Town watch grows in Chinatown

"Look at my ID!" said Mei Ren, proudly showing her town watch ID during her first formal patrol this month.
The 45-year-old real-estate agent now has a second job, helping guard the 5,000 residents of Chinatown as a town watch member.
Chinatown Town Watch was founded last August by 15 volunteers looking to safeguard their neighborhood by patrolling and reporting suspected crimes to the police.
After operating informally for 10 months with weekly patrols, the watch now will be trained to make formal patrols with uniform jackets and security devices such as two-way radios, said Police Capt. Brian J. Korn of the Sixth District.
The town watch won a citywide award June 4 from the police for its "hard work and dedication," said Korn, noting that the number of violent crimes in Chinatown this year had decreased by 6 percent.
Korn said the watch is important because it has been able to persuade residents - who had been reluctant to report criminal activity - to come forward.
As a founding member of the watch, Ren became a hero last August when she helped catch a thief long sought in Chinatown.
"I saw him walking out of An Lok House at 10th and Spring Streets," recalled Ren. "I called police, followed him, and stopped him at the entrance of the building at 928 Race St."
Police checked the man's bag and found jewelry, including gold rings and jade bracelets, and 28 stolen credit cards.
Ren envisioned the town watch as a way to help her renters. "There were so many thefts," said Ren, who often received complaints from her tenants, most of them new immigrants from Fujian, China, about how thieves climbed into their rooms by ladder and tied them up.
Yingzhang Lin, the leader of the Fujian Immigrants Association, proposed a town watch during a community meeting with police last July.
Since then, the group has held monthly meetings with police, gone on patrol in groups of four or more, and filed reports to police by e-mail.
But the group's most important job is to persuade reluctant immigrants to report crime to police.
"Identity is the key concern," said Jinhe Chen, director of the Chang Le Association of Philadelphia, an organization of Fujian immigrants.
When someone reports a crime, police routinely ask for identification, which many undocumented immigrants cannot provide, Chen said.
"We don't ask anybody 'What is your immigration status' when they call us for help," said Korn. "We are just here trying to address the issues, and then help anybody who does need our help."
More undocumented immigrants are now willing to report crimes to police, said Joseph Eastman, a retired Navy veteran and coordinator of the town watch.
"It is very important we get people's trust," he added.
The group also needed to get the trust of other organizations.
"It is funny," said Allen Wang, second vice president of the Chinese Benevolent Association (CBA). "We began with misunderstanding."
The CBA was founded in 1947 by immigrants from Guangzhou, and its members were not able to communicate well with the Fujian group, which aroused concern about the town watch, said Wang.
"When we knew what they were doing, we joined in," said Wang, who attends monthly meetings and patrols with other members.
Chinatown Town Watch's membership has grown from 15 to 50, Eastman said.
Lin regards it as the first "deep and real" cooperation among organizations in Chinatown.
"Before then, we only met at ceremonies in Chinese restaurants," said Lin. "The only things we did together were eating and drinking."