Police plan more foot patrols in hot spots

Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis is planning to launch new walking beats in high crime areas of Boston after three neighborhoods where police launched a pilot program this spring experienced significant reductions in major cate gories of crime.

In the pilot program, three teams of six police officers began walking beats March 10 in the Bowdoin-Geneva section of Dorchester, the Grove Hall section of Roxbury, and Downtown Crossing. The total number of robberies in those neighborhoods declined by 10, from 41 in the three months before the program began to 31 in the three months after, police said. Shootings and drug arrests also declined in the same period.

"There's reductions in most everything across the board," said Deputy Superintendent Daniel Linskey, who tracks Boston's crime trends. "What we can't measure in this, but I can measure in phone calls and e-mails I get from people in the street and merchants, is the relationships that are starting to develop with the kids. There was an animosity between the officers and some of the youth when they first started, and now there's a mutual respect, and they're waving to each other across the street."

Police officials are studying crime statistics in other violence-prone areas of the city to decide on two or three new areas for teams of walking beat officers to begin patrolling in coming months. More could be added later.

Six months into his tenure leading the department, walking beats have become Davis's signature initiative. Officers on foot patrol were a common sight in Boston until the 1950s, when they slowly began moving to cruisers, largely in an effort to improve response time. But Davis, who reduced violent crime by 62 percent in Lowell during his 12 years leading that city's Police Department from 1994 to 2006, used walking beats extensively there. He arrived in Boston proclaiming their value, especially in a city where trust between police and residents had severely eroded.

Linskey said the walking beat program works because officers have a permanent and visible presence in violent areas where they previously only appeared during major problems.

He said officers on foot are building positive relationships with residents, disrupting drug sales, and "taking the anonymity away" from criminals by becoming familiar with people who live or frequent the neighborhoods.

Sergeant Nora Baston, who leads the Grove Hall walking beat team, said some officers initially perceived the walking beats as soft or ineffectual community relations ploys. She said colleagues teased her for her "Mickey Mouse assignment." Now, Baston said, other officers ask her to tell them when the team has an opening.

She said it took some adjusting for her to understand that she had a job to do besides making arrests and answering calls, usually from people in crisis. "The old commissioner, that's all they wanted -- arrests, stats, stats, stats," she said. But Davis, she said, told her he wanted something else, too.

"He wanted interacting," she said. "I'm not just here to put on a dog and pony show. I'm really there . . . so people really trust us."

Baston said the job also involves enforcement. A typical shift might include basketball games with youths, outreach to parents with advice about summer jobs, and a drug arrest. She said residents have approached her with information about crime , including one tip about the high-profile slaying of an 18-year-old on an MBTA bus in March.

Every conversation is a sign of progress, she said, in neighborhoods where people used to turn their backs on her for fear of seeming a snitch. "Our commissioner has really put emphasis on this -- reinstituting trust with the community," she said.

Many who live and work in those communities say they have noticed a difference. Dmitri Ziogas, who owns Mythos Pizza on Bowdoin Street, said his struggle to operate a thriving pizza shop in one of the city's most dangerous neighborhoods has become a lot easier thanks to the near-constant police presence.

Jorge Martinez, a Grove Hall community leader who runs the nonprofit Project RIGHT, agreed, saying the walking beat officers are rebuilding bonds that broke in the years following crime reductions of the 1990s.

"It's repairing somewhat a relationship that was pretty solid 10 years ago," he said. "Police corruption, police abuse, driving while black, all this negative stuff has happened. . . . This is a good thing. They're developing relationships, and those are long-lasting."

Suzanne Smalley can be reached at ssmalley@globe.com.