It's up to us to make city safer, group says

November 20, 2007
By Naomi Patton
Free Press Staff Writer

The loudest applause at the St. Cecilia-Pontchartrain Community Council public meeting Monday night was reserved for council member Bill Carr, who denounced a report that named Detroit the most dangerous city in the country.

"We're disregarding this kind of publicity," Carr said, adding that the group intended to "restore and revitalize Detroit to what it was."

Nearly 100 people, including City Council member JoAnn Watson, Detroit Police Western District Cmdr. Dwight Hudson and other members of government, law enforcement and clergy, attended the meeting in the St. Cecilia Catholic Church gymnasium on Stoepel.

The meeting fell on the day after the release of the 14th annual "City Crime Rankings: Crime in Metropolitan America," published by CQ Press. The rankings were based on the FBI's Sept. 24 crime statistics report, and the FBI and criminology experts said the rankings misused the data.

The community council was created this year after vandals stole brass door handles off the church on Christmas Eve 2006. Its mission is to reduce crime in the church neighborhood near Livernois and Grand River.

Cecil McIntosh, 66, of Detroit said he did not think the CQ Press report was fair. He said more jobs and better jobs are part of the solution to curbing crime in a region whose economy has depended on the struggling domestic auto industry.

"Now we have to go to our Plan B," he said.

Contact NAOMI R. PATTON at 313-223-4485 or npatton@freepress.com.