Police fight violence with Operation Home Safe

The maps handed out last night to the large contingent of Boston police officers on foot, bicycle, and horseback told the story of a troubled neighborhood.

Yellow bullets, symbolizing reports of shots fired, were almost too numerous to count on the handouts, which showed a section of Mattapan surrounding the intersection of Norfolk and Fessenden streets. The maps were also littered with red triangles, which represented recent nonfatal shootings. There was one ominous black cross, symbolizing a recent slaying.

The officers used the maps to guide them in the latest deployment of Operation Home Safe, an effort by city officials and police to stem the growing tide of urban gun violence that last year caused a spike in the number of both shootings and killings. The city's homicide count in 2005 was the highest in a decade.

The Mattapan deployment was the city's fourth since the fall, and officials said last night that they believe the program is working.

''We've gotten great feedback from the neighborhoods," Mayor Thomas M. Menino said. ''They like the action that's out there. They really appreciate the work that our police are doing."

Under the program, police have identified crime hot spots across the city for large, high-visibility nighttime deployments -- including foot, horse, and bike patrols -- designed to deter street violence. For several days prior to each deployment, teams of plainclothes officers conduct warrant sweeps in each area, arresting known troublemakers and others wanted by the courts. In the days after each deployment, the city sends in teams of social service, public works, and inspectional services workers to address other neighborhood issues.

''Our goal is to get the bad people off the streets and also to let the people in the community know that the police are here for them," Deputy Superintendent Darrin Greeley said last night.

Greeley said that on Thursday, police had arrested 15 people from the neighborhood on outstanding warrants. The department is averaging about 45 warrant arrests per Operation Home Safe deployment.

Greeley said that a deployment in Roxbury's Egleston Square in November had a significant impact on the neighborhood.

''Since then, crime has dropped dramatically," he said.

Police officials were unable last night to provide statistics showing how the operations have reduced crime.

While the deployments cost the city extra money, mostly for overtime for the mounted patrol, Boston Police Commissioner Kathleen M. O'Toole said that the program would be continued indefinitely.

''We're going to do it for as long as it takes," she said.