Knollwood Outreach Heals Rapid City Neighborhood

OUTREACH BRINGS SENSE OF COMMUNITY BACK TO KNOLLWOOD AREA

STORY BY MICHELLE PAWELSKI PHOTOS SUBMITTED AND BY MAGGIE JEAN WINCE

Violent crimes had become a common occurrence for residents of "The Woods," a group of three apartment complexes in North Rapid.

Criminals, most of who did not even live in The Woods, overtook the area.

Parents took their kids to other parts of the city to play.

Others did not sleep at night.A sense of community did not exist.However, that is starting to change.

An effort by the Rapid City Police Department and other community partners is reducing crime, building trust, and giving residents pride in the place they call home.

The Police Department has increased its presence in the area by adding a substation and hired a community outreach specialist to connect with the residents and improve overall relationships.

The effort is working.

“We were seeing at least one to three significant violent crimes, shootings, stabbings, homicides, a month here,” said Brendyn Medina, media/community relations specialist with the Rapid City Police Department. “We have brought those critical events down…The residents tell us things like this is the first time they can ever remember that they feel comfortable getting a full night’s sleep.”

Sergeant Ryan Phillips, Rapid City Policy Department

Sergeant Ryan Phillips, who is based out of the Knollwood substation, said this North Rapid neighborhood is not unlike others across the nation where one percent of the people cause most of the problems. “We want to really try to let that 99 percent take back their neighborhood and build those bridges through whatever barriers exist here – poverty barriers, racial barriers, historical trauma barriers.”

Sgt. Phillips said they are using a trifecta model to their policing: increased enforcement, community engagement, and city engagement including working closely with apartment owners and management. Added lighting in the area and oversight by apartment management has helped the effort.

“Working hand in hand with managements is really important,” Phillips said. “You have to have people that are in touch with inspecting places and not letting them become slums and evicting the people that need to be evicted so it is a safe place for the people that want to live there.”

The Rapid City Fire Department and Rapid City Police Department host a sprinkler party in Knollwood neighborhood.

The management of the complexes have been great, Phillips said, working closely with the department and even adding security systems.

The increased police visibility has not only annoyed criminals who once found the area a sanctuary, but has improved the relationship between the department and those living in the neighborhood.

The officers have become a part of the community. “We are getting to know people by name and that is really good. They love us on foot patrols.”

Aside from increased police presence, the department received a four-year grant focused on community engagement.

“The spirit of the grant was to build relations between the community and the police department with the sole goal of creating safer neighborhoods,” said Tyler Read, the community-based crime reduction outreach specialist with the RCPD or as Read says community engagement.

Tyler Read, community-based crime reduction outreach specialist

Read has done that and much more. In just a year, he has embedded himself into the community connecting with kids and families and asking them what they want for their neighborhood. “When I first got here, we had the parameters of what we wanted, but didn’t know what the work was going to look like in full. We had some ideas, but we didn’t know how quite to implement them, so it was a learning process.”

And it was not an easy process at the beginning.

Read said he had to start with those willing to work with him and that was the kids. Using his background as a graffiti artist, Read set up a space outside his office at the Knollwood Apartment Complex with a plastic canvas, paint, and of course cupcakes. Although hesitant at first, the kids started to slowly warm up to Read. “Consistency and reliability to the kids in the neighborhood was the best way to build that relationship. Once you make that relationship and you’ve been recognized as an asset to the youth, you have a much greater impact on the family.”

Read built his connections from there, spending much of his time hanging out with the kids at the game room in the ABC Apartments, partnering with the nearby Renewal Church, and getting neighbors to know each other. “Once we got that engagement going, we went in a number of different directions.

Read and Sgt. Phillips started the North Side Community Coffees on Tuesdays. While slow at first, Read said they now get 15 to 30 people each week. “It took awhile for that to get going. What we saw is that there were a lot of good ideas we wanted to plant, but the community didn’t feel safe enough to participate in a lot of them until the street crimes unit got in there and started making people feel safe.”

The Tuesday coffee is not only a gathering for residents to get to know each other, it is a space where they come up with their own ideas on how to improve their neighborhood. “Crime is a game of cat and mouse. When we are running in the front door it is easy for them to run out the back and run to the next house, but if you have a strong neighborhood it just changes the dynamic.”

Aside from the coffee gatherings, Read, the police department and many other partners have created ways for the community to band together.

Read started Sunday bake sales, called Hoodcakes, where kids are involved with the whole process including how to best use the funds. Bingo nights were started after a resident said it would bring people out, and he was correct. “I had no idea Bingo was such a big thing,” Read said.

They have had a neighborhood block party, a Halloween trunk or treat, a sprinkler party thanks to the Fire Department, and a healing ceremony performed by Lawrence Cross, a culture bearer from Pine Ridge. “The kids helped him smudge out the entire neighborhood, heal the violence,” Read said. “That is the investment we need. We don’t need them as much invested in us for their safety, we need them invested in themselves.”