"OPERATION IMPACT" GETS HIGH-RISK OFFENDERS
OFF THE STREETS

District 4 Sargeant Wayne Lanchester, at wheel, responds to scene.

Probation Officer Timothy Norris explains reason for arrest to probationer.

Boston Police and Probation Officers meet at District 4 Police Station for strategy meeting where they share intelligence information such as an offenders' social and criminal history.

Boston Police Officer and John Turner, Suffolk County Juvenile Assistant Chief Probation Officer.

John Turner and police talk to youth.

Suffolk County Probation Officers teamed up with Boston Police from District 4 recently to track down and apprehend probationers with known gang affiliations in the South End/Lower Roxbury area. This warrant apprehension team, which has been in place for the past decade, is known as Operation IMPACT.

In less than two hours on a warm Friday night, members of the team located and apprehended four of the 20 high-risk probationers also referred to as “High Impact” players by the Boston Police Department. On a typical night, probation officers and police apprehend at least five offenders featured on the list, according to Boston Municipal Court Probation Officer Timothy Norris. During these warrant sweeps, probation officers and police fan out across District 4, an area which extends from the Back Bay to the Fenway area and includes the South End and Lower Roxbury.

“They (offenders) are not happy when they are picked up on the weekend. It means that they are generally held (incarcerated) until Monday,” Norris said.

“By taking them off the street tonight, we prevent a kid from being killed or stop them from victimizing someone else,” added District 4 Police Sergeant Wayne Lanchester.

Lanchester added, “Probation has more power out here on the streets than police. It is simple. They don’t want to make their probation officers angry because they know they will see them in court where the P.O. can send them to jail on their recommendation to the judge.

”The team, a group of police and probation officers, meet on a weekly basis to develop strategies to combat crime and to share intelligence information on the whereabouts and comings and goings of at-risk young men who are on probation.

Before setting out on a warrant sweep recently, probation officers and police meet in a conference room at District 4, located on Harrison Avenue in Boston’s South End, where they reviewed background information and mugshots of the individuals they hoped to get off the streets. The information also included the details of shootings, witness statements, and the identities of victims. Most of the offenders featured on the list are warrant violators. Probation and police officers also do home visits and curfew checks during Operation Impact.

The IMPACT team loaded into four unmarked police vehicles: two police officers and one probation officer in each car. Norris sat in the front seat and provided information to Lanchester. He read the plate numbers of cars driven by individuals he recognized as probationers and called off information provided on the warrant sheets.

Norris scanned the faces of young men as Lanchester drove. Suddenly, Norris spots a man on a bicycle who matches the description of a probationer. He informs Lanchester who then begins to follow the man. The man, aware that he was being trailed, quickly disappears down an alley. The second police officer in the car, Sean McCarthy, jumps out of the car to pursue the man on foot. Lanchester drives the police car around the corner and finds the man on the bike has emerged but it turns out to be the wrong person, not someone featured on the list of warrant violators.

Lanchester radios Officer McCarthy who is several streets over and swings around to pick the officer up. Several seconds later, Lanchester and Norris receive a communication via police radio that the other team members have apprehended a young man with known gang affiliations.

“We know who is feuding with who,” said Lanchester. “District 4 has some interesting dynamics. There are high-priced restaurants and shops and streets where there are gangs. However, there are a finite number of bad kids. The rest are good kids. We are trying to develop good relationships with the bad kids and maintain a good relationship with the good kids.”

Norris and Lanchester explained that the major source of friction is between young men who live in the five housing developments in the area. The youngsters, both agree, are embroiled in a turf battle.

“These guys hate these guys and these guys hate these guys. The kids will tell you that they are sick of the violence. Even the toughest, hardest kids are sick of it,” Lanchester said.

“The more eyes watching the better,” Norris said. “The key to us being out here is to identify the constant problems in the community. It goes back to Probation’s three-pronged approach: “Presence, Partnership, and Prevention.”

Norris and Lanchester continued to drive through the neighborhood looking for the offenders featured on the list. A woman sitting in a chair in front of a community center smiled and waved at Norris. She is the mother of one of his probationers, Norris explained. The unmarked cruiser passed a group of young men hanging out on the stoop in front of an apartment house. One of the men turned from the group and waved when he recognized Norris.

Sgt. Lanchester turned onto Tremont Street and headed south toward lower Roxbury, passing upscale restaurants and boutiques. A woman walked by talking animatedly on her cell phone. On one corner, a group of four teenage boys all dressed in oversized white tee shirts, sat on a utility box eyeing the police car. Norris recognized one of his probationers standing in front of a hair salon further down the block. It was a man who had an outstanding warrant and who has a history of substance abuse offenses. The police approached the man and handcuffed him as Norris explained to him that he was being taken into custody because of an outstanding probation warrant.

The team returned to the District 4 Police Station for booking. Shortly after, a report came over the police radio that Probation Officer Kevin McClerklin of Suffolk County Juvenile Court, who was in the second police car still traversing the neighborhood, had spotted another probationer. The labored breathing and sounds of the police officer’s feet hitting the pavement were heard over the police radio as they chased the suspect on foot.

John Turner, Assistant Chief Probation Officer at Suffolk County Juvenile Court, Sgt. Lanchester and Police Officer McCarthy jump into the car and with Sgt. Lanchester at the wheel drive out of the Police Department parking lot, rounds the corner, and races down the street with sirens blaring. The cruiser turned onto a narrow street. The team finds a group of adults and children on bikes congregating near a clearly marked Boston Police cruiser as the offender was handcuffed and placed into the backseat and brought back to central booking at District 4.

Turner spotted a young man on probation in the crowd and stopped to check in with him about his progress. He then hopped in the police cruiser with Lanchester and McCarthy and headed back to Tremont Street to do a home visit.

The probation and police officers enter the apartment building and crowd onto a tiny, dilapidated elevator operated by an elderly gentleman. They get off on the 4th floor to visit a juvenile living with his grandmother. When they knock on the older woman’s door, they assure the worried senior citizen that they are not there to arrest anyone but to do a curfew check on her grandson. They find the grandson in the bedroom with another probationer who is on probation out of Superior Court. Turner makes a note to call the young man into his office on Monday.

“A lot of young guys are drawn to the gang life. Probation gives them an out. Having P.O’s in the community is a huge deterrent. They can tell their buddies there’s my P.O. I have to go. I have a curfew,” Turner said. “We’re also a back-up for the parents.”

The probation and police officers broke for dinner and later resumed their detail. By the end of the night, they have located and apprehended six offenders.