Police return to foot patrols to try to curb rising crime downtown and on the Common; residents, parks advocates say more work needed

At a hearing on public-safety issues downtown and around Boston Common today, Elizabeth Vizza had a request for suburbanite do-gooders who keep coming to the Common to feed the homeless: Stop!

Vizza, president of the Friends of the Public Garden, which also looks out for the Common, said well meaning suburban feeders who think they are "saving souls" are actually harming the Common and even the people they're trying to help: By feeding people with mental-health and substance-abuse problems on the Common, the out of towners are keeping them from seeking out meals at the well stocked kitchens at nearby places such as St. Francis House - where, unlike on the Common, the hungry could also gain access to the help that might help them get into treatment, and get them away from the sometimes violent drug dealers who menace not only them, but residents and tourists just trying to enjoy one of the city's key parks.

At today's hearing, called by City Councilors Ed Flynn, who represents downtown, and Julia Mejia, Vizza, downtown and Beacon Hill residents and city officials said that crime - and equally important, the fear of crime - has gone up over the past six months as people ejected from Mass and Cass wound up on the Common, particularly around the Brewer Fountain, and nearby areas, such as the intersection of Winter and Tremont streets, but even on the other side of Beacon Hill, such as the Appleton Footbridge to the Esplanade.

While downtown and the Common have always had populations of homeless and people with drug problems, the past year has seen an explosion in their numbers, and far worse, in the often violent drug dealers who prey on them, they said.

Flynn pointed to stabbings at the fountain and across Tremont at Winter Place and said a few months ago, a woman standing at Boylston and Tremont suffered a broken nose when somebody just went up to her and punched her in the face.

Vizza said things got so bad this summer that Berklee College pulled its students out of a performance series at the Brewer Fountain after an incident in which a woman with mental-health issues began harassing the students, then eventually took her clothes off and jumped into the fountain. Only police were able to get her out, she said.

Katherine Kennedy of Beacon Hill, who has two children, 5 and 7 months, that she filed the first of a series of 311 reports about discarded needles on Sept. 9, when she walked her oldest child to her first day at preschool. She continued: "Sept. 30. Oct. 7. Oct. 9. Oct. 11. Oct. 12. And Oct. 15." Kennedy started her statement by pulling items out of her diaper bag, which ended with her holding up the sharps container she now carries for discarded needles.

"I accept that raising a family in the city is complicated," she said. "I accept trash, cigarette butts, nip bottles and even broken glass, but this is unacceptable."

City Councilor Sharon Durkan, who said she lives just a short walk from the Common on Beacon Hill, however, said a recent series of swarms by police have restored some semblance of order and even peace to the fountain and nearby areas on the Common.

BPD Deputy Supt. Dan Humphreys said the on-foot swarming is part of a "giant pivot" by Commissioner Michael Cox to get officers out of their cruisers in general and to target certain areas particularly affected by the dismantling of the tent city at Mass and Cass: The Common, the South End and Andrew and Nubian squares.

"We are doing a very intentional redeployment of officers" into those areas, he said, adding the department is using both 311 and 911 reports to figure out where to send officers, which includes not just areas with high crime rates but where reports indicate "a fear of crime."

"This is the beginning," he said, adding officers on these patrols, known as "interaction groups," are even told to file their own 311 reports on things that are not direct police issues, but which are quality of life issues, such as discarded needles.

Humphreys added the department is also beginning to pay more attention than it once did to traffic enforcement, which can't come soon enough for Rishi Shukla, a 25-year downtown resident and co-founder of the Downtown Boston Neighborhood Association. Shukla said that in addition to the rise of open drug dealing and use across downtown, downtown's 12,000 residents now also take their lives in their hands just walking out their doors.

"We can't have mopeds, scooters and bikers running through red lights, hitting pedestrians and having near misses," he said.

Flynn repeated his call for a "zero tolerance" policy, in which criminal offenders are sent off to state prison on even their first offense, as opposed to the revolving door he said now dumps them right back on the Common to commit more crimes and get arrested. Flynn, who has also called repeatedly for cutting city budgets, also called for more police officers - and services for people with mental-health and substance-abuse issues. He also called for finding a way to restore arrest powers to city park rangers, who lost them in 2021. Nobody from the Suffolk County District Attorney's office attended the hearing.

Durkan, however, cautioned that the issue is not black and white, that the Common is not some black hole of terror and that "creating unnecessary fear" risks driving away the businesses that might want to move downtown, investing in the neighborhood, creating more eyes on the street and hiring local residents.

Flynn denied fearmongering and also said that he does so represents downtown, although nobody had said he didn't.

Both councilors and other officials agreed that the homeless need help and caring and that much of the problem is the dealers, especially of fentanyl, who prey on them.

Shukla said he agreed on that point, and with Flynn that the DA and the courts need to simply stop letting people back out onto the street, that downtown residents shouldn't have to walk in fear and that parents in particular shouldn't have to worry about their children "bearing witness to violence."

"How many times can our officers arrest a person only to see them back on the street?" he asked.

Shukla said he appreciated the hearing, but noted it's not the first and said he doesn't want to be asked in six months to attend another one with nothing getting done. Instead, he said, if he had his druthers, he'd assemble city and state officials, police, representatives from local social-services agencies and colleges, then lock them in a room for a few hours until they came up with three or four key actions they would commit to take.

"We all have to do more and we all have to do better," he said.

Michael Nichols, president of the Downtown Boston Alliance - until recently the Downtown Business Improvement District - also called for more work to get drug dealers out of the area.

"Criminal drug dealing has tainted many of the jewels of our city, including Downtown Crossing," he said.