Opinion: Open Letter from Sid, and Reply from UofC's Eric Heath

Here is an 'open letter' exchange by email between me and the UChicago Associate Vice President for Safety and Security, Eric Heath:

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Eric Heath <emheath@uchicago.edu>
Date: Wed, Dec 26, 2018 at 1:30 PM
Subject: Re: Pasted from Hyde Park neighborhood Watch ... Ideas of mine ... Crime wave?
To: Sid Colton
Cc: Kenton Rainey <krainey@uchicago.edu>
Sid,
Thanks for emailing and hope you had a good holiday. I have copied Chief Rainey on this reply as he recently made changes to the patrol area to assign a Captain to one of four public service areas in the UCPD jurisdiction. Each of his four captains are responsible for small geographic areas and they frequently attend community meetings and answer community related questions. From a sheer staffing perspective, I don’t know if its feasible to assign someone to every single social media group, but I will share your idea with Chief Rainey.

Have a great new year and I will forward along your photo to the city and department of facilities.

Eric M. Heath
Associate Vice President for Safety and Security
The University of Chicago
5235 S. Harper Court, Suite 916
Chicago, IL 60615
(773) 702-8144

From: Sid Colton
Date: Tuesday, December 25, 2018 at 9:47 AM
To: Eric Heath <emheath@uchicago.edu>
Subject: Pasted from Hyde Park neighborhood Watch ... Ideas of mine ... Crime wave?

Dear Eric,

My observation is that there is somewhat of a crime wave in Hyde Park. Perhaps the extra publicity that Hyde Park in general has received over the past few years has made south side criminals aware of the relative prosperity and ... easy pickings? ... at times in Hyde Park. Perhaps the criminals are even aware that there is very-little pedestrian/street traffic during university interims, and that their activities are made easier thereby. I suppose the poverty (and perhap all of those new cameras / shot-spot) in many nearby neighborhoods are chasing criminals out of those areas and to ... Hyde Park!

1. Are more cameras-etc needed in Hyde Park in the places where the crimes are occurring most often?
2. Can the U of C Police have a representative who interacts with the public on a group such as Hyde Park Neighborhood Watch? THIS WOULD BE A HUGE ADVANCE IN YOUR INTERACTION WITH THE COMMUNITY!!!
3. Attached below is my photo of some one-week old red spray-painted gang symbols at Ellis Ave & westbound Midway Plaisance.
4. Perhap a meeting soon in some place like SSA on campus is called for.

Thank you,
Sid

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[For the full version of the image, see also: https://www.crimereports.com/c... --Sid]