NEW BEDFORD IS STANDING UP TO CRIME

It's hard to say just when it started, but the nothing's-ever-gonna-change
voices that we've heard so often in discussions of public safety in New
Bedford have lately been relegated to the back seat.

A new attitude is driving anticrime initiatives in New Bedford.

The violence on our streets has not stopped entirely, but ordinary citizens
lately have been doing some extraordinary things.

We might start by acknowledging the efforts of the fledgling New Bedford
ACTS (A Community Together Succeeds), a group of citizens committed to
finding solutions to the violence that has plagued our streets for too long.

Last week, New Bedford ACTS and city police co-sponsored the area's first
Gun Safety Exchange in a decade.

In the first three days of a weeklong program, more than 30 firearms had
been turned in for pizza party gift certificates.

Any one of these guns might have fallen into the wrong hands, with a
potentially tragic result. With a safety program such as this, we'll never
know whether collecting these guns might save a life. All we know is that
this is possible.

The Gun Safety Exchange is just a first step for New Bedford ACTS, which
last week hired its first coordinator to pursue the public safety agenda
outlined by more than 100 community members in public dialogues earlier
this year.

But even before the genesis of New Bedford ACTS late last year, area
business leaders led by the Greater New Bedford Chamber of Commerce stood
up and offered $5,000 cash rewards for information leading to the
indictment and conviction of the perpetrators of any of 16 unsolved
homicides in New Bedford in the past few years.

It was a powerful statement.

Although the city's business leaders worked closely with the District
Attorney's office and city police to design the program, they took the
initiative themselves to do something that had never been done before.

Over the past month, the Gould family on Grinnell Street, tired of
drug-dealing and gunfights in the middle of their once-quiet neighborhood,
has stood up to the dealers in their neighborhood with a series of block
parties. Armed with video cameras, a small group of neighbors documented
the drug dealers' comings and goings, and now the dealers have largely
moved on.

Each of these efforts individually is worthy of praise. But taken together,
they are more than just a sum of the parts.

In one New Bedford ACTS discussion earlier this year, a longtime official
in City Hall noted the change.

"For 20 years, I've heard 'The mayor should do this,' or 'The police should
do that,' or 'The DA's not doing his job,'" he said. "But this is the first
time I've heard such a large group of people ask, 'What can we do to solve
the problems of crime in our city?' It's just a new attitude," he said.

I wasn't ready to believe it just then. But the evidence is mounting that
people in New Bedford believe that a safer city is within their grasp. And
they are not waiting; they are acting on that belief.

Nelson Hockert-Lotz

Mr. Hockert-Lotz owns several pizza restaurants in the city and has been
active with New Bedford Acts.