A wave of alarm

Men brawl outside a bar on Lakeview Avenue in Lowell. Someone pulls out a gun and fires. Sharif Shaheed collapses with a bullet in his head, mortally wounded.

Any violent crime is enough to make people shudder, but there is a second, visceral reaction in Lowell these days: Murders have reached a crisis stage. The killing of Shaheed on July 8 was the most recent in a series of homicides in 2006 that began Feb. 19 when a gunman shot Chhoeup Chlum outside an apartment building on Stevens Street.

The city's eight murders in 2006 almost surpass the number recorded for the past three years combined.

Police have arrested suspects in all but one case, but the arrests only partly solve what has become a puzzling trend, city leaders and law enforcement authorities say.

Lowell's police superintendent, Edward Davis, who uses the term ``crisis" when talking about the murders, said the crimes do not fit any trend and are not connected to one another. None of the killings was random; only two were related to youth gangs.

``When there's no common thread between them, there's no single tactic we can put in place to stop them," Davis said. ``We're committing a lot of resources to the investigations and coming up with good arrests. We're successful in getting the culprits off the streets and prosecuted."

City Councilor Eileen M. Donoghue, who heads the council's subcommittee on public safety, said the murders were a catalyst to refocus what police can do to deter killings before they happen.

``People are relieved to hear about arrests being made, but they're still scared and they don't feel safe in their neighborhoods," she said.

If anyone can stem the spike in murders, Davis, whose name has been mentioned as a possibility for the police superintendent's job in Boston, seems a likely candidate. Before the recent spate of violence, he and his staff had built a reputation as crime fighters who have made Lowell streets safer.

Until this year, the number of homicides had been declining. The numbers of other violent crimes, such as rape, robbery, and aggravated assault, continue to decline, authorities say.

Davis now sees the need to bolster some of the community policing and broad, intensive enforcement techniques that have been successful in the past. He and the department face shortages of officers and reductions in government funding, but he said he will work with the resources he has.

``There is no panic here, but we need to address this quickly," he said. ``We know how to do this. We've been successful in the past, and we'll do it again."

A former narcotics squad commander in the department, Davis started his tenure as superintendent in 1993 by reorganizing. Specialized units were eliminated or scaled back in a push to put more officers on the street. Patrol officers, detectives, and patrol supervisors were deployed from sector commands covering three geographic zones of Lowell.

With about $3.6 million in community policing funds from the federal government from 1993 to 1998, more officers were hired and assigned to the streets under community policing. At its peak, the department had 260 uniformed officers, many of whom walked neighborhood beats or patrolled on bicycles. Police regularly attended meetings with neighborhood groups from all over the city, and listened to crime problems.

``Police were very visible but not forceful or heavy-handed," said Frank Carvalho, a former executive director of the Coalition for a Better Acre, a community development organization. Carvalho worked at the coalition from 1997 until 2002. He is now a vice president with Enterprise Bank. ``Issues came up, particularly with the youth," but the police ``were good about listening and talking things out," he said. ``It wasn't `Go in and make arrests first.' "

As they focused on major offenses, police also cracked down on infractions like littering, speeding, and graffiti. Help came from agencies like the city's Building and Health departments, whose inspectors enforced ordinances in neighborhoods where landlords let buildings deteriorate.

``Crime breeds in places where it looks like nobody cares," said Davis, explaining the policy.

``Criminals get comfortable," Davis said. ``We took that away by being highly visible on the street and cracking down on the small things. It was interesting to see how the number of felonies would go down in a neighborhood where we ticketed more for moving violations."

Of special concern were the youth gangs, which by the mid-1990s had mushroomed into a network of 19 largely Hispanic or Asian gangs with up to 750 members overall, most between 15 and 24 years old. Lowell police, probation officers, and staff members from the state Department of Youth Services were deployed in response to gang violence.

Police also targeted property owners whose buildings or businesses harbored gambling activity or drug sales.

Places that housed gangs were checked for building and health code violations and, in some cases, were shut down.

The pressure tactics worked, said Anthony A. Braga, a senior research associate and a lecturer in public policy at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

``The gangs realized that any outbreak of violence would draw a response and not just arrests but full scale enforcement," Braga said.

``They knew that if one youth associated with their group was engaged in a shooting, everyone involved with the gang would be exposed to enforcement," Braga added.

In dealing with the current violence, Davis said he would ratchet up many of the strategies that have been successful in the past. Building and health code enforcement officers have been called upon to target violators. And earlier this month, the License Commission took action against three bars for violations.

Davis said the department has also requested assistance with investigations from the office of the US attorney, Michael Sullivan. At neighborhood meetings held recently in Centralville and the Highlands, Davis asked residents to call police when they noticed suspicious activities.

About 60 people attended the Centralville meeting. Anne Marie Page, head of the Centralville Neighborhood Action Group, said people had been drawn to the meeting by Shaheed's murder because it occurred in their area.

Page said the murder ``wasn't something that happened in some other part of the city."

``This was in our neighborhood, on one of our streets," she said.

But these days, Davis and his department face a serious problem in their efforts. Federal money for community policing has been cut, making it impossible for the department to hire more officers.

The department today has 244 officers, compared with a high of 260 a few years ago; that attrition resulted from retiring officers not having been replaced. Fewer officers means a diminished presence in neighborhoods.

Donoghue noted that fewer officers are in fact on duty, as some are inactive because of injury or illness, or away on vacation. ``When you factor those numbers in, you're talking probably less than 200 officers for a city the size of Lowell," she said.

Still, Davis is promising a comprehensive approach.

``We can't promise zero homicides, especially when they involve people who know each other and have a prior relationship," he said. ``But we can identify trouble spots, redeploy personnel so that we have more street presence and work with other agencies and the neighborhood groups. The best way is to come at this from different angles."

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