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Mercedes: "I don't hear anything about that. I'm not around here a lot. I go to school. I mean, yeah, I think it's a problem as far as who they move in here and all that. I think they should choose wisely who they move in, but there's always going to be crime no matter where you go. Nothing bad ever happened to me. I don't think people are coming down here because women live in the buildings. No one's ever come to talk to me about anything in the neighborhood. I've never heard of that happening. If they trying to make the community better, come talk to us and let us know what's going on around here."
Knott: "There are those who have an interest in keeping folks divided. My concern is, these folks are Hyde Park residents whether we like it or not. But I have yet to see them have a place at the table. What we've had is folks who've talked around them. The thing we have to understand is, 90 percent of the crime is being perpetrated against these people. We need to look at the reality that the people being affected by the crimes are the ones living in these places ... . I believe that for some people, this is not a racial issue. But I'm concerned because up until now, the way it's been presented in the local media is as a racial issue. Like these people we're talking about moved into this fine upstanding neighborhood and started going crazy."
Alexander: "A resident of ours was mugged at gunpoint, and she goes back to the apartment and calls the police. Then the neighborhood residents get upset and say we're attracting crimes. How can you reprimand someone for calling the police when outside of their house someone is mugging them? How are we not supposed to pick up the phone and call people?"
Harper: "I don't know if it's the neighborhood association's job to hang out outside the Bainbridge and say, 'How can we help you?' Is that our role? I don't know that. If you're in a warehouse of a 10-story building where everyone's below the poverty level, it's hard to see beyond that. I don't know if moving everyone is the solution. It's not my job. It's our job to call attention to the problem."
Kimmis: "I think crime has gotten worse. The intersection of Armour and Harrison alone had 39 calls to 911 in the first eight months of 2008, and in the first eight months of 2009 they had 189. That's a huge increase. And the only difference is, those buildings are full."
Lipscomb: "We've had questions about the increase in statistics the neighborhood association has put out. We've had meetings with the neighborhood association, and when people make allegations, we ask them to back them up. The neighborhood-association stats are different from the crime numbers we receive from the police department and the codes department. So you have three different groups providing three different numbers, and you would think the police and codes department would be more reliable. The neighborhood-association stats tend to be higher. A lot of these buildings have hired off-duty police officers to act as security guards, and they have to file a report as part of their work, and right there that can inflate the statistics: You'll have one actual crime report and then a second report. Then there's crime reported at the address where no one living at the address, or even in the building, was really involved. A cop stops a guy on the street and asks for his address — he's not going to give his real address. He says, 'Oh, I live right there' and points at the nearest building. A few months ago, we had a meeting with the neighborhood association, and they brought up the allegations again, and we asked them to get some information to us since their numbers have always been the highest. It's been a few months, and they have not, to date, gotten back to us."
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