Features

A Vision in Orange

Takoma, DC Orange Hat Patrols work to prevent crime, clean up streets

BY JAMES RUSSELL

The group is part of a growing Orange Hat program started last year by Takoma resident Glen Hartless after several muggings and robberies shook the neighborhood. Each week, up to three patrols leave from the station for their hour-long patrol - picking up trash, noting any missing signs or burned out streetlights, and providing a visible presence for concerned residents in the area.

Orange Hats are not new to DC, or to Takoma. The program emerged in 1988 when a group of residents from the Fairlawn neighborhood in Southeast began holding community meetings to discuss strategies for reducing crime. In 1989, they started patrolling the streets, sometimes with police escorts, in an attempt to discourage drug dealers and prostitutes from working in the area.

Other neighborhoods heard of the success in Fairlawn, and asked for help in starting their own groups. As Orange Hat patrols spread throughout the city, the Metro Orange Coalition was created as an umbrella organization to provide guidelines and assistance to fledgling Orange Hats group around Washington.

In Takoma, residents have started several of their own Orange Hat programs in response to increased criminal activity. In 1997, Laura Maychruk, Christopher Gilkerson, and Jodi Bloom launched a patrol after Maychruk was stabbed 10 times a few blocks from the Metro station. The group patrolled the streets up to six nights a week, but volunteers dwindled after crime died down in the area. They tried to increase patrols in 2000 after Omar Joshua Thorne was shot in front of the Takoma Elementary School off Piney Branch Road, but by 2002, the program had stalled.

Then in February of last year, after another crime wave, including two carjackings and several auto thefts, Hartless and other local residents decided to resurrect the program. They started with around 15-20 volunteers, but the numbers have swelled to over 50, thanks to Hartless' recruiting techniques.

"Glen looks like a mild-mannered country-boy, but he can very aggressive in getting people to join," said Rich Holzsager, an Orange Hat patroller. According to Holzsager and other Orange Hats, Hartless often spends time talking with people on the streets, telling them about the program, and encouraging them to join.

"Glen is very dedicated and organized," said Sara Green, another Orange Hat. "It takes a lot of time to do this."

Hartless' wife, Christy, also takes an active role in the organization, and can be seen patrolling the streets several nights a month.

Volunteers spend an hour each week, or every other week, walking the streets around the Takoma metro, picking up garbage, noting any missing street signs or streetlights in need of repair, and discouraging any criminal behavior in the area.

On a recent patrol, Christy Hartless and fellow Orange Hat patrollers wrote down the locations of several missing signs, where jagged metal remains a hazard to pedestrians, and of bulk trash that needs to be removed by the city. She says she uses the new "Citywide Call Center" to report the problems.

The Call Center, available at (202) 727-1000, is a new city-sponsored program to connect Washingtonians with the appropriate agencies and individuals for non-emergency requests.

While the patrollers do not encounter much criminal activity, they say that their presence reassures local residents. Passer-bys often honk their car-horns in support or shout "Keep doing what you're doing."

Holzsager recounted only one recent negative experience, when a couple of men "verbally harassed" a woman near Fourth Street and Blair Road on her way to an Orange Hat meeting. But he says that those types of encounters are rare.

"She had a good-sized dog, so there was probably no danger, but we walked past them right afterwards and said 'Hi,'" Holzsager recalled. "Nothing confrontational, but a friendly way of saying 'Be cool, guys.'"

Ward 4 Councilman Adrian Fenty says the program has been a true Takoma success story. "I think the Takoma Orange Hats have had a real impact on reducing crime in, and around, the Takoma, DC neighborhood under the leadership of Glen and Christy Hartless," he said.

"Besides increasing the number of concerned residents walking the street on a regular basis, the Orange Hats also demonstrate to others in the community that, in general, residents of Takoma, DC are not going to passively allow their community to be taken over by criminals," Fenty added.

For information on the Orange Hats, contact Glen Hartless at g.l.hartless@att.net.