1997 Other Part II Crimes

Under the Uniform Crime Reporting System, any actual crime not recorded as a Part I Crime is a Part II Crime. The relative infrequency of patterns among these crimes discourages detailed analysis.

"Annoying and Accosting a Member of the Opposite Sex" is a form of criminal harassment. Generally, it involves a man repeatedly following, shouting, making off-color suggestions, hooting, repeatedly asking for a date, or otherwise harassing a woman. It happens most often on the street and in the workplace. Each report involves an individual situation; the crime is not subject to geographic patterns.

East Cambridge	5
MIT	3
Inman/Harrington	2
Area 4	15
Cambridgeport	15
Mid-Cambridge	7
Riverside	11
Agassiz	1
Peabody	2
West Cambridge	9
North Cambridge	6
Cambridge Highlands	2
Strawberry Hill	2

Most of these incidents occur on Friday and Saturday nights. Examples include bar and restaurant altercations, domestic disputes, arguments between the homeless, and conflicts with police officers that escalate into shouting, profanity, and threats.

Police make arrests for this crime when a subject disrupts the peace enough to pose a danger. Many disorderly person situations are assaults in the making, halted through the quick intervention of a police officer.

A rare crime in Cambridge, extortion or blackmail involves an offender taking money from a victim by threatening to do something other than use force. The three incidents reported in 1997 involved a psychiatrist threatening to reveal his client's secrets, a supervisor threatening to smear the name of an employee, and a car thief attempting to extort money in exchange for the return of a stolen car.

One of the more bothersome problems in any police jurisdiction is telephone being used as a weapon of terror. Complaints of individuals being threatened with criminal activity against themselves or their property skyrocketed in the early 1990s (over 900 were reported in 1992), but have abated since the invention of electronic devices such as Caller ID and new services from the telephone company that allow subscribers to track such calls. Still, the problem persists. Intimidation over the telephone runs the gamut from threats to burn, bomb, maim, and kill to constant hang-up calls at 3:00 in the morning. The relationships of the disputants is a microcosm of all society. Jilted lovers, disgruntled employees, dissatisfied customers, slumlords, ill-mannered tenants, loansharks, obsessed stalkers, perverted thrill-seekers, grade-happy students, and steroid-swigging musclemen are all reaching out to touch someone in a most unkind manner.

Recipients of repeated obscene or harassing telephone calls should contact the police or their telephone company. Technologies that allow customers to learn the identity of callers have advanced greatly over the last several years.

East Cambridge	58
MIT	15
Inman/Harrington	55
Area 4	65
Cambridgeport	77
Mid-Cambridge	74
Riverside	43
Agassiz	20
Peabody	45
West Cambridge	56
North Cambridge	82
Cambridge Highlands	13
Strawberry Hill	8

A hit and run crime occurs when a driver strikes a person, another car, or someone else's property, causing damage, and leaves without identifying himself to the victim. In 1997, it was the third most often reported crime in Cambridge (behind malicious destruction of property and larceny from motor vehicles), accounting for just over seven percent of our crime total. Five or six percent of all hit and run crimes involve personal injury. The vast majority of the remainder involve damage to motor vehicles; most of these occur overnight at a time undetermined by the victim.

As to the geography of hit and run, it seems to be purely a function of the amount of residential and commercial traffic. There are, naturally, no patterns of hit and run; they are crimes that begin by accident. (If a driver intentionally strikes a motor vehicle, person, or property, it is coded as an assault or a malicious destruction.)

Indecent assault involves the unwanted touching of one person by another, generally in a private area or with sexual overtones. In about 60 percent of indecent assault incidents, the victim and offender know each other. Incidents that show that the offender attempted or intended to rape the victim are coded as attempted rapes, not as indecent assaults. In addition, any force or injury would change the type of crime to an aggravated assault rather than an indecent assault.

Indecent exposure crimes generally fall into three classifications: "flashers," who deliberately expose themselves to unsuspecting passers-by, homeless or "street" people who urinate in front of others, and people who simply show too little discretion in front of an open window or while sunbathing. The first two categorizations each account for about 40 percent of indecent exposure reports, while the last categorization accounts for just under 10 percent.

In 1997, we received five reports of a teenager exposing himself to people on the street as he rode by on his bicycle. There may have been more than one suspect involved, as the reports were divided between the Cambridgeport and Inman Square neighborhoods.

Just over 60 percent of all indecent exposure incidents occur within a half-mile radius of Central Square.

Seventy-five percent of kidnapping incidents involve "parental" kidnappings. Generally, the kidnapping follows an argument between ex-spouses or ex-romantic partners, and the child is returned within a day or two. Parental kidnappings accounted for three of the four kidnapping and attempted kidnapping reports taken in 1997.

The other 25 percent of incidents can occur under frightening or even tragic circumstances. This was the case with the other report in 1997: the kidnapping of 10-year-old Jeffrey Curley from Hampshire Street on October 1, 1997. The two men who kidnapped Curley later murdered him in Newton (see the Murder section). They currently await trial.

Liquor violations generally involve drinking in public, though it can also include the sale of liquor to a minor, or the possession of liquor by a minor. As with disorderly conduct, most liquor violations arrests occur on weekends. Hot spots appear around Central Square and at various parks in the city.

In 1997, the Cambridge Police Department, in partnership with the Cambridge License Commission, began a "Cops in Shops" program which targeted establishments selling liquor to minors and minors buying alcohol with false identification. On the weekend the program was initiated (November 21), the Cambridge Police Department made multiple arrests in three different locations for minors buying alcohol.

Attacks on all fronts have reduced this crime nationwide, but every incident still poses a deadly danger. Well over half of all O.U.I. arrests occur between midnight and 4:00 a.m., as people drive home from bars. The majority of the incidents are concentrated on the weekend.

Peeping and spying offenders peer through the windows of houses or apartments. Mid-Cambridge, with six incidents, and Peabody, with five, reported the highest concentrations. A brief pattern was seen on one block in Mid-Cambridge over a week in the Summer. The majority of these offenses occur between 8:00 p.m. and midnight.

Like narcotics offenses, the crime of prostitution is investigated by the Special Investigations Unit, which sets up seasonal "stings" that target both "streetwalkers" and "johns," as well as establishments that act as fronts for prostitution rings. On the night of June 21, 1997, an undercover detective posing as a prostitute effected the arrests of 13 solicitors (57 percent of the 1997 prostitution arrest total) in front of 211 Massachusetts Avenue. Also busted by the Special Investigations Unit this year were several "escort" services and professional prostitutes operating out of local hotels. Five of the arrests were for common "streetwalking." There were no geographic concentrations.

A self-explanatory crime that often arises in domestic disputes, arguments between acquaintances and co-workers, school fights, and in other environments.

The average traffic stop for speeding, running a red light, and related offenses, results in only a warning or citation. A number of traffic offenses, however, are arrestable crimes: driving to endanger, driving after suspension or revocation, possession of a counterfeit inspection sticker, and attaching false or counterfeit license plates are all examples. Such arrests are often made during routine traffic stops, after the police officer learns of the driver's suspension, revocation, or other circumstances.

Arrests for trespassing are generally made at commercial establishments where the offender has been previously warned not to tread. Often, the same offender is arrested multiple times. Thirty-four percent of trespassing arrests in 1997 were made on Massachusetts Institute of Technology property.

Weapons violations involve the illegal possession or use of a dangerous weapon. To be classified as a "weapons violation," the use of the weapon cannot be directed at a person or property; otherwise, the incident would be recorded as an assault or a malicious destruction. In 1997, four weapons violations involved guns and three involve other weapons. In 1996, there were ten of each. Gun violations sometimes include shots fired into the air, but weapons violations generally result from motor vehicle stops or from arrests for lesser crimes (such as disorderly person or trespassing), during which the illegal weapon is discovered by a police officer.

In 1997, the four gun violations included a juvenile who carried a concealed gun in the CambridgeSide Galleria; a handgun and ammunition found during a motor vehicle stop; shots fired near a towing company; and, on the night of August 16, a report of shots fired near Hoyt Field. This final report preceded, by three days, the fatal shooting of 19-year-old Benny Rosa in Hoyt Field. The two incidents may have been related.