Tightknit community makes Quincy, MA a safe place to live

This is the latest installment of an occasional series looking at development in Quincy. In the coming months, The Patriot Ledger will take an in-depth look at several topics, including the city’s changing landscape, entertainment scene, green spaces, gentrification and more. Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5.

Walking past the Quincy Center T station alone at night. 

Letting kids get home from the local playground on their own before dinner. 

Not getting out of bed to double-check if the back door is locked. 

Public safety isn’t top of mind for Quincy residents because crime is down in the city, a favorable trend amid a building and development boom that is bringing thousands of new people into the community. Quincy’s population has been increasing steadily – from roughly 88,000 in 2000 to 92,000 in 2010 and 101,636 in 2020, the U.S. Census reports. That means thousands more people on city streets and in local restaurants, shops, beaches, dwellings and parks. 

Public safety officials have been preparing for this change since the $1.6 billion redevelopment of Quincy’s downtown area started in 2005. Quincy’s rapid growth may be stirring up angst with accessibility, traffic and availability of affordable housing, but public safety has kept pace over the past decade. Statistics show Quincy remains relatively low in crime compared to cities of similar size and wealth, and the city’s police department continues to earn national and state recognition. 

While a growing population inherently brings a need for more officers on the streets, Police Chief Paul Keenan said most of the city’s changes in terms of development and gentrification have led to a decrease in overall crime. The decades-old nickname of “The Dirty Q” has dropped off in use by South Shore residents, and Keenan said Quincy has cleaned itself up in the last 40 to 50 years.

“Quincy has always been a good, safe city, but through the 1980s there were some problem areas in West Quincy. Germantown was tough back in the day. There were more problem areas than there are now,” Keenan said. “A lot of those places have been developed and been cleaned up, in a good way, so that’s changed a little bit.” 

Quincy police have maintained a ratio of roughly 20 officers – including beat cops, detectives, school resource officers and special investigators – per 10,000 residents for the last 10 years. The recently approved $34.6 million budget for the next fiscal year will allow the hiring of five more patrol officers and the first new dispatchers the department has hired in two decades.  

Keenan, who will retire this year after a 37-year career in the department, said the changing city has also led to changes in policing. He places a priority on visibility of officers, pushes his team to quickly go after suspected criminals and has increased the number of patrol officers by 45 since he became chief in 2008. 

In the last few years, Quincy has spent more than $120 million on a now under-construction public safety complex that will sit next to the city’s only homeless shelter on Broad Street. 

Norfolk County District Attorney Michael Morrissey, a longtime Quincy resident, said he too would consider Quincy “safe” when compared to other cities and towns in the region. He echoed Keenan’s sentiments that despite the large and diverse population, sprawling land area and T-accessible downtown, Quincy has largely avoided the problems faced by similar cities. 

“Quincy is a city, but it really acts like a small town because there are many different neighborhoods,” Morrissey said. “People generally know their neighbors in Adams Shore, Germantown, Marina Bay, Montclair, Wollaston Hill. There is good community involvement, the schools tend to be a focal point. We have good police and fire departments.”

Crime statistics from the last decade show aggravated assault and burglary as relatively common crimes in the city, though not any more so than communities similar in size, near a major metropolitan area and with a similar median household income. 

When compared to Brockton, Framingham, Somerville and New Rochelle, New York, Quincy falls somewhere in the middle on the rate of aggravated assaults, murders, burglaries, rapes and car thefts.

A decade’s worth of crime statistics show the number of burglaries and robberies are down in the city, and frequencies of kidnappings, rapes and murders are largely unchanged.

Some crimes, however, are up in a reflection of national trends, including car theft and gun crimes. In 2012, 58 cars were stolen in Quincy. By 2021, that number had risen to 125. Quincy charged two people with possession of an unlicensed firearm in 2012 last year, it was 16. 

On a weeknight this May, police made three separate gun arrests.

“People are arming themselves more, unlawfully,” Keenan said of the trend. “We have an uptick in (firearm identification card) and gun permits as well, which is acceptable, but I think in society in general we are seeing an uptick in gun crime and other areas are seeing an uptick in violent crime as well. When I started 40 years ago, if you got a gun call it was almost unheard of. This day and age, it happens quite frequently.” 

Also up? “Quality of life crimes.” Keenan said minor crimes such as panhandling, public intoxication and public urination have been made more common by the Red Line’s 50-year-old extension into the city and pandemic strains that have led to more unaddressed mental health and drug issues. 

“A lot of it is perception,” he said. “It can leave people with an uneasy feeling. You’re not going to get robbed, hopefully, in Quincy Square, but you may encounter some of those folks that sometimes require a police response. In reality, Quincy is a very, very safe community.” 

Quincy is not a crimeless community, but officials say its feeling of safety is relative to one important factor: the crime isn’t random. Almost never is someone attacked in their home or car or walking down the street by someone they don’t know, Keenan said. 

Between 2012 and 2022, six people were homicide victims in the city: Chris McCallum, Zhen Li, Biqiang He, Chloe Chen, Cameron Nohmy and Nathan Paul. Of those six, police have charged family members in three of the cases. Two acquaintances have been indicted in the death of Nathan Paul, and McCallum was killed in a bar fight. 

Nohmy was the only person who police suspect was killed randomly by someone he didn’t know prior to his 2020 death. Police arrested Alyssa Dellamano five days after she allegedly walked up to Nohmy in a liquor store parking lot and stabbed him several times.

Random violent offenses such as breaking into homes or snatching purses, Keenan said, are often driven by drug problems. He said the city’s focus on tackling the opioid epidemic – the Quincy Police Department pioneered the use of the overdose-reversing drug Narcan by officers 11 years ago – has helped  reduce those offenses. 

Between 2012 and 2021, the number of reported burglaries in Quincy dropped from 366 to 227 and the number of robberies went from 79 to 25. 

The relative lack of random violence not only increases the feeling of safety in a community, experts say, but also helps drastically when the police get involved.

“When people are known to each other, it makes it easier for us to solve a lot of these crimes. If you look at unsolved murders, we have very, very few in Quincy and the county,” Morrissey said. “I believe the Quincy police do a very good job of resolving cases and getting them into the court system when necessary.”

Keenan said he and his staff of detectives, captains, lieutenants and beat cops have made it a habit to go after every crime in the city, even those that may seem minor at the moment. That work, he said, has paid off. 

“Quincy has a reputation. If you commit a crime in Quincy, there is a good chance you are going to get caught,” Keenan said. “You can’t keep it out, but the way we respond and capture these people quickly may keep them from reoffending or at least from coming into Quincy.” 

Interviews with residents across the city showed that people from Germantown to Marina Bay feel safe in their homes and on city streets. 

Qibing Zhang, who lives in Germantown, said through a translator that he feels safe enough to leave his car door unlocked at night. He said his father-in-law’s house was broken into about seven years ago, but that no one was hurt and nothing was taken. 

“This city is very safe,” he said. “I’m proud to live here.”

The one homicide recorded in the city so far this year happened in Germantown, where 17-year-old Nathan Paul, of Weymouth, was shot in a botched drug deal. 

Nearby resident Xiaolan Wu said through a translator that it’s scary when something like that happens, and it does make her think twice about walking alone at night, but doesn’t make her feel less safe because it wasn’t a random crime. She said she feels like crime in her neighborhood has generally gone down over the past five or six years, and that police actively patrol and have a presence in the area. 

She  said being a minority in the city does not affect how safe she feels.

Marie Cribb has lived in Quincy for the past 17 years. She lives in Quincy Center, and said she often gets off the train from work at 11 p.m. or later. She said she doesn’t know anyone who has been the victim of a crime in Quincy.

“I feel safe walking home,” she said. “In many places there is violence, but not really here.” 

Debbie Varsamis, who used to own Copeland Pizza in West Quincy, said she was never worried about walking to or from the shop at all hours of the day. 

“Absolutely I feel safe,” she said. “I love the city. Even late at night, I never worried about walking home or to the Sly Fox.” 

Meghan Whitney said she feels safer in Quincy than she has in years. 

“I feel a lot safer here than in Fall River and even Weymouth,” she said of the last two places she lived. “We live in a residential area and it’s very active. People are out walking. We say hi to our neighbors. We see police patrolling every now and then too. I’d never lived in a neighborhood where I felt like I often saw police before.” 

Riley Tucker, a doctoral candidate in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Northeastern University, said Whitney hit on an important point when it comes to evaluating the safety of a neighborhood or community: knowing your neighbors. 

Tucker said communities that do things together, know the people around them and have neighborhood watch groups – even if they don’t do anything – are often safer and have lower rates of crime. 

‘In a neighborhood where people trust each other and get along, that aggregates into the community as a whole,” he said. “If a criminal is looking for a place to do something, but they know that this street is just not going to put up with it, they’ll go somewhere else. Formal organizations like neighborhood watches do mean there are more eyes on the streets, but it also creates a social fabric that pulls people together in the common goal of reducing crime.” 

Keenan said Quincy’s community policing effort “lends to a sense of safety and well-being within the community.”

“They’re out and visible in every neighborhood in the city, especially in those neighborhoods where there are more calls,” the chief said. “People who keep an eye on their property and their neighbors in the tighter-knit communities, a lot of times they’re more willing to call the police to get us down there and provide a quicker response, so there is a better outcome.”

In a similar vein, Mayor Thomas Koch points to a 1980s-era idea called the Broken Windows Theory. Essentially, it says neighborhoods that are nicer, cleaner and have a sense of collectiveness are less likely to deteriorate, get dirty or bring crime. 

Koch said he is constantly in touch with the department of public works to clean up streets, the public buildings department to fix visible problems and the police department to patrol streets and have a presence in all neighborhoods. 

That work, Tucker said, creates the most important thing of all: the perception of a nice, clean neighborhood or community. 

“Historical legacies of places make a huge difference,” Tucker said. “It’s not really about individuals or families, it’s about how a city equips a community to take care of the problems they have.”

Thanks to our subscribers, who help make this coverage possible. If you are not a subscriber, please consider supporting quality local journalism with a Patriot Ledger subscription. Here is our latest offer. 

Reach Mary Whitfill at mw*******@pa***********.com.