The SCMPD has just released this powerful and really well-produced video about the need for citizens to come forward with information about crimes that they witness or concerns that they have: “End Gun Violence : Step Forward”.

The first interviewee is Pam Abraham, the mother of a murdered son. She’s a powerful presence throughout — the moral force of the video — but she’s joined by a variety of grassroots leaders like Ronald Williams and various other community members, in addition to Chief Jack Lumpkin, D.A. Meg Heap, and Detective Robert Santoro.

Click here for more on the video from the SCMPD.

This is well worth your time:

And for a handful of families, it was a tragic night.

I hadn’t been in bed very long when I heard a burst of gunfire (“burst” seems the right word, but I was pretty groggy), followed by the usual sounds of Savannah at night: sirens.

About 1:30 a.m., there was a shooting near the intersection of 33rd and Barnard streets — about three blocks from my house — that left one person dead and sent three others to the hospital. Police believe there were at least two shooters, but there has so far been no word on arrests. Click here for details directly from the Savannah-Chatham Metro Police Department.

In the midst of the ugly news out of San Bernardino, the Washington Post is calling the incident in my neighborhood The other mass shooting that happened today:

The local news media barely acknowledged the murder: One local television station covered it in three paragraphs.

And the world spun on.

I don’t know any of the victims of last night’s shooting at Barnard and 33rd (or the single shooting on Howard Street that may or may not be related), and I have no idea what any of those victims were doing at 1:30 a.m.

But you know what? I’m routinely out at 1:30 a.m. It’s America; we are allowed to be out late.

There is something I do know, however. I know that Barnard Street between 32nd and 33rd streets has had active prostitution and perhaps drug dealing for years. If I’m on my bike, I stay away from that stretch after a certain hour, but in my van I’ve often seen a prostitute on that block — sometimes even on the steps of the large church there.

[UPDATE: Since posting this, I’ve seen a comment from someone who lives even closer to the crime scene that I do. That person noted persistent and obvious drug dealing on a block of 33rd right off Barnard.]

Last year, I was talking with a former student and learned that he had moved to an apartment in the immediate area. I expressed concern about the blatant crime that he must see all the time, but, like so many newcomers to neighborhoods like that, he assumed that he could just sort of live with it. Given how blatant much of the street crime in Savannah is, new neighborhood residents typically don’t even bother to call the police about what’s going on.

When the crime is so glaringly obvious, how could the police not already know? Often, the criminal activity on Barnard is within plain sight of the new fire station a block away. There is a police precinct just three short blocks away.

I have written often over the years about Savannah’s long history of toleration of open street drug dealing and prostitution. Since being hired a year ago, Chief Jack Lumpkin has really been the first major Savannah official to talk about the obvious connection between “open air” drug markets and violent crime, but so far I have seen little evidence that the SCMPD has been able to put enough officers on the street to address the most persistent pockets of criminality.

Can anyone be surprised that the “nonviolent” but unchecked criminal activity on a particular block should suddenly turn into horrible violence?

The simple truth is that street level drug dealing and prostitution — crimes that Savannah has simply tolerated for decades — are their own kinds of violence. They destroy residents’ senses of safety and eventually destroy neighborhoods. Ironically, that neighborhood destruction is what has set the stage for the rapid gentrification in the area around last night’s shooting. But that’s another Savannah story.

If you want to go right to the PDF of the lawsuit itself, you can find it via the Savannah Morning News, Connect Savannah and the Savannah Business Journal.

In the interest of fairness, it’s obviously worth saying right up front that it’s hard to know what will happen to this lawsuit, although this isn’t entirely a situation of “innocent until proven guilty” — we know that criminal activity took place within the SCMPD. And it stands to reason that some good cops probably suffered career damage because of the bad cops, but that doesn’t mean that the plaintiffs will necessarily win in court.

So, RICO? A screen cap from the lawsuit:

Among those named in the case are former Chatham County Commission Chairman Pete Liakakis, former Savannah City Manager Michael Brown, and former Chatham County Manager Russ Abolt. The suit alleges that all three men were in fact informed that Willie Lovett (who became Chief and who is now in prison) was corrupt but that the three men protected him and promoted him.

In the SavannahNow coverage, Pete Liakakis has already firmly denied the allegations in the lawsuit, although the words he uses don’t match the language of the suit:

“Thatâ€s a lie. I knew absolutely nothing about a police record. … Iâ€m upset about it.”

Liakakis said that he had several conversations with Maj. Gerbino but denied any discussion … about any kind of criminal record about Lovett. But he said that Claiborne as a lawyer has a responsibility to get definite information instead of trying to damage people.

“I intend to file an action against him whatever the law is,” he said. “I want to take an FBI lie detector test.”

Here’s a snippet from the allegations involving Liakakis:

And here’s what the suit says about Abolt. If in fact the County Manager informed Lovett that one of his officers had called him corrupt, then that looks really, really bad. Read on:

The allegations against Brown, which potentially could be supported by former Chief Michael Berkow, are also serious:

As a resident who has lived for many years just a few blocks from an open air drug market that everyone has known about, I have always been frustrated by the lack of attention to obvious criminality. There really isn’t much new that I can see in this case regarding the prevalence of street-level drug dealing in the city, but a few snippets show just how obvious and corrupt the system was, with drug squad officers obviously working against the public interest:

There is a lot more in the case than I can summarize here.

From UPDATE: Investigation blasts former Savannah-Chatham police chief Willie Lovett:

Former Savannah-Chatham police chief Willie Lovettâ€s conduct “was inadequate and unprofessional” and ignored available evidence in the case of two officers under investigation in a 2010 drug trafficking scheme, an independent investigation has found.

The report by Alexandria, Va.-based Manuel, Daniels, Burke International also found that Lovett “withheld vital information from Internal Affairs … and instructed Internal Affairs to prepare (an official document) with patently false and incorrect information.”

While no evidence of improper influence with the departmentâ€s Internal Affairs unit was found, the report said, “their handling of the entire case was negligent and unprofessional.”

Given the suddenness of Lovett’s departure a couple of months ago, I would expect further revelations on this matter and/or other issues.

And a quick reminder: most of the folks in uniform show up and do their jobs the best they can day in and day out, night in and night out. We shouldn’t let issues like this infect the reputations of everyone on the force.

Here’s the full report (you can use the tool bar at the bottom to zoom, go full screen, etc.):

Investigation of former Savannah-Chatham police chief Willie Lovett by savannahnow.com

Today, the Tybee Island city council voted unanimously to overturn that earlier vote.

From the Associated Press, Tybee Island scraps plan to track license plates:

Mayor Jason Buelterman (BELL-tuhr-man) said city officials had learned the machines wouldn’t automatically tally how many cars were visiting the island. He said the decision was also influenced by backlash from residents and visitors who felt the scanners would violate their privacy.

It was clear from earlier discussions that at least one council member wanted to advertise the presence of the scanners to discourage criminals from coming onto the island at all.

I’m glad to see that Tybee backed off on this plan.

The Tybee City Councilâ€s vote Thursday night to purchase two license plate reading cameras means in the near future every vehicle that drives on and off the island city will be scanned.

Council voted 5-1 late Thursday to approve the purchase suggested by Police Chief Bob Bryson of the scanners to be installed in both directions of U.S. 80 on the Lazaretto Creek Bridge. Barry Brown opposed the vote to purchase the system that will run license plate tags against criminal information databases like the National Crime Information Center and the Georgia Crime Information Center.

The purchase was approved even though there is no policy statement about how the information will be handled. Tybee officials are promising that a policy will be in place soon, however, and that it will do such things as mandate that all information not part of a criminal investigation be destroyed after 72 hours.

But who’s to say exactly what is part of a criminal investigation?

There’s only one way on and off Tybee Island, of course. So imagine there’s a burglary some night and the police have few clues except a witness’ vague description of a car that left the scene. That investigation could go on for days or weeks or maybe even months. So would the Tybee police, an organization that has seen its fair share of controversy over the years, just sit on all that data, much of which could be used to identify movements of law-abiding citizens who guard their privacy?

And what about subpoenas and civil actions — contentious divorces and the like?

On an island as small as Tybee, can we even be sure that those with access to the plate numbers won’t have personal contacts in other contexts with the folks who are legally coming and going?

Are these paranoid questions? I don’t know, because there is no policy in place for how the information will be used.

The article notes a clear upside in using the data for economic studies — we can literally get hard counts of the number of cars and even know states and counties from which they come. That information could be beneficial in myriad ways.

But we can get pretty good tourism data via other means.

I don’t know quite what to make of statements in the article about the ways in which a policy like this, if well-publicized, might deter criminals from coming on to the island. I suppose that’s possible, but how exactly will the policy be publicized? And do we really want some draconian warning to be part of Tybee’s reputation?

For many, Tybee has been a place where one can get away from some of the demands of modern life — and it has been to some extent a haven for libertarians who like to live and let live.

It would be hard — maybe impossible — to see Tybee like that if law enforcement starts running checks on every car that comes on or off the island.

I generated maps looking at crime reports over the past year using the website Raids Online. The site is linked from the Savannah metro police website.

UPDATE: One email correspondent pointed out that I probably need express permission to publish the maps I created, so I’ll get in touch with the company that runs the site.

In the meantime, you can generate your own maps. It’s easy and sort of fun.

Do the following:

1) Go to RAIDS Online and search for the city (Savannah) you want to look at.

2) From the drop down menus on the left, choose the dates you wish to look at.

3) Then use the drop down for “Event” — this will let you select or deselect individual crimes.

4) Then use the drop down for “Analytic Layers” if you want to generate a crime density heat map.

As you can see as you generate maps, many areas of the city have more crime reports than neighborhoods in west Savannah or the chosen site for the city’s new arena.

There has long been an issue with shoppers walking home with their shopping carts, some of which get left in vacant lots or other visible places.

In recent days, there’s been a bit of a brouhaha about shopping carts being abandoned around town. The subject was even debated at last week’s City Council meeting and Eric Curl’s piece in yesterday’s paper has provoked a ton of comments. From Savannah warns grocers to collect their abandoned carts or face fines:

Now the city is trying to encourage the stores to keep their property off the streets and behind the sliding doors.

Assistant City Manager Peter Shonka recently sent letters to all the local grocers asking them to take better care of their property. Shonka said the city is considering ways to address the issue, including rounding up the carts and holding them until the businesses redeem a fee.

“We recognize that you often have little or no control over customers removing carts from your property,” he said. “However, it is the name of your company that appears on your cart creating visual blight and clutter.”

A few comments on the debate and the issue generally, with a few key points emphasized:

• It seems like the problem has been diminishing around the downtown Kroger over the years, although that could just be me getting so used to seeing stray carts that I don’t notice them.
• Given the comments of a couple of aldermen from other districts, there seems to be a similar problem elsewhere, but I’m really only qualified to talk firsthand about the Gwinnett Street Kroger.
• Years ago, Kroger tried to discourage such thievery by putting clunky devices of some sort on the wheels. That was kind of nightmarish for shoppers, honestly.
• In my experience, Kroger has done a perfectly fine job of sending someone around to pick up stray carts.
• A sign clearly states that taking carts out of the lot is a violation of state law. It seems a little silly for the city to get after retailers when it’s their property that is being stolen.
• On the other hand, Kroger could end the taking of shopping carts if they chose. There’s always security on hand whenever the store is open, and it wouldn’t be so hard to get in the habit of noting when shoppers leave with their carts and don’t cross the street to the parking lot. Sometimes folks taking carts do so right in front of store employees who are out front.
• If security doesn’t want to confront shoppers about stealing carts, they can just call the police. This doesn’t seem like the best use of police resources, but it is a crime to take a cart.
• If Kroger could stop the behavior through relatively straightforward enforcement, why wouldn’t they do so? Obviously, the company has made a business decision. They buy the carts in bulk, of course, and the odds of recovering stray ones are probably pretty good. Large shopping carts can carry a whole lot more than someone can carry in handheld plastic bags. So it’s better to let the very occasional shopper buy as much as they want, take the cart (likely recoverable), avoid the confrontation, and keep that shopper’s business.
• It surely sets a terrible example for children in the neighborhood to see their elders walking around town with stolen property.
• The Savannah Morning News editorial page suggests that Kroger set up a deposit system like that used in other countries. For fun facts and info about shopping carts, check out Wikipedia, which is likely mostly right.
• The problem with a deposit system is that, as Wikipedia notes, it isn’t primarily a system for theft deterrence. It’s a way of getting customers to put carts back in the right place so that store employees aren’t constantly wrangling used carts from all over the premises. Check out the Aldi’s description of the system.

So, if we are even serious about trying to deal with this issue, my suggestion would be for local police to begin a kind of soft enforcement whenever they see someone pushing a shopping cart filled with newly purchased items. By definition, they are walking around with stolen property. Just tell them that it’s illegal to have the cart and they need to return it immediately after taking their groceries home.

At the same time, Kroger and other companies could step up their enforcement efforts and also sell for a low cost a couple of different sizes of collapsible, personal shopping carts. I see some shoppers using them now, and they seem like really practical products in an urban environment like ours.

Even though this has been a problem for many years and even though Savannah has many other problems, I like the fact that the relatively new folks at City Hall, like City Manager Cutter and Assistant City Manager Shonka, are willing to event the fray.