Document text
Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend June 10, 2005 Eagle Point School District students, from left, Blanca Gutierrez, Cynthia Martinez, Juan Palomares, Brandon Bailey and Francisco Aranda study problem areas on an aerial map of White City in connection with a project to map crime and other incidents. Mail Tribune / Roy Musitelli Kids plot crime in White City That is, they’re plotting criminal activity, code enforcement and other calls for service in the city as part of a mapping project By DAMIAN MANN Mail Tribune Seventh-grader Cynthia Martinez thought she lived in a relatively quiet neighborhood until she got a chance to look at crime and emergency statistics. "A house across the street had a meth lab and they had to shut it down, then clean it up," said the White Mountain Middle School student. "I didn’t even suspect anything." Martinez and nine other students from the Eagle Point School District say a study of local statistics has been an eye-opening experience. They are plotting crime, code enforcement and other statistics street-by-street in White City as part of a mapping project sponsored by various local agencies. After six months of learning a complicated computer system and endless pages of statistics, they have already discovered the streets with the most crime and violations: Atlantic, Falcon, Avenue A, Highway 62, Antelope and Avenue G. In the future, they hope to have maps plotted with various symbols to show fire calls, police calls, substandard housing, condemned meth houses and other problems. Advertisement Martinez, who lives on Falcon and is one of the team leaders for the project, said one of the surprising statistics she saw was emergency crews responding to a neighbor’s house 18 times because of heart problems. Tenth-grader Franciso Aranda, who is one of two mentors from Eagle Point High School, said he couldn’t believe how many calls emergency service organizations responded to in White City. He quickly pointed out the worst neighborhood, according to the statistics: "It’s around the school," he said, pointing to White Mountain Middle School. Ed Pariani, who is with White City Youth Against Drugs and came up with the idea of the project, said the mapping is not meant to depict White City as crime-ridden. Instead it is designed to make the community safer for children, he said. "Our main goal is to look at a particular block that has the most responses and see, for example, if students living there have low grades," he said, adding that the end result should be: "What can we do to help this problem?" Pariani said the statistics surprised him, too. In one instance, he found that law enforcement had responded to one house more than 40 times because different members of the house had been involved in criminal activities. The mapping project is a collaborative effort among various organizations that have provided software, expertise and materials, including the county information technology department, the Southern Oregon Education Service District, Fire District 3, the Sheriff’s Department, county animal control, county code enforcement and the Upper Rogue Independent newspaper. Organizers hope the project will continue indefinitely as it tries to identify patterns of criminal activity, domestic problems, graffiti, abandoned vehicles and fire calls. Tenth-grader Aranda said the types of crimes he’s seen in the statistics include some racial incidents. "We’ve seen some racial stuff like Americans and Hispanics fighting," he said. Sarah Heath, coalition coordinator for the White City Youth Against Drugs, said the study is part of a neighborhood effort to make people more aware of criminal activity and report it immediately to authorities. "A lot of this is meant to uncover drug houses," she said. "Many residents either lived near a drug house or suspected they lived near a drug house." It has also raised awareness about bullying at schools and will track the importance of a three-year street lighting project that should make the community safer. Heath said that while White City is the subject of this study, other communities in Jackson County might have the same level of activity if subjected to the same scrutiny. Tenth-grader Max Pariani, grandson of Ed Pariani and another mentor in the program, said he had no idea that so many emergency calls occurred in White City. He said he wasn’t prepared for the amount of crime or the scope of the mapping study. "It’s a big project," he said. Reach reporter Damian Mann at 776-4476, or e-mail [email protected] . Mail Tribune Home | Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life | Opinion AP News | Archives | Site Map | Community | Classified Copyright © 1997-2005 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions | Website Feedback Ready-Made Website Templates Slippers Home Security Systems Trunks, Footlocker dvd-r Helzberg Diamonds Distance Education Diamonds Online Poker Computer Security Home Equity Loans Casino Gambling Sites Website Hosting Student Loans tcg student loan consolidation Online Pharmacy Memory Foam Mattress Reservationstogo Hotel Reservations w2 forms Mortgage Calculator Free Home-Loan Referrals Online Casino News Rogue Valley Blogs Natto Kinase Nattokinase Advertisement s