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Super Heroes Hit the Streets

Submitted by Mark Fox on Thu, 03/26/2009 - 5:00pm

NECP patrolers are recognizable by their black T-shirts. The shirt lets people know we’re something more than just folks out for a walk. It’s a conversation starter, but nothing like this:

Ripped from the pages of comic books, there’s a growing group of disguised Good Samaritans taking to the streets to look after all of us.

If you stop to look beyond the hustle and bustle of Saturday night traffic, you may just catch a glimpse of the Great Lakes Super Heroes Guild in the shadows.

Meet Geist the Emerald Cowboy, Razorhawk, and ShadowFlare—real life heroes that patrol the streets of Rochester, New Brighton, and Hopkins.
…
The network of mysterious masked do-gooders are used to getting strange looks from those who might not understand.

"People find us odd. People find us eccentric and we know that it's an unorthodox approach to societies problems," Geist said.

Indeed. I appreciate anyone willing to spend some time making a visible presence against crime and disorder, no matter what they’re wearing. It’s a bonus when they make me feel modest and well-adjusted.
#1Submitted by schulte on Thu, 04/02/2009 - 4:33pm.

Making Citizen Patrolling Work

I applaud anyone that gets out there and fights crime, but to make it work it has to be consistent.

Now into our 5th year of the NECP and citizen patrolling, I can confidently give advice to any neighborhood or patrol group on how to be successful at fighting crime. It's pretty simple, work one area consistently and take it over. Then work out from there.

It does no good to bounce around town following crime news, you may get on TV, but you will be doing nothing to make an area consistanly safer. You simply become mutually ineffective everywhere.

That's why the NECP is effective, each neighborhood is responsible for patrolling their own neighborhood constantly. They don't go to North Mpls, they don't go to St. Paul, they don't go downtown, they patrol their own area repeatedly. That's how you get results.

Now, some NECP patrollers do go to other NE neighborhoods to help out their patrols, but it's still NE, and that's okay, as we need every NE neighborhood to have a patrol group working their area, because if they don't, I'll simply push the criminals out of my NE neighborhood into a nearby NE neighborhood. That does not complete the mission of getting them out of NE all together.

Until more people "get it" we will continue to have a consistent influx of criminals. We need to take over our "area" so well that the criminal networks say to each other; "stay of of NE, there's too many people watching."

I'm sure those with military training will understand this. You take and hold an area. You don't bounce around.

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