Wednesday, April 25, 2007

CRIME FREE HOUSING: A Columbia Cop Talks Serious Shop

Chronic offender haunts rental at 111 West Worley

COLUMBIA, 4/25/07  (Beat Byte)
-- How does a man with 60 arrests find a place to rent and/or not get
evicted?

For
Larry E. McBride, Jr., whose address of record was 111 West Worley, it was renting a house with its own rap sheet. McBride, you may recall, was arrested with crack cocaine earlier this month while driving a car involved in a south Columbia shooting.

Owned by Dale and Judith Andrews -- who operate other Worley-area
rentals -- 111 W. Worley has been featured in several news articles about crack dealing, narcotics possession, and assorted criminal activities.

Moreover, page after page of Columbia Tribune archives show arrests with addresses of record
at the Andrews' rental home in recent years. 

The Columbia Police have long maintained a Crime Free Housing
program, so what gives?

Landlords are notified about tenant arrests and crime on their properties
through a number of means, says Officer Tim Thomason, including Neighborhood Watch, Teleminder, arrest notification, nuisance party notification, and chronic nuisance property notification.

If a property keeps attracting crooks, Thomason advises landlords to
take a closer look at everything from property aesthetics to their screening process.

"Our Crime Free Programs assist in educating landlords on how to deal
with -- and more importantly, prevent -- crimes or unwanted tenant or guest behavior," Thomason says. "It is important for landlords to have a strict criminal and credit screening procedure; a specific list of rules; and be willing and able to enforce the rules and evict problem tenants."

As for those who would blame the police -- often the course of choice -- such
blame may be both naive and unwarranted. Police -- and the communities they protect -- don't operate in a vacuum.

The preamble to the city's new nuisance law clearly recognizes this fact in
stating that "prosecution of unlawful activity on property is not always an effective way to preserve a desirable quality of life in the
neighborhood."

Thomason, too, laments that "many landlords do not do much after being given the
standard arrest notice."

As for Larry McBride, Jr., he kept getting arrested, then coming home -- to 111
West Worley -- right up until the tragic shooting of Tedarrian Robinson:

September 22, 2006: Larry Eugene McBride Jr., 20, of 111 W. Worley, failure to
appear in court
October 6, 2006: Larry Eugene McBride Jr., 20, of 111 W. Worley St.,second-degree trespassing.
October 20, 2006: Larry Eugene McBride Jr., 20, of 111 W. Worley, possession of 35 grams or less of marijuana, $500 bond.
December 7, 2006: Larry Eugene McBride Jr., 20, of 111 W. Worley, possession of a controlled substance, $4,500 bond.
April 9, 2007: Larry Eugene McBride Jr., 20, of 111 W. Worley St., failure to appear in court, $5,000 bond.
April 19, 2007: Larry Eugene McBride, Jr, 20, of 111 W. Worley St., parole-or-probation violation, second-degree trafficking, $200,000 bond.
http://www.columbiatribune.com/2007/Apr/20070419News001.asp


Other news stories featuring 111 West Worley:


http://archive.columbiatribune.com/2006/oct/20061018news005.asp

http://archive.columbiatribune.com/2004/nov/20041110news008.asp

http://archive.columbiatribune.com/1998/feb/19980225news05.htm


Keeping Crime Low: Some Places to Go
 

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