Wilmington police aim to disrupt street gun violence

• THE PROGRAM%3A A new police effort in Wilmington to curb crime and position officers on patrol to target infractions from minor to serious.
• WHAT PROMPTED IT%3A Started after seven people were shot%2C two fatally%2C Jan. 23-25.

Walking to his squad car parked on a northeast Wilmington corner where a man was shot to death in February, city police Cpl. Devon Jones spots a guy with a patchy beard, baggy sweatpants and a hoodie bearing the words, "Stop hustling backwards."

Jones knows the man has a criminal record. He calls out, "If I run you, nothing's gonna come up, right?"

The man mumbles an inaudible response, and Jones orders him to put his hands on his head.

Jones checks a laptop to see if the man has any outstanding warrants but finds none, then he gets permission to frisk the man, shaking his sweatpants until he's certain nothing will spill out. Satisfied he's clean, Jones sends him on his way, prompting a woman on a nearby stoop to protest, "You see that? Get his car number."

Similar uncomfortable encounters like that one last week are now routine in some long-troubled areas of Wilmington as part of Operation Disrupt, a city police initiative launched in late January.

Alarmed by five gun homicides and nine other shootings during the first 26 days of the year, police began flooding the most dangerous streets with teams of officers whose mandate is zero tolerance for any kind of infraction.

For eight hours, six nights a week, teams of officers on foot and in cars are looking for any way to clear the streets of people selling drugs, carrying guns, or committing lesser offenses such as drinking beer on a sidewalk or disobeying traffic laws.

Officers are stopping and searching people suspected of wrongdoing, pulling over cars for rolling through stop signs, serving warrants and chasing juvenile curfew violators.

The goal is simple, Mayor Dennis Williams says: "Crack down on gun violence."

The city's 22-officer Disrupt teams work Tuesday through Saturday. On Sunday nights, six members of the New Castle County Police Mobile Enforcement Teams perform those duties. Disrupt teams don't work Mondays, but city officers on overtime do extra foot patrols in the same targeted areas, police said.

Two months into "Disrupt," Williams and Police Chief Bobby Cummings credit the operation for helping reduce shootings and homicides. While 13 people have been shot, three of them fatally, in Wilmington since Jan. 27, Cummings said those homicides did not occur while Disrupt patrols were on duty. Only two shootings, one of which Williams labeled a "flesh wound," are believed to have occurred in a targeted area when Disrupt was operating, police said.

When Disrupt began, Wilmington was on pace to eclipse its 2013 record of 154 shooting victims and 2010 record of 29 homicides. That is no longer the case, though 2015 is still unfolding as a very bloody year.

As of Friday afternoon, 26 people have been shot and eight killed on city streets in 2015. (That total does not include a gun suspect paralyzed by police bullets during an incident in January.)

The Rev. Sandra Ben, a pastor who heads the Northeast Civic Association, said she and other residents welcome the increased police presence from Disrupt and other initiatives. "They are happy about it," Ben said. "People aren't as afraid to be out."

Those with criminal intentions, Ben said, "will think twice before they do it."

'That zero speaks volumes'

Yet even as Gov. Jack Markell's Wilmington Public Safety Strategies Commission is poised to make its initial recommendations for policing Delaware's largest city, the mayor says Disrupt and other initiatives – such as extra foot patrols and "stealth" work by former convicts hired to intervene before crimes occur – are already making rough Wilmington sections safer.

Williams, a former city detective, and Cummings said they would continue Disrupt at least through the summer, and eventually incorporate the zero-tolerance patrols into the force's regular operations.

"Right now, I'd say it's working great," said Cummings, noting that calls for police service have dropped considerably, especially since Disrupt began.

For example, calls about disorderly groups or people dropped nearly 50 percent in the 26 days after Disrupt started, compared with the first 26 days of the year, police statistics show.

In addition, compared with last year through early March, burglaries, robberies, disorderly and several other types of complaints are also down, records show.

Noting that no one has been shot to death while Disrupt teams were out, Williams said, "That zero speaks volumes. It's been very positive."

New Castle County Police Chief Elmer Setting said the approach to target any violations, even littering, can help turn around a neighborhood because criminals soon realize that police won't tolerate any lawbreaking.

On one recent Sunday night, Setting said, county teams arrested 16 people for drugs, one for weapons and issued 10 traffic tickets, among other actions, on their Disrupt rounds.

"As soon as you commit any crime, no matter how petty, it will probably cause us to take action," Setting said. "We have the right to engage you."

In Wilmington neighborhoods, the reaction has been mixed. Some residents and leaders say the increased presence and crackdown has sent many criminals scurrying, while others are concerned that the approach is too aggressive and has cut into community policing efforts designed to build bonds with residents by opening lines of communication.

The surge of violence in January that triggered Disrupt's formation needed to cease, said Jaehn Dennis, president of the Vandever Avenue Civic Association, but gutting the community policing and other units cannot be the permanent fix.

"The community policing officers were a voice to the officials downtown," Dennis said. "Not only that, but they kept those of us who are really concerned abreast of what's going on in the community. So temporarily pull them away to do Operation Disrupt, fine, but bring them back when it subsides."

Bartnell Newman, who lives near Vandever Avenue, said he has seen increased police but believes the Disrupt officers should spend more time having friendly encounters with residents.

The current approach, he said, "isn't conducive to getting things done."

Violence 'unconscionable'

The catalyst for Operation Disrupt was the weekend of Jan. 23-25, when seven people were shot, two fatally, in three outbreaks of gunfire. Six of the victims, including those murdered by shots to the head, were teenagers.

The carnage involving so many targeted youngsters alarmed Cummings.

"Something in the climate had changed," said Cummings, who has been chief for about one year. "So we looked internally to see what we could do to make an impact to this immediately."

On Jan. 26, the morning after the weekend barrage, Cummings announced the 22-officer unit, comprised of five teams of four officers, each led by a sergeant. Overseeing the operation are a captain and lieutenant.

"The wave of violence our city has seen over the last few weeks is unconscionable," Williams told a news conference that day. "Our citizens deserve the right to live in their homes, sit on their porches, play in the parks, walk the streets and feel safe."

Now in the first of what Williams said will be three phases, street officers have not only been cracking down on both serious and nuisance crimes but their commanding officers are also attending civic group meetings. The mayor and chief won't say what the other phases would entail.

Operation Disrupt's creation has, however, disrupted the normal operations of the force, which currently has about 290 officers, 30 below authorized strength, though a class of 34 cadets is set to graduate in May. To form the unit, Cummings pulled officers from specialized units, such as community policing, vice, communications and internal affairs.

Harold Bozeman, city police union president, did not return calls for this story. But Williams, a member of the city police union, said he spoke with union leaders and told them the cash-strapped city needed to "put more officers on the streets without paying overtime or breaking the bank."

"We knew we were going to meet some resistance. They put the brakes on at first. Soldiers and police officers don't like changes. They don't like civilians telling them what to do, but I put on my FOP hat and sat down and said, 'Fix this.' "

Williams made a hard sell. "As we explained to folks, you signed on to be police officer, not a vice cop, not a detective, not a traffic cop," he recalled. "That's the way it's going to be until we get up to manpower and full strength. We are team players, and you need to be a team player."

'We're gonna catch you'

As Cpl. Jones took laps around the city's northeast section one afternoon last week, he kept one hand on the steering wheel, the other punching in license plate numbers of vehicles on his laptop, searching for registration and other violations.

Whenever Jones saw people sitting on steps of houses he knows are vacant, he ordered them to move. He called out the names of residents, some of whom he knows from run-ins with police, others from community meetings or from walking the beat. He greeted one teenager who asked him if a job lead provided by police was a hoax, but Jones responded that the business just wasn't hiring.

Jones was hesitant to talk about Disrupt, but it was clear to a reporter accompanying him on his shift that the operation's mission was paramount.

Cruising on East 17th Street near a corner where a man was gunned down in January, Jones saw a tall, lanky man he suspected was selling drugs.

The corporal slowed his patrol car to a crawl and called, "We know what you're doing out here. Call it for the day."

The man didn't break stride or speak. He merely grinned at the officer, who before driving off warned, "We're gonna catch you."

Later, driving on East 23rd Street near Brown-Burton Winchester Park, he saw two men huddled with a few women, sipping from brown paper bags.

Jones scolded, "Dump it out."

He watched with an intent stare as one man emptied some of his can before setting it down with a smirk. Perturbed, Jones swerved to the curb and got out. He ordered both to hold their cans upside down until no more liquid trickled out. One had been drinking beer; the other, a Long Island ice tea.

He commanded the pair to produce identification, patted them down and searched his laptop to see if they were wanted. They weren't, so Jones sent them on their way, without their booze.

The officer's intervention raised the ire of one woman in the group, who had been watching from a distance as her children ran around a playground. "We can't even take our kids to the park," she shouted.

Retorted Jones: "You can take your kids to the park; you just can't drink at the park."

About 10 minutes later, Jones was driving nearby when he saw the same two guys, one of whom was again drinking a beer. Once again, Jones stopped and forced him to pour out the can.

Resident Ta'Shay Briscoe, who can see Brown-Burton Winchester Park from her home, where she is raising a 4-year-old boy and a 1-year-old girl, applauded the Disrupt patrols. Recently, she said, there have been more police and fewer violent crimes.

"I can let my son go ahead and play in the park and watch from here," she said.

The big question is whether the relative peace in frigid February and thawing March can hold and whether the city can sustain Operation Disrupt. Many residents, such as Briscoe's neighbor Silkilya Stewart, fear what might occur when the temperatures heat up and more bullets usually fly.

"When the summer comes," she said of the Disrupt teams, "I think they should still be out here."

Contact Adam Wagner at (302) 324-2837, awagner@delawareonline.com or on Twitter @AdamWagner1990. Contact senior investigative reporter Cris Barrish at (302) 324-2785, cbarrish@delawareonline.com, on Facebook or Twitter @crisbarrish.

OPERATION DISRUPT

THE PROGRAM: A new police effort in Wilmington to curb crime and position officers on patrol to target infractions from minor to serious.

WHAT PROMPTED IT: Started after seven people were shot, two fatally, Jan. 23-25.