A shooting in Woodbridge, and why I don’t feel unsafe

Posted on January 21, 2013 by primesuspect

Tonight, at least ten shots were fired from an SUV, and a man was killed on the sidewalk, about a thousand feet from my front door.

Lincoln jumped up from his chair and ran downstairs, asking if we had heard the commotion (we didn’t). He heard the gunshots and saw the SUV speeding south down Avery.

I called Wayne State Police and was told by the dispatcher that they already had several calls about the incident and they were on it, and did I have a description of the vehicle? I did not and they thanked me for the call. By the time I hung up, there were four police cars arriving on the scene; this is less than five minutes after the shooting. Both Detroit and Wayne State Police were on the scene, and EMS was on its way.

I immediately went to a private Facebook group for our neighborhood and asked if anybody knew what happened. Within moments, responses started flooding in. Continue reading →

Some parts of the city are a warzone, and the bad guys are winning

Posted on December 19, 2012 by primesuspect

Detroit is fascinating, wonderful, and terrible. We’ve had our share of ups and downs, and we hear gunshots at night, and there are car thefts and vandalism on our street, but none of us have any regrets about where we’ve moved, and so far at least, the positive far outweighs the negative.

But it’s not like that for everyone. We’re lucky that this neighborhood is among the safest in the city. We’re lucky that we have neighbors that watch out for suspicious activity and that watch out for each other. We’re luck that when we call the police, they show up immediately. Other parts of the city are not so fortunate as us.

A discussion on Reddit today reminds us that while positive growth is happening all over our city, other parts are a terrifying warzone, and the bad guys are winning. We can’t close our eyes to this and pretend everything’s okay—it’s not. Not by a long shot.

Continue reading →

Woodbridge neighborhood crime watch text alert group

Posted on March 6, 2012 by primesuspect

GroupMe is an app that has been around for almost two years now. Last year, I went to SXSW and used it to keep in touch with the extended group I was travelling with. It was a huge help to have a unified group messaging system that worked with a variety of devices.

Recently, I saw that Jerry Paffendorf of Loveland Technologies wrote a blog post about using GroupMe as a neighborhood crime watch alert system in Corktown, and I decided to start one for Woodbridge.

This fantastic idea is entirely Jerry’s. I’m just hoping to share the love in Woodbridge. As we’ve written about here, we’ve been the victims of petty crime and any information we can share as a community can only help us keep our neighborhood safer.

To reiterate some of the great points Jerry made on his blog post, let’s talk about what the group should and should never be used for:

Good Examples:

Someone just stole my car on the corner of X and Y.
Someone is breaking into my house at 555 Neighbor St!! Someone come help!
I just saw someone smash a window and get into a red van on the corner of Bad Boy and What You Gonna Do. License plate # 123 ABC

Bad Examples:

What’s up everybody? Enjoying a crime-free weekend I hope.
Help! I can’t find my keys!
OMG This weather is crazy right? lol.
lasstt caaallL @ Woodbridge Pub woooo!

In order to join the Woodbridge Crime Watch group, please send me a message on IntoDetroit with your mobile number and first and last name. Once you’re in the group, you can use a computer, a smartphone (Android or iPhone), or any phone that can send text messages.

If you witness anything going down, crime-wise, post to the group and call the Wayne State Police at (313) 577-2222 or 911. With a service like this we can start to identify patterns that will help law enforcement and help reduce crime in our community.

Empathy for intruders

Posted on February 14, 2012 by primesuspect

We had our third breakin this week. At this point, the intruder didn’t even take anything. After some walking around and some basic investigation, this is what I surmise:

The intruder hopped the wooden fence in the backyard. Footprints didn’t come from the alley, they came from the east, along Calumet. The entry point is the same point that it has been which tells me that this is probably the same person doing the intrusion.

Only one footprint (a left footprint) led from the fence in back up to the brick porch. This means that the jumper possibly twisted an ankle and hopped up to the brick wall.