Mayor Menino spoke to a 911 dispatcher yesterday on an emergency phone in Franklin Park. With him were Police Commissioner Ed Davis (left) and Superintendent Dan Linskey.
(PAT GREENHOUSE/GLOBE STAFF)
Emergency phone system for Hub parks unveiled
20 devices to be set up across city
Mayor Menino spoke to a 911 dispatcher yesterday on an emergency phone in Franklin Park. With him were Police Commissioner Ed Davis (left) and Superintendent Dan Linskey.
(PAT GREENHOUSE/GLOBE STAFF)
When Mayor Thomas M. Menino pushed the red button on the newly installed emergency phones in Franklin Park yesterday, there was no immediate response on the other end.
"Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?" Menino said, as news cameras rolled behind him. He pushed the button again, and after a few seconds a dispatcher at the Boston Police Department responded. A female voice asked, "Everything OK over there?"
The mayor, joined by Police Commissioner Edward F. Davis, went to Franklin Park yesterday to announce the installation of 20 phones with direct lines to the police department in several parks.
The blue 9-foot high cylindrical structures will be placed in highly visible areas of the parks. Unlike traditional phones, the units feature a single red button, which when pressed should link a person directly to a dispatcher.
The emergency phones are part of a broader effort to increase safety in parks, the mayor said, which are sometimes the scenes of nighttime violence.
In April 2006, the body of Dominique Samuels, 19, was found in Franklin Park, beaten and burned.
Two years ago, neighborhood activist John Beresford was fatally stabbed in Ronan Park in Dorchester.
"It takes all of us working together in our communities to make this effective," Menino said in reference to the emergency phones at the press conference.
Shortly after Beresford's death, officials introduced a pilot program featuring five emergency phones in parks.
Christine Poff, executive director of the Franklin Park Coalition, hopes the installation of the phone will change the perception of the park and enhance its safety.
"We know it's safe, but a lot of people don't come to the park because they don't think it is," she said.
Walking in the park yesterday, Yvonne Hobbs, 52, of Mattapan, and Christine Williams, 40, came upon the unit.
"I think it will work if police actually respond to it," Hobbs said.
The first two phones were installed in Franklin Park and nearby Harambee Park at Blue Hill and Talbot avenues.
The remaining units will be installed in the next few weeks at Boston Common, Elliot Norton Park in Bay Village, East Boston's Central Square, Malcolm X Park in Roxbury, Jamaica Pond in Jamaica Plain, and in the Fens.
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
