdown at a school," she said. "I imagine they would send out that information to everyone in the neighborhood."

There are more than 160 Nextdoor sites in the seven ZIP codes Community Impact Newspaper considers to be Southwest Austin. There have been more than 1,100 posts about crime and safety in the area, Grady said.

Residents

Two years ago concerned residents started Community Awareness for South Austin, group President Roger Casanova said.

The group promotes communication between residents and police. CASA later changed its name to Community Advocates for a Safer Austin.

Casanova said he is pleased with the level of safety in South Austin.

"We have to look beyond our backyards and front doors," he said. "We have to look out for everybody and not just our own [neighborhood]."

Westcreek Neighborhood Association President Jennifer Voss moved to the neighborhood for the good schools and proximity to downtown.

Voss said residents started signing up for Nextdoor after APD announced its partnership.

"There had been an uptick in property crime in our part of town, and as you can imagine, residents became interested [in Nextdoor]," she said.

Voss said Nextdoor's mobile app allows users to quickly post photos.

"The police had told us that people in the area had become complacent and were leaving car doors unlocked," she said.

Westcreek has a neighborhood watch program, hosts community meetings and posts advice online.

Martin Rodriguez, president of the Meadows at Double Creek homeowners association, said he built his house in the Meadows at Double Creek 2 1/2 years ago. It is a neighborhood in which residents participate in Easter egg hunts and work together on Halloween decorations, he said.

He said Nextdoor is a more social way of connecting to his neighbors.

Rodriguez said his neighborhood's Nextdoor site counts 35 of the neighborhood's 125 homes as subscribers.

"I had a neighbor find a lost dog with no tags," he said. "I said, 'Let's put it on Nextdoor.' Within an hour, someone replied, 'That's my neighbor's dog.' We had gotten the dog back home in 90 minutes. It was really something."