POSTED: Friday, June 19, 2009

By KEVIN HOWELL, OURTOWN.COM  

LAFAYETTE -- Gangs and drugs, two interrelated issues in Tippecanoe County, are on the list of problem priorities for Prosecutor Pat Harrington to resolve.  

The 51- year old, first term prosecutor has enlisted the help of law enforcement, community organizations, area schools, and residents to combat those as well as other problems.  

“When I ran (for office) I thought the prosecutor needs to be interactive with people and the community,” said Harrington in his fourth floor courthouse office.  

To that end the Lafayette native, former defense attorney and former deputy prosecutor in Lake County, helped initiate programs involving the community.  

WeTip, Project Safe Neighborhoods make impact  

Starting with a Project Safe Neighborhood grant and hiring grant coordinator Kathy ‘Kat’ Redd, Harrington worked with landlords to help identify good tenants, to make their property safer, and to handle bad-tenant situations especially where criminal activity is involved.  

Through those efforts, and with the ambition and drive of Redd, Harrington said, the WeTip Hotline was introduced.  

“When Kat started working with landlords, she did focus groups with landlords, community leaders, people in the community and Neighborhood Watch programs. She discovered there was an opening in the system - people wanted to connect but didn’t want to call police because they might be identified,” Harrington explained. “They want to be involved but not to the extent there may be retaliation or to get involved in a legal matter.”  

In May 2008 WeTip, an anonymous venue for reporting suspicious activity, went online and in the six-month period from September 2008-April 2009, 508 reports of criminal activity were called in - a 112 percent increase over the first eight month period.  

Drugs, Gangs on the rise  

There were 122 reports of drugs sales and trafficking, 122 reports of child endangerment, 63 drug abuse, 32 weapons, and 26 fugitive tips.   With reported drug activity, gang activity had also risen.  

“We have more drug crimes now. If you look at statistics most crime is drug – driven either because of drug addicts or drug dealers,” said Harrington.  

He cites a 48 percent increase in crack cocaine the last five years with 152 cases in 2008 compared to 38 four years ago.  

“In my opinion, the reason we’ve had an influx of crack cocaine is it’s the popular street drug, and we’ve become a good market for Chicago – for lack of a better expression, Lafayette has been discovered by drug dealers,” Harrington said. That’s also where gang activity seems to originate.  

“Gangs are on the increase. Ten years ago this community didn’t have gangs, but with the change in demographics we’ve been discovered,” He said.  

Currently 28 gangs are reported in Tippecanoe County, with about 1,000 to 1,500 members.  

“We don’t have any home – grown gangs,” Harrington said. “They are coming in and recruiting.”  

Harrington hasn’t stopped with Project Safe Neighborhood and WeTip.  He has gone into schools passing out 55,000 flyers to K-12 children last year on gangs, drugs and other crimes.   Cops Online is another program where police network with officers across the country online and to learn about gang and drug activity.  

Getting message to community important  

A similar program – Teachers Against Gangs – is being promoted where teachers go online for information from other teachers – “like a FaceBook for teachers.”   Project Safe Neighborhood includes monthly meetings with school corporation representatives, gang investigators, school resource officers, and juvenile probation to talk about trends in schools, recruitment by gangs, and graffiti.  

“It’s informal to get the message to the people,” Harrington explained.  

Getting the message out to the community is also why Harrington became a member of the local NAACP.  

“I knew Sadie Harper-Scott, the director, when she was at the Hanna Center. When she wanted to reestablish the NAACP she said ‘Pat it would be really nice to have you join,’” Harrington said.   “It’s for people of all color, and if you go through their training you get a wonderful experience about how people of all colors have advanced the civil rights of everyone.   “It’s good because I can be present, go to meetings and hear issues and give my opinion on the issues – it’s a valuable addition to the community, and a way to reach people with a need in the community.”    

The community is key, Harrington, also a high school basketball referee, said.   “When I ran, I thought the prosecutor had to be a spokesman for the community, be proactive in community policing and getting the community involved with the issues of safety – it’s not a police community, it’s our community,” he said.   “We’ll be successful because the community has gotten behind us.”  

Kevin Howell is a freelance writer in Delphi