NAP- Neighborhood Alliance of Pawtucket

Police are listening

Feb 06, 2006

02/06/2006
Police go hunting
Kevin O'Connor , Times staff reporter

PAWTUCKET -- Hunters know that sometimes you have to stop and listen. When you try to hear, the world talks to you.
So the Pawtucket Police stopped to listen during the month of January. The world said plenty.

Throughout January patrol officers and detectives hit the streets, talking to everyone they saw in the city?’s Pleasant View and Woodlawn neighborhoods.

They asked about stolen cars, unruly kids, traffic trouble and prostitutes working the streets.

"It went well," said Detective Maj. John Whiting. "A lot of intelligence was gathered. We learned a lot."

The immediate result has been the arrest of two teenage boys and the warrants issued for others, young men who would drive around the city, looking for other teenagers to beat up.

Youth Bureau detectives had been hearing about the assaults, so they went back and spoke to as many victims as they could find, even to the boys who declined to make official complaints.

"What we learned is that there were five to seven teenagers in a car," Whiting said. "They would just stop, confront other teenagers and beat them. We learned they were bragging to their friends and showing off their bloody knuckles.

"But we spoke with one victim who got a license plate. It was traced back to a car in East Providence. The car owner told us his daughter associates with teenagers from Pawtucket. It lead from there."

Detective Sgt. Roberto DaSilva said Youth Bureau detectives received three separate reports in the space of a week about teenagers in a car stopping to assault other tee agers without any apparent provocation.

Detectives Kevin Santurri, Susan Cormier and Donti Rosciti put together a list of names and the detectives began searching for those teenagers when they returned to work at night.

"We came across a large group of kids in the Broadway area and some of them were part of the group," DaSilva said. "It helped us a lot.

"We feel we?’ll close out all three incidents with arrests."

"This is what we hoped to do," Whiting said. "This type of conduct is handled as a priority by us.

"This stems from the chief?’s philosophy. This type of disorderly conduct won?’t be tolerated."

The intelligence gathering is paying other dividends. Special Squad detectives heard of prostitutes working the Broadway area. Nine arrests of men and women have been made since then.

Detectives have also identified hot spots for stolen cars and are pursuing the leads developed.

"We learned enough to give ourselves a lot of work to do," Whiting said.