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from The Telegraph
April 22, 2007
Alton unites to track criminals
Officials say information sharing system helping to snare troublemakers
By LINDA N. WELLER
The Telegraph
ALTON — A long, cooperative arm of the law is reaching out through a computer network to nab people who provide false addresses.
So far, more than 40 people have found out that not telling the truth about where they live can result in several charges from the police and the city, said George Carter, supervisor of building and zoning for Alton.
“It gets rid of another loophole. It’s to catch the undesirable people in Alton,” Carter said. “It’s another tool to make the ‘system’ work. The city of Alton is not going to tolerate this. It’s surprising the number of people who use the wrong addresses.”
He cited 19 cases in the first two months of 2007. The information sharing among police, jailers, building and zoning, the Madison County state’s attorney and probation officers, using new computers and software, started last fall.
Even more people have faced consequences from the Madison County Probation Department for not telling the truth about where they live.
Alton Lt. Mike McNamara called it “a benefit to police, building and zoning and animal control — all together. We’ll be able to target the problem properties, criminals, junk and trash, animal control and abandoned cars if we are able to get all citizens’ names in every (task force) division at one time. It seems to go hand in hand. With criminal problems we also get property maintenance problems, and we also get nuisance animals and derelict cars.”
The effort is an outgrowth of Alton’s multi-agency Nuisance Abatement Task Force. The task force is in its fifth year of specifically addressing derelict or ill-kept properties, abandoned vehicles, vicious dogs, occupancy permit violators and illegal drug use or sales. Deeply intertwined with those nuisances are the people who own or occupy those properties, with or without appropriate city occupancy permits. In some cases, such residents are wanted on warrants or are parolees or registered sex offenders who are required by law to give authorities their correct address.
As an example, authorities say if they don’t know where sex offenders are living, neither will parents of vulnerable children or other potential victims.
The $42,000 in software and computers allows officials to work together simultaneously online to track true residences by comparing information people provide when they are arrested, or even cited with a traffic violation, with city occupancy permits and the probation department.
“We realized we’re just getting ‘played,’ and we said, ‘How do we fix it?’” said Allan Napp, city attorney who works with the task force to prosecute cases and suggest legal remedies to nuisances. When officials compared addresses that the Altonians had provided them, “we came up with a horrible percentage,” he said.
From time to time, the percentage of fake addresses is as high as 25 percent, Napp said. As an example, people will check into the Madison County probation office in East Alton and give the address of where they lived years ago or the home of their aunt or girlfriend.
“All (Alton) jailers are double checking addresses with occupancy permits across the board,” he said. “We are finding an alarming number of people giving incorrect addresses.”
McNamara said each morning, clerks in the police records bureau cross-check addresses with the Building and Zoning Department of suspects that jailers haven’t checked.
“It is a seven-step process,” he said, but technology officer Pfc. Mike Bazzell is upgrading parts to make the process quicker.
“We want accurate police records for all of the suspects we have in our custody,” McNamara said. “It is important for court records and future needs if we have to contact an individual. I believe it is going to benefit the Police Department and make our records more accurate, which will assist us in everyday investigations.”
McNamara organizes the task force’s enforcement days, which began in March 2003. Nearly every month since then, a contingent of police, building inspectors and animal control officers have visited properties where someone has reported trash, old cars, substandard conditions or suspected drug traffic.
Napp said it took some time to draw in the “network” of participants and get the computers and software. “We fought pretty hard for this,” he said.
The city and county then agreed last year to share the information — particularly home addresses — of all of those who police cite or arrest. A federal community prosecution grant paid for the equipment.
Napp also said authorities need to know true residences of parolees, people known to carry guns and lawbreakers. They also want to know where convicted or suspected drug dealers are living, he said.
“If you are a street level crack cocaine dealer, you go to jail, get out and are on probation. You don’t want the police to know where you live.”
“Or there are calls for complaints on a lot of car traffic in front of a house,” Napp said. “A boyfriend is a crack dealer” who lives at the house but his name isn’t listed with city records.
Another example: “You are charged seven times with driving on a suspended license and convicted. You’ve never had insurance, and there is always a warrant out for your arrest,” Napp said. “You don’t want to be picked up on a warrant, so you don’t give your real address” to the probation office.
Such people are hazards to public safety, he said.
“In a way, you play the courts,” Napp said. “You are getting by playing the rules. There are only a finite number of ‘bad’ guys in town. The police know who the bad guys are, where they are and what they are doing. Catching them in the act is the hard part.”
Besides the criminal aspect of knowing who lives where, there is the city building and zoning aspect.
“A slumlord rents out a house to a nice woman, who is the only one on the occupancy permit,” Napp said. “She has two kids with her but doesn’t want to put them on the occupancy permit because they are on parole or probation. Three people are living there, but only one is on the occupancy permit. The city doesn’t know how many people are living at that particular house. It is an overcrowding issue.”
If the address doesn’t match up with the name on an occupancy permit, the person giving the phony address will be cited with providing police with false information or illegal occupancy and possible probation violations.
Napp said the property owner and whoever has his or her name on the lease, who ostensibly is allowing the person to live there, also is cited. Fines range from $75 to $750.
However, once in court, the true occupant of the home and the property owner have the chance to convince a judge.
“We ask if they know the person (living at the home). If it is clear they do not know them, they sign an affidavit saying that, which puts them in the clear,” McNamara said. If they are lying, they can face more charges.
If people do admit they know the person was living at the home without being listed on an occupancy permit, they face a fine and have 72 hours to get an occupancy permit.
“Out of 30 people, I’ve had only one person come to court,” Napp said. A father admitted his son was living at his house after being released from prison.
“Usually the tenant and landlord are not lying.”
Those people, he said, then learn that they can press charges against the person using their address. “This also lets them know a bad person is using their address, possibly for criminal activities. If so, the cops are likely to be banging on the door” looking for the suspect. The offenders don’t show up for court, he said, which earns them a new arrest warrant for failure to appear.
Napp said some people are learning not to lie about where they live. “It is not going to take long before the bad guys get aware of this. It will be too much hassle to stay under the radar,” Napp said. “The goal is to not let that happen anymore. It will make Alton a very uncomfortable place for bad guys. Our goal is, they are going to leave Alton. This is just one of the programs we started that is going to bear fruit.”
Napp said that since officials implemented the program, the probation department has put “body attachments” on more than 100 people who gave fake addresses.
“We’re going to stay on it. We want to know where the bad guys are living.”
from The Telegraph
April 22, 2007
Taking troublemakers to task
Task force goes door to door to address problems
By LINDA N. WELLER
The Telegraph
ALTON — The city’s Nuisance Abatement Task Force began its monthly “knock and talk” calls at problem properties in March 2003, racking up visits, derelict cars and property citations by the hundreds.
Still, members from the Alton Police Department, animal control and Alton Building and Zoning Department say much work is left to do to clean up the city and stop illegal drug sales.
“I think the problem doesn’t go away very easily,” said George Carter, supervisor of building and zoning. “It is something you have to address more than once; you have to constantly address this problem with no letdown in the Nuisance Abatement Task Force. I wish we had more men and manpower to do it more often. A proven factor is that who we apprehend has learned that we really mean business. We will go back to that property if it stays a nuisance to the neighborhood.”
Now in its fifth year, the task force made 389 visits through March 2007 that sprang from complaints from police, citizens and other city officials.
There have been new drug arrests, more than 300 cars towed and more than 1,100 property maintenance citations that include trash and buildings in poor condition, from structural problems to broken windows and poor wiring. As a consequence, the city has demolished a number of those derelict buildings.
Alton Police Lt. Mike McNamara is commander of the Support Services Bureau and organizes the task force’s enforcement days.
Nearly every month, a contingent of police, building inspectors and animal control officers visits properties where someone has reported trash, old cars, substandard conditions or suspected drug traffic.
Each time, the group holds a short strategic meeting, then follows a list McNamara compiles of the day’s stops. Once they are at each residence, an officer knocks on the door, tells whoever answers that there have been complaints about noise, suspected illegal drug sales, unleashed dogs or other nuisances.
The officer then asks if the group can come inside and look around. Many people give permission, saying they have nothing to hide. Some don’t.
As examples, on March 21:
Residents of two houses on Krum and Franor streets gave the OK for police and building inspectors to go inside. Both homes had been subject of complaints from neighbors about loud parties. While police addressed those issues with the residents, building inspectors logged problems with the condition of the houses and yards, resulting in several citations for each.
The next stop, in the 1100 block of Milton Road, also had complaints about suspected drug traffic. The man living in the small bungalow lets the contingent inside, but wouldn’t unlock one of the bedroom doors. Sgt. Richard Gillespie tells another officer: “I think someone is living in the basement,” which violates city code, but no one in the group can prove it. The man denies any involvement in drugs. “I’m still looking for a job; I’m keeping my head clean,” he said.
A man on Augusta Street wouldn’t let police inside his house and sounded angry when they asked him more than once. “Have you ever been arrested for dope?” Gillespie asked the man, in his 20s, which aggravated him further. Animal control officers cited the man for not having city tags for the pit bull tied up in his back yard.
A group of five men sitting outside in the 1100 block of Putnam Street wouldn’t let the group in the house. One man, who is familiar to police, urged his friends to cooperate. “Just give them your name, let them know nothing is going on,” he said.
“No, there’s no drug activity here,” the woman homeowner says. “I cooperate with you because I have nothing to hide.”
Police arrested one of the men on an outstanding warrant.
Despite the surprise of a half-dozen city authorities suddenly arriving at people’s doors, most residents seem curious and are cooperative. Police also are almost casual as they chat with residents about reasons they are at the home.
At one family’s suggestion, an officer drove to a nearby laundry to pick up a man to ask him about people living in his building in the 900 block of East Seventh Street who were suspected of selling drugs.
It was unclear if he had been the one complaining to police about the suspected illegal activity. As it turned out, the people subsequently had moved out. The man said he doesn’t tolerate such activity or troublemakers loitering by his home.
“If you see someone sitting out on the sidewalk by my house, take them to jail,” the man told police. “If I see them smoking a ‘blunt’ outside, I make them take it to the park or woods.” A blunt is a cigar or cigarette in which someone has inserted cannabis.
While Carter said some landlords don’t enforce the lease as far as who lives in their houses and apartments, many landlords are doing a good job in keeping up properties.
“They have done a tremendous job screening their tenants and improving their properties,” he said of the Alton Rental Property Owners Association. “There is a big change there.”
To help them screen tenants, there is a computer in the lobby of the Alton Law Enforcement Center that the public can use to look up criminal records in Madison County. The group also informs landlords on running credit checks of potential tenants.
Carter also lauds city attorney Allan Napp’s efforts to have the city put nuisance-related remedies in ordinance form so as to continue the task force’s efforts in the future, regardless of administrations.
“When we’re gone, there will be somebody to step into our shoes,” Carter said.
Among those ordinances is a “three-strike” provision penalizing property owners if three specific types of crimes occur at the homes. There are also measures banning sale of single cigarettes and glass pipes used for smoking crack cocaine.
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