Glen Park residents get tough on crime

June 6, 2006 

GARY — Last June, residents of Glen Park stayed indoors as rival street gangs warred over territory in the south side neighborhood.

This summer — and for years to come — a gang of neighborhood activists, police, prosecutors and university officials say they are going to take back their turf.

U.S. Attorney Joseph Van Bokkelen on Monday presented a check for $175,000 to Glen Park Weed and Seed, money the coalition of groups will use to hire police, prosecute criminals and rebuild neighborhoods.

Over the next five years, the federal Weed and Seed program should provide a total of more than $1.2 million.

Van Bokkelen lauded the group of residents, police agencies and officials from the Boys & Girls Club, Indiana University Northwest and Ivy Tech who organized the group over the past two years and applied for the federal funding.

“It’s just neat to see a group of people ... hang with us as long as you have hung with it,” Van Bokkelen said. “You’re reclaiming your neighborhood from those who would destroy it.”

The first $175,000 will pay for the overtime for police officers and prosecutors working in Glen Park, doing intensive “weeding” of criminal elements that have caused spikes in violent crime.

In June 2005, gang members in Glen Park gunned down three of their rivals during a violent monthlong cycle of attacks and reprisals. The gang feud also was linked to a half dozen arsons, and violence did not die down until police began intensive patrols during the last half of the month and July.

The neighborhood also became the first in the city to be outfitted with ShotSpotter devices that alert police to the sound of gunfire and pinpoint the location.

Meanwhile, neighborhood groups, police, city and IUN staff have been working to build an effective coalition, called the University Park Initiative. The group was successful writing a proposal for the $1.2 million grant, which was modeled on Weed and Seed programs in Indianapolis and South Bend, said Mary Lee, co-chairwoman of the Weed and Seed Steering committee.

But the group also gathered more than 1,000 signatures from neighborhood residents to protest plans to open a topless bar near the IUN campus, and has sponsored numerous neighborhood events, Lee said.

When the focus changes on “seeding” over the five years of the Weed and Seed program, the group hopes to open a neighborhood center that will house a police substation and counseling center. Weed and Seed money also will help pay for more building inspections, a the prosecution of lax landlords, Lee said.

“We’ve just begun to build on what’s already been laid,” said Lee, and a Glen Park resident for nearly 40 years.

“I moved to Glen Park when it was the place you really wanted to live, I’m talking about the east side,” she said. “Now nobody wants to live on the east side.

“We’re not going to move. We’re going to make it better.”