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on Oct 21 in Client posted by admin

Detroit residents sparked into action after rash of arsons

Detroit — Yvonne Russell stands on the porch of her well-kept brick home as the smell of burned wood from several nearby ruined homes floats through her east side neighborhood. She can count a dozen nearby vacant homes that have been torched. At least one of them is among the targets of the 11 fires that were set earlier this month in her neighborhood.

Since then, neighbors have banded together, vowing to take back their community from arsonists who they say have preyed on it for years. But some residents so fear the arsonists, they are afraid to leave their homes to participate in night patrols designed to decrease crime.

“People would love to volunteer for patrols, but they are scared their homes would be on fire when they got back,” Russell said. “At one point, this was a beautiful neighborhood. Now it is like hell.”

Fire officials say at least seven of the 11 recent fires, which occurred within four hours on Oct. 11 in Russell’s neighborhood, were intentionally set. The other four are still under investigation. And that has police, fire and city officials worried as Halloween nears, because in the mid-’80s hundreds of homes burned on Devil’s Night, the night before the holiday.

Investigators say they are unsure if one person is behind the recent fires or if they are the work of a group.

Residents have tipped the Fire Department off to a possible suspect who lives in the neighborhood, but there’s not enough evidence for an arrest, arson investigators said. “We got to get somebody to say we saw this guy at every fire,” Detroit Fire Department Arson Squad Capt. Steve Varnas said. “This guy is a menace.”

Some, like Russell, are trying to buy the vacant homes to prevent arson.

Russell said she has enough money to buy the home next door, but estimates it would cost about $15,000 for repairs.

Russell said she isn’t sure she has enough money to make all the fixes.

Neighborhood activists have formed a permanent patrol that will kick off Thursday aimed at stopping arson and vandalism. Still other neighbors vow to become more involved with the nonprofit U-SNAP-BAC Community Development Corp. and Morningside Community Association, which build houses and attack blight through neighborhood improvements.

“The bottom line is this neighborhood has been targeted (for arson),” association President Kelley Marks said recently as she stood in front of a house on Lakepointe that had been set ablaze Oct. 11. “This is going to be a difficult task. But I am invested in this community. It can be done. It will take all of us.”

There were 6,486 arson fires in 2008 investigated by the Arson Squad.

That is a 27.8 percent increase over the squad’s 5,074 cases in 2004, said Gery Victor, the squad’s chief. On a recent Saturday, the neighborhood groups teamed with Detroit Mayor Dave Bing and his appointees and canvassed for patrol volunteers. Bing said it is important that residents fight for their neighborhoods, but equally important for City Hall to help.

“We need to do everything we can to help,” Bing said.

Gregory Harton, 55, who lives on the 4100 block of Wayburn, said Bing and other city officials need to come out into neighborhoods to remind residents to keep up their properties.

That way the homes do not wind up in bad condition and become a temptation to torch, he said.

“It makes a difference,” Harton said during Bing’s surprise stop at his house. “They need to be reminded that someone is paying attention to them.”

The area is on the bubble between doing better and slipping into worse shape, area activists said. U-SNAP-BAC and Habitat for Humanity have built hundreds of units of housing over the past few years, moving in families to help stabilize the area.

But there still are hundreds of vacant buildings that need to be addressed, U-SNAP-BAC Executive Director Linda Smith said. She has a $140,000 state grant that is to be used to raze abandoned homes.

“My challenge is where do I do the demolition,” she said. “There are so many. We are looking at leveraging the funding in areas where the city has targeted buildings for demolition.”

For Russell, the challenge is dealing with the numerous vacant buildings in her neighborhood.

“It is bad,” Russell said. “I am tired of coming home and seeing all of these vacant properties. It is an open invitation for arson.”

sesparza@detnews.com (313) 222-2127

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