For Trina Machesney [pictured], it was watching ATVs blast past her 5 year-old son. For others, it was encountering drug deals or open-air sex, or getting mugged and whacked on the head in daylight.
Whatever the specific trigger, a host of recent incidents led a Westville crowd to implore Police Chief James Lewis Thursday night to help them take control of their beautiful park — and prevent encroaching crime from shattering the security of their safe neighborhood.
Lewis repeatedly heard about Edgewood Park from 50 neighbors assembled in Edgewood School’s library. It was the new chief’s latest stop on a tour of neighborhood groups throughout the city. Westville Alderwoman Ina Silverman organized the gathering.
Both Lewis and the audience agreed that Westville’s concerns differ from those Lewis encounters in parts of town where gun-toting 14 and 15-year-olds on bikes are shooting each other (and passersby). Westville is basically a safe area where people more often than not encounter “crimes of opportunity” (thieves taking advantage of unlocked doors or open windows) rather than random street crime (although there have been exceptions).
But especially when Edgewood Park came up, Lewis heard about a neighborhood concerned that danger is spilling across a cherished boundary.
“This is a good neighborhood,” said Natalie Judd (at right in photo). “We don’t want to be afraid to walk in our park. We don’t want to pick up needles. We don’t want to see sex outside our windows… We don’t want to put a ‘for sale’ sign up and move to Woodbridge.”
Neighbors on both sides of the park cherish Edgewood, and make constant use of it. They organize clean-ups, hold parties at the gazebo, play on the tennis courts, buy veggies at the weekly farmers market, roll their wheels at the skate park, jog and stroll on the closed-off road, bring their kids to the playground, organize events at the ranger station.
But some have also begun to fear the park. One schoolteacher at the meeting Thursday night was mugged last Sunday afternoon near the footbridge over West River just past the skate park. The thief punched her twice before running off with her wallet.
“You guys responded quick. I got very well taken care of” by the police, the woman told Chief Lewis.
But she isn’t returning to the park. “I moved back [here] from New York to feel safe,’ she said. Besides the mugging, she had her car stolen off the street in April. “I feel like [the crime] is moving toward us. I don’t feel safe.”
“I find needles every morning when I walk my dog,” said Jordan Nodelman, who lives across from the park. “At night lots of people have sex in front of my window.”
He asked Lewis to have the cops shut the park entrance’s gates when Edgewood officially closes at nightfall. When he’s around to do it, he finds that perpetrators tend to gravitate elsewhere, Nodelman said.
Several neighbors complained about drivers of ATVs tearing up off-road dirt paths as well as the paved road through the park, which is supposed to be closed to vehicular traffic.
“I call in ATVs every singleweekend,” said Judd. “They do loop-de-loops for hours on end.”
Machesney (pictured at the top of the story) was still shuddering at the “close call” with her 5 year-old.
It happened last month when neighbors organized a Westville bike ride on a Thursday afternoon. Machesney rode with her 1‑and-a-half year-old on the back of her bike. Her 5 year-old recently learned to ride his own two-wheeler. He pedaled ahead of the group as it approached the curving hill by the duck pond.
“Out of nowhere came a pack of ATVs — a quad and bunch of dirt bikes. They came so fast, we didn’t even hear them coming.”
All she could do was watch — and hope the speedsters didn’t collide with her son. Thankfully they didn’t. “I was totally freaked out. I feel like I can’t really let him ride freely.”
Machesney and others said these illegal and dangerous dirt-bike excursions have become a regular occurrence in Edgewood. She asked Lewis to assign bike patrols to the park.
Lewis (pictured) said that in general he’s moving his walking-beat officers to bikes so they can cover more ground. He also said he’s looking forward to filling 110 vacant slots on the force in order to have more cops to assign.
He urged neighbors to report crimes to the cops and to stay in touch with their district manager, Lt. Bernie Somers. He gave out Somers’ contact information: 687‑0532 (cell) and his email address. He referred people to the SeeClickFix incident-reporting website, which he checks regularly. He suggested (without wanting to disclose advance details) that he might launch one of his prostitution stings in the area. And he promised to look into possible “structural” changes he can make at the park to head off the speed demons.