UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS
Students step up to the plate, join neighbors in efforts to deter crime
At first glance, Tuesday evening’s Neighborhood Watch training for residents of Highgate and Lisbon avenues in the University Heights District might seem a reaction to last weekend’s killing of 19-year-old Jacob Herbert of Clarence.
Plans for the session, however, had been made weeks ago as part of a neighborhood effort to arrest “chronic and stubborn crime and quality-of-life problems” in the community.
Those problems have become more urgent following the fatal stabbing of Herbert at about 4:30 a. m. Saturday outside a house party at 112 Lisbon Ave.
Authorities said Herbert apparently was demanding organizers refund his “cover charge” after police shut the party down.
As an argument erupted, Herbert was stabbed several times and died later.
Tuesday’s training was jointly organized by University at Buffalo fraternity Phi Kappa Psi and University Heights Collaborative. The session, which attracted about 20 residents and students, was the first to be led by students.
“It’s important that the students start paying attention to the crime creeping into the area and do their part to prevent it,” said Ronald Dinino, chapter adviser for Phi Kappa Psi, which has the neighborhood’s only university-sanctioned fraternity house, at 169 Highgate.
The fraternity has been here since 1989.
“We felt it was important to be a beacon in the neighborhood for students and residents alike,” Dinino added.
Officer Thomas E. Losi of the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority Police provided the training at the first of three planned sessions.
Losi said a true Neighborhood Watch is designed to restore the time-honored values of neighborhoods where residents knew and watched out for each other.
“There’s a lot more than just looking out the window and watching for crime,” Losi said. “You have to work as a community. You have to work as a neighborhood. You have to help yourselves.”
Communicating within the neighborhood and with law enforcement is essential, he said.
“Studies show Neighborhood Watch is effective because it brings neighbors together around a common cause — safety and security,” Losi said. “It’s one of the most effective and least costly ways to prevent crime.”
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