New Rochelle Cops and Robbers

A rash of armed stick ups here in town and nearby Pelham and Mamaroneck have residents on edge, and asking whether or not there are enough police resources to act as a deterrent.   Several possibilities, including Governor Andrew Cuomo’s tax cap, the financial crisis; and here in New Rochelle, an alleged unwillingness on the part of the city to allocate more police officers to the downtown, have been suggested as the cause. 

There are two additional dynamics feeding this story. First, is the nature of the news business itself. Every student who takes a Journalism 101 class is exposed to the time worn axiom that “it is not news when a dog bites a man, but it is news when a man bites a dog.”  Obviously, multiple armed attacks in one of the nation’s richest and toniest suburbs represent a canine chomp out of Westchester’s reputation.  These kinds of things are not supposed to happen here. So, to be fair, these stories receive a little more attention than they otherwise might.

Second, there are sensitive social and political issues about which Westchester, not just the sound shore, is often in denial, and are indicative of a reality we rarely talk about.

It has become acceptable to recognize gang violence in Yonkers and street mayhem in Mount Vernon.  To some extent White Plains also has problems which it keeps at bay, but has to work hard to do so. Next up, or is it down, is our own New Rochelle.  The Queen City is a bit of an enigma.  We have areas that deserve to be included with the affluent and uncommonly safe communities on our borders, such as Scarsdale and Eastchester.  Both the north and south ends have such areas that take us back to the days of the Dick Van Dyke Show and the song Forty Five Minutes from Broadway.  We also have tough, even dangerous, neighborhoods.

Parts of the downtown, while greatly gentrified over the past decade, do not yet give one the sense of security that we would like, or that we might feel if we were, say, shopping on Quaker Ridge Road.  There have been robberies and murders there.  To the west, there is a working class, relatively impoverished section, with a large Mexican immigrant and minority population that is working its way up the ladder that is the American dream.  Parts of this area can be downright tough.  There is gang activity and the kinds of inner city problems that exist in all urban municipalities.  It is tough, but not horrible.  It is a cause for attention, but not outrage.  It is yet another part of a diverse and complex city.

These realities present a slippery slope.  If we overstate the problems we run the risk of painting our city with an unfairly negative brush and, worse, creating the impression that it is not safe at all.  Property values can fall and businesses might be reluctant to come here.  On the other side of the issue, a failure to deal with these issues openly impedes progress, and worse, detracts from the credibility of assessments put forward by city officials.

We do have one of America’s safest cities according to statistics published by credible authorities.  Those numbers, however, are for the city as a whole; and like a graduating class with a high average GPA, there are those individuals who can do better.