City challenged by the high rate of transient crime

“We have a lot of people that live in this town but if you look at the statistics, we service a population much greater than what the census shows of about 10,000,” he said. “What they really look at to get those kind of statistics are Part I crimes. Part I crimes are murder, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, larceny, theft, motor vehicle theft and arson.”

Brown then showed a slide illustrating the numbers for Winslow for 2016, showing there were 62 aggravated assaults, with 70 percent of those assaults occurring in one geographic area in the City of Winslow. That area is the one-quarter mile surrounding North Park Drive and Mikes Pike Blvd. namely, the 3 B’s property and the abandoned Denny’s building on Mike’s Pike. Both of these locations have been abandoned for years, making them popular locations for loitering.

The slide also contained information about calls for service from police and ambulances from the last seven years. Between 2010 and 2017, there were 1,521 calls made to the 3 B’s lot making that location the third most responded location in the city. Maverick Country Store across the street received the second highest number of calls with 1,721 and Walmart showed the most with 2,825 for a total of 6,067 calls to those three areas. The total calls for the City of Winslow was 9,539.

“If you break that down,” Brown said, “that is roughly 3.72 calls per day in that geographic area. That is extremely taxing to an agency that has maybe three or four officers on any given shift. It is an extraordinary amount of calls. We spend almost our entire shift chasing our tails up in that location. That means we are neglecting the rest of the city. That is a problem.” These calls include reports of fighting, shoplifting, medical assistance and trespassing among others. “How do you solve a problem like this?” Brown asked. “I don’t think that the statement, ‘that’s the way we have always done it’ is acceptable. You have to change, and change is exactly where we are at, and where we are going.

“This is not solely a police department issue, this is a community issue. It takes an entire community. It takes mental health (services), it takes addiction services (and) it takes things that generally rural areas lack.”

Brown’s approach to the growing population of transients and panhandlers, and therefore reducing calls for service to the heavily populated areas in Winslow is what he called, “Problem Oriented Policing.” He said, “It is an analytical method used by police agencies to develop strategies to prevent and reduce crime.” He explained that use of this method has allowed the analysis of the rate of crime and what is contributing to it.

“Alcohol use has contributed to nearly 85 percent of all of those calls in that seven year time frame. We have extreme levels of intoxication that leads to a significant lack of judgment, which can often lead to serious felonious crimes. We have vagrancy. People come to Winslow just to hang out while consuming alcohol. What is important to point out is that Arizona does not have a drunk in public law. The public consumption law, on the other hand, requires an officer or a willing victim to personally observe a person consuming alcohol. Just because they have it doesn’t mean that we can charge them for consumption. If you go to our neighboring jurisdictions of Flagstaff and Holbrook, they don’t have the significant number of problems in one geographical location. Because, historically, we have not done our job, we have not done our job effectively to solve the problem.”

He explained that part of solving the problem would be the educating of the general public, local business owners, citizens, and the offenders themselves. “We have to have partnerships with the stakeholders and with the community to address the problem and find a solution. We have to work with local providers to provide a safe place for sufferers from addiction. I would love to have an addiction treatment center here.”

The reason for Brown’s presentation was to clearly illustrate why barricades were placed in the 3 B’s parking lot. “The property owners, who are out of California, realized that it is a main hang out for vagrancy. This is not a problem for the city, this is a problem for the property owners.” Brown explained that it was his idea to block off the ingress and egress for now until a solution is found. The barriers were put in place on December 26. According to Brown, the City of Winslow assisted in facilitating the Jersey barriers.

The concrete structures are easily climbed over, or walked between, but cannot be maneuvered around by vehicles. Historically, semi trucks exiting Interstate 40 have used the empty parking lot to park their trucks to do their shopping, to rest and to visit restaurants in the area. To this point, Brown said, “We can’t enforce trespassing to people that are vagrants without doing it unilaterally, we can’t pick and choose who we are going to arrest, it’s either all or nothing.”

Kyle Johnson owns Captain Tony’s Pizza adjacent to the 3 B’s property. Johnson said during the council meeting, “As the only owner over there that isn’t corporate, I am speaking on how we are affected by the truck stop. I am going to give you some numbers. In the first few weeks of December 2017, we were up 28 percent over the same time in 2016. After the barricades were erected, we were down 32.3 percent from last year. The first through the seventh of January, we were down 31.2 percent from 2016, so the people that don’t think the truckers are spending money, there it is.”

Johnson’s entire staff from Captain Tony’s was in attendance at the council to show the council and the police department the faces of the families that will be affected by this.

Mayoral candidate Tom McCauley also voiced his thoughts on the issue during the call to the public saying, “I don’t know any business that can take a 30 percent hit and stay open. We have to be able to work with our community and that means everybody. Anybody that has been in line behind these truckers at Walmart knows that they spend $40 to $150 every time they walk in the door. Where this is going to hit us the hardest is in our state shared revenue. We are a town that lives on sales tax and it’s going to kill us. “How many jobs are we willing to lose because of this issue?” McCauley asked.

Mayor Robin Boyd addressed McCauley and said, “We are in discussion with the private owners. These are private property issues, not a city issue. It is a city issue in the fact that we have police responding to these incidents, but we also have a big vacant lot that hasn’t been cleaned up. We need to have something where the property owners are a little more responsible and work with the city. I think before this outfit gets sold we might be able to work something out. We haven’t closed it, but the city is serious that we can’t keep having all of these aggravated assaults.” At that point Mayor Boyd was interrupted by vice mayor and mayoral candidate Harold Soehner who asked Boyd to read the rules of engagement from the council agenda. Boyd continued, “The council may not address or discuss the comment other than to direct the matter to staff for follow up.”

In Brown’s presentation, he informed the council that Lieutenant Ken Arend had taken a survey of surrounding businesses that day. Arend asked two questions, Brown said, “The first was, has the 3 B’s parking lot closure affected your business positively or negatively? The second was, has the intoxicated street people/transient problem in the area been affected positively or negatively or the same?” The businesses surveyed that reported no effect on business included Oxendale Auto, O’Reilly Auto Parts, Fast Auto Loan, Buddy’s Furniture and Walmart, all located on Mike’s Pike Blvd., and Maverick Country Store located on North Park Drive. Businesses that reported negative effect on their bottom line included Pizza Hut, located on Mike’s Pike and the Leisure Laundry, located on North Park Drive.

Most of the businesses surveyed reported an improvement in the vagrancy that has plagued the area with the exception of Kurt Foster, the owner of Pizza Hut who said there has been no noticeable change.

In a follow up interview with Johnson, he said, “No one asked me. I can tell you I have my life staked on this. Next week, I go to closed on Mondays and I cut more hours. My sales have dropped so much that I can’t do anything else.” When asked if he felt his need to close one day a week was directly a result of the barricade in his shared parking lot he said, “Oh yeah, absolutely without a doubt. Most of the trucks are turning around and heading down the road. We have watched in the past on various days of the week. We watched on a Monday, and we counted 420 trucks and on a Saturday we had 600 trucks.”

Based on those numbers, and the trend in which business had been going for Johnson, he said, “We actually forecasted to be up 16 percent this year, now I am likely going to be down 30 percent.” Johnson employs 19 people, some of which have been at Captain Tony’s longer than he has, including one who has been in the kitchen for 27 years. “I care about these people, and they care about this business, I am trying to protect the livelihood of 19 people and families in this town. They live here and spend their money here. They pay taxes here, if this keeps up that goes away. Everybody is losing. The trucks and their money are going elsewhere. They need to eat, they need to shower, they have to stop by law, they are spending their money elsewhere.”

This issue is far from over. Chief Brown said, “In the 14 days since the barricades went up, the Winslow Police Department has arrested 41 people from that area.” He continued, “Redevelopment is underway and will add to the solution. The old Denny’s has been sold and will be replaced by an auto parts store very soon. Last week the owners of 3 B’s presented the property to a potential purchaser who intends to rehab the structure and the fuel system and operate as travel center for truckers.” According to Brown, there will be an answer as to whether that potential buyer will move forward with the project by late February.

In conclusion to Brown’s presentation Mayor Boyd said, “I think we can get through this with a little bit of patience. If they can get another entity in there, it will change everything, but that will take some time.”

The police chief intends to come before the council again in February with a motion for an ordinance that may offer a more comprehensive solution to the issues being faced by business owners and the police department as well.