Editor’s Note: Last year, The Red & Black began compiling crime data to create an online crime map. For this semester-long series we took that crime data and found 10 of the more crime-ridden residential streets in Athens-Clarke County. With Jan. 1 as our starting date, we tallied the crimes on the streets of the University’s home county to create our list. Here is the ninth entry, Westchester Drive.

Though the well-kept townhomes, apartments and houses don’t show it, it’s been a long year for the Westchester Drive area — 17 batteries, nine assaults and more than 20 other incidences since Jan. 1.

Residents, however, say it’s not really a crime-filled locale.

“I know statistics don’t show it, but if you live over here it’s really not that bad,” said Tricia Cure, who lives on Westchester with her family. “Everybody keeps to theyselves around here. I mean, you have the little kids in high school that get into fights, but it’s nothing that serious to be honest.”

Residents of Westchester Drive say crime isn’t as common in the neighborhood as it used to be. PHOTO BY WES BLANKENSHIP

Terrell Cure said the family has lived in the area for several years, and mentioned Tallassee — the road Westchester branches off of — “used to be rough.”

Now, he said, crimes aren’t nearly as common.

“I ain’t seen no crime,” Cure said. “It don’t bother us. We stay to ourselves. As long as they don’t bring trouble here, what they do is they business. When they bring trouble to [our residence] then it’s our business. That’s how I feel — what goes on out there goes on.”

He chalked up the potential for crime to kids in the area not having much to do during their free time.

“There’s a bunch of kids and there ain’t nothing to do, no park or nothing around here to play. You have to go all the way to Bishop Park,” he said.

Neighborhood teens who did not want to be named said they were a little surprised Westchester was on the list of crime-filled areas. They pointed down the street to Tallassee Club Villas, an apartment complex off of Westchester Drive, and said that was where the crime was.

Where it all goes down

Eighteen of the more than 50 area crimes occurred on Hanover Place, the street where Tallassee Club Villas is located.

“When I just started working here it was terrible,” said Aida Robles, assistant manager for the complex. “You were afraid to walk from your house to you know, the laundry room, because it was dark, it was no lights, it was people all over the place drinking, smoking.”

Westchester Drive Crimes

However, Robles said she didn’t hear about specific crime, but did know there were less-than-savory characters who called the place home.

“Tallassee is not a bad neighborhood, but it is bad people here, so we just have to get rid of them and try slowly but surely putting new tenants in with better expectations,” she said.

She said management was doing a lot to minimize the stereotypes Tallassee has fallen victim to, much of which is not from the doings of residents in the first place.

“The kids from this neighborhood, from Tallassee, they don’t really get into fights. It’s general kids that are coming from other neighborhoods, that are coming here to chill and have a good time, but then they start getting into an argument and then something happens,” she said.

Many of the issues Robles says she sees in Tallassee come from residents disrespecting the complex’s rules and each other.

“I rent this apartment to this lady, she said she was single. Three weeks after she move in, she stab her boyfriend inside her apartment. What could I do about that? It’s nothing you can do about that. They move out; she’s not here anymore,” Robles said. “The other situation, it was a black lady drinking with two Mexican guys. Her boyfriend came into the apartment and he found the girlfriend, you know, having fun with this Mexican guys.”

The thing Robles said she sees most, however, is bullying of her and her family because of their race and ethnicity.

“They are not free to walk by Westchester without getting, you know, called names, cause they are mixed. They are black with Mexican. And they get a lot of names to us,” she said. “Every time you walk by you are like a big red spot — hit me, I’m here, say something to me. But you know, I’m used to it now because in this job you have to be tough. You have to deal with all kinds of people.”

Though Robles said that even if given the chance, she wouldn’t leave Tallassee, she did say the neighborhood  wasn’t the best for everyone.

“For kids, this is not a good neighborhood. This is not,” she said.

But residents say things are changing in Tallassee and on Westchester Drive. Robles and her fellow co-workers at the apartment complex are working hard to clean the neighborhood up.

Turning things around

“We’ve evicted a lot of those bad tenants so they’re not here anymore. My boss already evict eight of them and this month he’s gonna evict another eight and we’re gonna keep doing it until this is cleaned up,” Robles said.

She said many of the evicted tenants were either drug dealers or just didn’t pay their rent.

“I mean, we had some tenants that were females that were, you know, prostitutes, and you know I didn’t know that when they come and fill out their applications — they don’t put that on the applications,” Robles said. “They just write their income and their proof of income.”

Jeremy Butts used to live in the Westchester area, and said things have changed since then.

“Back in the day they used to have a lot of crime but now it’s calmed down a whole lot,” he said.

Damian Walker, a friend of Butts’, said he moved to Athens two months ago.

“Where I’m from is way worse than this. You got a shooting every day. But that’s just the hood,” he said.

Robles said Tallassee management began checking backgrounds of potential renters and “if you pass the test, you’re welcome here and if not, sorry, you can find another place to live.”

“I have been seeing a lot of changes here and I know we can do a lot more. I know we will do it,” Robles said. “If they let me, I’ll try my best. I know that means that you know some people aren’t gonna like me for what I do, but it’s for a good cause.”

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