Chinatown gets crime-fighting help

By MARK HIGGINS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Michael Yee and other International District leaders have seen crimereduced in their neighborhood over the past decade, but they say it's notenough. The petty stuff won't go away.

Drunks, panhandlers, car prowlers and what Yee calls the "intimidationfactor" are still rife.

"As I talk to people outside the community, I hear my share of comments:'It's unsafe,' " said Yee, co-chairman of the International District PublicSafety Group. "It hurts business when you have that type of reputation."

To address district concerns, city and police officials in 1995 unveileda three-year, $360,000 national grant to be used for neighborhood security.

Seattle and Brooklyn, N.Y., were chosen over six other cities to receivethe grant, which is financed privately by MetLife and the C.S. MottFoundation.

The pilot project was created to finance crime-fighting efforts involving apartnership of community groups and police, in this case the SeattleChinatown-International District Preservation and Development Authority, andSeattle police. Together, they are referred to as a Community SecurityInitiative.

Police Chief Norm Stamper called it yet another example of communitypolicing, where citizens and police band together to head off crime.

Stamper said Seattle was chosen for the grant because of its already strongcollaborative crime-fighting approach.

Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government and the Police ExecutiveResearch Forum in Washington, D.C., monitored the two cities' neighborhoodcrime-fighting measures.

In Seattle, the grant provided for the salary of a community employee,Maxine Chan, as a "facilitator" between police and theInternational District, and any "technical assistance" provided by policeand the two monitoring groups.