Chief Takes Policing Into High-Crime Urban Area : Law enforcement: Top cop in Portland, Ore., puts community policing into action when he and his wife buy a home in a seedy neighborhood. The experience has been ‘eye-awakening.’

As night falls, Portland Police Chief Charles Moose enjoys the evening in his newly renovated house, and light fades through the leaded windows of his dining room.

Outside, the prostitutes arrive, looking for business in one of the city’s more crime-ridden areas.

“I think six months ago I would have been in the camp that said street prostitution has pretty much gone away on Martin Luther King Boulevard,” Moose said.

But now he knows differently. Because last year, Moose and his wife, Sandy, paid $80,000 for this two-story bungalow, a vacant rat trap across from a boarded-up house and an abandoned weed-covered lot in a neighborhood notorious for pimps, gang members and drug dealers.

The idea was to put the philosophy of community policing into action, to show his officers that they could have a positive influence in the city’s problem areas.

It’s too early to tell whether the example is catching on. “To me, it doesn’t make any difference where he lives,” said one officer, Leo Painton. “I don’t think anyone else cares where he lives. Somebody can choose to live wherever they want.”

But it certainly has made a difference in Moose’s life. For much of his career, Moose lived in the suburbs, a traditional haven for police officers and other city officials--a place where inner-city problems are someone else’s.

“I went through that phase of trying to hide because I was a police officer, and it never did feel good,” he said. “So this may be risky or whatever, but it certainly feels better than hiding.”

Gang graffiti sprayed on a tree in the front yard greeted the Mooses when they made the move in November.

One night, the 39-year-old chief confronted two men sitting on some steps to a nearby ballpark smoking crack, a move he later said “probably wasn’t smart.” The two men left without being arrested.

Most of what he sees does not warrant emergency response. That includes the prostitutes, who use his street to negotiate deals “I think it would be safe to say on a nightly basis,” he said. “It’s just that not every night I’m up here peeping through the blinds.”

Moose said watching prostitutes ply their trade has been an “eye awakening” experience. But that’s not to say he’s been oblivious to the problems of the inner city.

Moose worked the streets of Portland’s bleakest neighborhoods as a patrolman and a lieutenant. His beat included the Iris Court public housing project, which he later turned into a laboratory of sorts to test ideas about community policing.

The 108-unit north Portland complex had deteriorated for more than a decade into a cesspool of crime, poverty and illiteracy where residents had no sense of safety and little idea of how to care for themselves.

As part of the experiment, experts on economics, education, public safety, housing and nutrition went to the complex. Police set up an on-site station, then went door to door asking people about their concerns.

Within a year, reported crime was down 55%, residents were no longer afraid to go out at night and officers no longer dreaded making calls there.

The Portland Police Bureau now uses a similar approach it calls Operation Target, where police draw a circle on the map, ask neighbors about problems, assign officers to solve the problems then report back to neighbors.

“The idea is, we’ve gone to the community and asked them what they think we should be working on. And then when we bring that to closure, go back and report that this has been done,” Moose said. “Then you move to the next block.”

The chief’s own block seems to be showing improvement. The boards have come off the windows across the street. Neighbors are no longer afraid to keep their doors and windows open. An older woman recently thanked the chief for making her feel safe enough to start walking outside again.

“I hope nothing happens to her. But I also didn’t have the guts to tell her it’s probably no safer today than it was yesterday simply because I’m here. But she feels like it is, so she’s going to get out. She’s going to use her neighborhood,” Moose said. “So is that real? Is that perceived? It’s good.”

The neighborhood where Moose lives is not the seediest in town. Residents take pride in their success in cleaning it up and object to what they consider unfair characterizations of it as an urban sinkhole.

But if the dregs of society didn’t inhabit the neighborhood when Moose moved in, they were usually not far away.

“There used to be a lot of gang shootings. There were a few crack houses,” said Ulf Spears, 29, who has lived in the area three years.

But now, said neighbor Askia Geigle, “It’s, like, I hardly ever see any Crips. Every time I come out of the house, I see a cop coming up the street.” Geigle, 17, shares a back yard with the Mooses. “Just to have him right there, it’s made me feel more secure.”

Moose said his biggest fear is that something will happen to force him and his wife to move out, sending a message that the neighborhood is beyond hope.

“I don’t anticipate that happening, but there are times when you think how tragic that would be,” he said.

At the end of 1993, the couple took a vacation to Arizona. Rather than relax, however, Moose spent the week waiting for a call that the house had been broken into.

“We came back and everything was fine. I was just kind of stunned,” he said. “And so far nothing’s happened. Everything’s cool, I guess.”