WOSU visited a couple Columbus neighborhoods to see how residents there watch for unusual activity.

Parts of the Hilltop neighborhood can be rough. There have been at least 10 shootings this year on top of drug deals and burglaries. So neighbors keep their eyes open.

Near the intersection of South Burgess Avenue and Freemont Street, Terrance Shazier and a friend tinker under the hood of a car.

“I watch four houses this way and four houses that way,” Shazier said.

Shazier installed cameras on his house after his car was been broken into several times. But can he tell the difference between a neighbor just acting a little strange and “real” trouble.

“I mean you gotta get out here and know your neighbors…You know, we ask questions,” he said. “People ask questions, like, who was that? What are they doing? A lot of people do that. When the elderly ask you questions, that’s when you step your game up and try to find out what’s going on.”

When Shazier calls police, they come, but he said sometimes they are a little too slow.

“When you hear gun shots like that and it’s right around the corner, you’re like, wait a minute, what’s going on? And you see [police] driving slow through the neighborhood, like, way after the fact. People done walked through. People done ran,” Shazier said. “And then they get here, and it’s like, what happened if somebody got shot?…It’s the police; they need to step their game up.”

But not everyone thinks police react too slowly.

“The police respond pretty good up here,” Sharon Bland, who lives on South Terrace Avenue, said as she waited for a visit from her mom.

“The area is, it’s gone downhill.”

Like many others we talked to, Bland watches neighbor’s goings-on. But it was difficult for her to pinpoint exactly what kind of odd behavior would prompt her to call police.

“Anything abnormal,” she guessed.

Columbus Police Officer Kelly Kasser responds to a lot of the calls on the Hilltop. She knows the neighborhood; she’s patrolled it for nine years.

“I’ve seen quite a bit of stuff,” Kasser chuckled.

Kasser said every run is different. Good training, time on the streets and tips from neighbors help her to know when a situation could mean “real trouble.”

“With talking to a lot of people, a lot of their mannerisms,” Kasser said. “You can get a lot by talking to somebody and knowing something’s not right. And there’s a lot of things they can control about a situation and a lot of things they cannot. And those are cues you need to pick up on as an officer.”

Kasser also trusts her instincts when she arrives on a call.

“If my gut’s telling me something’s not right I follow it to a tee because I know I need to be doing something,” she said. “It might not be an instant fix at that time, but I make sure I know who that person is, maybe follow up with a detective to see if there’s anything that they have on this guy that I don’t know about. And maybe it’s just somebody we need to keep an eye on.”

As for complaints of slow response, Kasser noted the Hilltop is the city’s busiest precinct. But she said good, descriptive tips from the public can help speed response.

“Don’t assume we always know what’s going on because they’re our eyes and ears initially. They’re the ones there 24-7, we’re not.”

The South Side near Children’s Hospital is another rough neighborhood. The area as had as many as 20 shootings so far this year.

Dave Thomas lives on Heyl Avenue, east of Parsons. Thomas feels pretty confident he’d be able to recognize when something’s not quite right.

“I got good neighbors. I know what time they’re coming out every day, yeah. But a dysfunctional person? You hardly ever see [them].”

But like others, Thomas criticizes police response times. And he wonders if it’s because the neighborhood is largely African American and crime riddled.

“If I was staying in Hilliard, Bexley, I’m not prejudice because my son, he’s bi-racial, you know, I know that they’ll respond quicker when it comes to a Caucasian person, than when it comes to, this is just my opinion, maybe I’m wrong, to a black person,” Thomas said.

Brendan O’Keefe is fixing up his home on Oakwood Avenue just north of Livingston. O’Keefe said if he did see something suspicious he would call police until he got a response. But he’s uncertain what kind of response he’d get.

“I don’t know. Police respond to me pretty well usually. So, I don’t know. I really don’t,” he said. “All the police I’ve dealt with in this neighborhood have always been nice and helpful.”

Officer Joseph Valiski has patrolled the area south of Children’s Hospital for five years.

Like fellow Officer Kasser, Valiski uses various information sources – training, neighbors, previous calls – when assessing a situation that could be more serious, including gut instinct.

“Something that’s going on in your body, sometimes the hairs stick up on the back of your neck and you kind of got to go with that gut instinct,” Valiski said.

Neighbors promised to keep an eye out, to work with police, but they agreed that what happened in Cleveland could happen on their streets.

The Putnam County Sheriff’s Office says 17-year-old Michael Fey was found Thursday in the parking lot of a gas station in the Hilltop neighborhood. Police say he then told authorities where they could find the bodies of Blake Romes, 17, and his brother Blaine Romes, 14.

No cause of death was immediately known.

An Amber Albert was issued for all three teens on Thursday after police say a mother returned home to find “a crime scene.”

The shootings came in three unrelated incidents over a 32-hour period. A boy and two girls were shot late Saturday outside a North Linden outreach center. About an hour later a 16-year-old boy was shot while walking a few blocks south of Children’s Hospital.

On Sunday morning, two teens were taken to a hospital after being shot in the Hilltop neighborhood.

At least three other people were shot over the weekend. Police say two people were shot outside Double D’s Pub on South High Street early Saturday morning. About an hour later a man was shot while driving on Sandalwood Place near Karl Road.

No one was arrested in any of the weekend shootings.

On Sunday afternoon, Columbus Police sent out an alert saying Chantasja Silva was last seen December 4th at West High School. Her mother told police is was like her daughter vanished, and Silva’s picture was added to listings on the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children website.

Now police say Silva was arrested for shoplifting some time during her disappearance, but supplied a fake name and was living in foster care. Her foster mother called police after seeing her picture on TV.

Police and Franklin County Children Services did not respond to phone calls.

19 incidents have been attributed to the Hilltop Creeper. Deneen Black is alleged to have entered the houses of women in the early morning hours and watching or touching them as they slept. That put women in the area on edge. One woman said she carried a knife at all times; another said she stayed awake most of the night.

“We saw that Mr. Black did indeed exhibit behavior that we were attributing to the actions of the Hilltop Creeper,” says Columbus police sergeant David Pelphrey.

At a press conference, Pelphrey provided few specifics about the investigation except to say that Black was put under surveillance. Pelphrey says Black was observed by investigators during the early morning hours.

“Mr. Black was located in between houses and in the alleys kind of creeping around,” says Pelphrey.

Sgt. Pelphrey says Black gave police sufficient information to connect him to the crimes.

“Mr. Black came to police headquarters; he elected to cooperate with the detectives and Mr. Black provided us with information that leads us to believe that Mr. Black is responsible for the majority of, if not all, the incidents that we attributed to the Hilltop Creeper,” Pelphrey says.

At present Black faces one count of burglary but police say additional charges will follow.

“I stay up almost all night long just making sure that no one’s peeping around my house,” Hilltop resident Jennifer Coleman says.

Coleman has three young children. She says she used to sleep upstairs with them.

“I sleep downstairs now. That way if anyone messes around my house I know. And I keep all my doors and windows locked. Half the time during the day I do.”

Columbus Police Sergeant Dave Pelphrey says women who live on the West Side should be cautious.

“Right now the victims have all been female. They’ve been both black and white and the age range runs from 15 being the youngest to the mid-40s,” Pelphrey says. “They’ve been single females in the residence, but there’s been several of the incidences where there have been other people in the house.”

The “creeper” enters the homes through unlocked windows and doors. Some of the women have been touched in a sexual manner. And police fear the crimes could escalate if the “creeper” is not found.

Police released a vague description of the person they’re looking for: African American, tall, medium build and between 20 and 40 years old.

“Waking someone up at 4 o’clock in the morning, or 5 o’clock in the morning, they just aren’t able to give us a good description of their assailant,” Pelphrey says.

21-year-old Hilltop resident Tara Sout says she’s not taking any chances.

“Make sure our doors are locked, make sure all of our windows are down and locked at night. We make sure everything’s just dead bolted.” And Stout says she has a weapon, “I carry a knife with me at all times.”

Pelphrey says he hopes the Crime Stoppers reward will incentivize people to call with information .

“When we need tips and we want tips and more tips, this is how we get them,” he says.

The “creeper” has entered 19 homes in the Hilltop and Franklinton areas during the past nine months. The last incident was almost two weeks ago.

Life long west side resident Jan Fields doesn’t see anything positive if a multi-million dollar casino locates near her neighborhood.

“It’s just going to bring more traffic and you know like I said it’s going to bring crime into the neighborhood.” Fields said.

While supporters point to job creation as a way to boost development on the West side, Fields has many questions.

“I’m not sure if how good the jobs will be whether they’re going to be minimum wage, you know jobs that people can’t live on.” Fields said.

19 year old De’J Johnson also doesn’t think a casino is the answer to job problems.

“If people want to influence jobs and stuff like that why don’t they promote small businesses or places like that instead of spending more money to build some big multi want to be billion dollar building that’s going to bust.” Johnson said. Other residents are eager to see the casino. 35 year old David Pyles has been unemployed for nearly a year. “We’ve got everything out here. It’ll be close to the freeway. It’s going to bring a lot of jobs to our community. It’ll upgrade our community. People will want to invest in our houses. It’ll raise our property value,” Pyles said.

Pyles said any crime concerns will be addressed by more police officers.