Rockford police walking the beat

ROCKFORD — The sight of Officer Jeff Oberts striding down Broadway might be enough to instill fear in the heart of any criminal.

But for J&L Penny Market owner Luis Garcia, the sight of the police officer's unmistakable bald head, friendly smile and 6-foot, 7-inch frame on foot patrol instills something else entirely: a sense of safety and ease.

“It's pretty helpful because we can get comfortable in our businesses,” Garcia said, noting that while police are around, the groups of people who often loiter on Broadway and drive away business disappear.

Garcia just wishes the police patrols could be around more often.

In a measure that will remain a year-round fixture barring bad weather, Chief Chet Epperson has re-introduced Rockford to foot patrols that harken back to another era.

Epperson said foot patrols were used temporarily last year and are often viewed as an old-fashioned approach to police work. Anecdotally, they have for three decades been thought to improve relationships between police, residents and business owners.

It's also becoming viewed as a tool of law enforcement in a modern urban area — especially in select high crime areas or in places that experience a sudden spike in crime. Evidence is mounting that not only do foot patrols build better relationships between police, merchants and residents, they also fight crime.

An academic study published last year, “The Philadelphia Foot Patrol Experiment,” teamed Temple University researchers with more than 200 Philadelphia police officers walking beats in high-crime areas. It found that foot patrols drove violent crime down by 23 percent in high-crime areas during the three-month study.

Epperson ordered foot patrols last month along the Broadway business district during the day, along East State Street downtown at night and in select areas on an as-needed basis.

“We have had very good feedback from business owners and tenants on Broadway and in the Seventh Street area,” he said. “We have come across intoxicated people, people living in places where they aren't supposed to be. When people see that officer patrolling, that fear of crime in a particular area goes away.”

On his Broadway patrol recently, Oberts said he and other officers are periodically assigned to self-directed foot patrols in two-hour shifts.

Business owners and residents have been very supportive and, if anything, would like the officers to be around more often. Oberts has been pleasantly surprised by the power of getting out of the squad car.

“It gets us in touch with the community on a level that I have never experienced,” the Rockford native said. “We get to interact with all the business owners and the businesses in the area, we aren't told where to go, we aren't going call-to-call or (being) assigned calls. It's preventive and interacting with society. It's a high-visibility assignment to let them know we are out here, we are accessible.”

It's too early to tell how much of an effect the foot patrols can have in high-crime areas.

But it's appreciated by people who live and work in them, said Ron and Karolyn Lund, who operate Karolyn's Thrifty Boutique, a consignment clothing store with an adjacent furniture store.

Broadway business owners are concerned about the people who congregate on sidewalks during the evening and with fly-by-night storefronts that don't appear to play by the rules.

“Just having the visibility of the police out there, that definitely helps,” Ron said.

At the Grand Apartments, the return of foot patrols is welcome, said resident Rob Reitz, who sometimes feels nervous walking through groups of people outside his home who might mean him harm.

“I was really happy to see they were back in full force,” Reitz said. “That's the best thing for Broadway because it started getting thicker and thicker, full of people with looks on their faces like they are going to do something to you. That's the kind of look you don't want to see outside the place where you live.”