They’re fed up and they’re not going to take it anymore. In an effort to counter crime and mayhem in their streets, four community groups in Uptown have banded together to hire a private security force to patrol their neighborhoods.
After a two-month stint last fall, the security firm is back this year patrolling the streets of Uptown in their brown uniforms and brown squad cars. This year they’ve been hired to patrol three additional Uptown neighborhoods: Lakeside, Sheridan Park, and an area just south of Clarendon Park.
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“For a moment,” Winn said, “I thought he was plainclothes.”
“Get in this car right now,” the man ordered.
Shiller also says, “I’m nervous, I really am truly nervous about having a private security force that is hired, and paid for, and therefore accountable only to the people who hire and pay for them–when the money for them represents only one sector of the community.
Yet Medina doesn’t seem to be bothered by the kinds of things that drove his neighbors to hire SES. “Last night the kids ran up and down the street shooting at each other,” he says casually. “The neighborhood is not gentrified completely yet, and there’s going to be that kind of thing going on. I’ve lived in this neighborhood when it was worse. I don’t need security.”
Zanders, however, shrugs off most of Shiller’s concerns about SES. “We checked them out several weeks ago. They’re licensed, bonded. In no way do we object. They were hired. We’re used to working with private security–there’s more private police than public police in this country.” He doubts the security officers are guilty of harassment. “They don’t want to be sued. They don’t want to lose their business. If somebody complains, we direct them to the proper agencies.”
