Neighbors to 26th District: help! 26th District to neighbors: help yourselves!

Captain Mike Cram, Philly P.D. 26th District, showed up late to speak to a town meeting in Port Richmond last week. When residents expressed their concerns that 26th District officers are slacking at addressing both violent crime and nuisance problems in Greater Port Fishington, Cram and A.J. Thompson of the District Attorney's office told them to forget the police and simply engage in self-help. They

suggested neighbors round up 50 or 150 friends to sit out at Conrail or outside known drug houses "to get it into people's heads that somebody's watching." Cram said a shortage of manpower means neighbors must take things into their own hands.

Wild. I'm not sure how the 26th District and the District Attorney's office expects residents to fix blight, end illegal house parties, and eliminate murderous armed robbery by "watching," but evidently that's the solution they're offering.

But for what it's worth, for the past several weeks Leo M. Mulvihill, Jr., the lawyer who lives and works in Fishtown quoted in City Paper's story there, has been doing just that. He's tweeted with @PhillyPolice name-checks when he sees cops driving while talking on cell phones, and regularly posts photos of cops napping in their patrol cars or just generally disrespecting the neighborhood. Here's hoping the cops in the 26th District don't start giving him a hard time for documenting them.