Letter: Patrols needed

To the editor:

Crime in the Pinckney and Burcham Park areas has reached an alarming rate. The lack of patrol concerns me.

Within the last year, both my vehicle and my husband’s were broken into. On another occasion, my husband witnessed a strange man come onto our property and attempt to open my car doors. Luckily that time nothing was stolen or broken. Other suspicious incidents have occurred, and when combined with the recent events (dead body found and man stabbed), we feel that there isn’t enough action being taken by police in the area.

A week before reading about the body, I notified police of a deranged man with a broken beer bottle in my yard. He was talking to himself and jumping in front of passing vehicles, and I feared for my child’s safety and my own. When police arrived, they questioned him and then left him in my yard. I had to call them back to have him removed.

On another occasion, a wailing man was lying on the sidewalk in front of my house. He was screaming profanities and throwing his shoes. Dispatch advised me to approach the man and ask him if he was OK. What? I’m supposed to approach a strange, apparently violent, man to ask him if he’s OK? That sounds completely safe.

Perhaps the Lawrence Police Department needs a lesson in time management, or perhaps they could spend less time sitting in the North Lawrence O’Reilly’s parking lot and patrol Burcham Park and Pinckney.