Neighbors Worried About Negative Perception of West Savannah

People in the West Savannah neighborhood say they're concerned about rising crime in their area, especially after a shooting earlier this week.

According to the Savannah-Chatham Metro Police Interactive Crime Map, in the past month West Savannah has had eight burglaries, two stolen cars, three thefts from vehicles, one aggravated assault and one other theft.

People in West Savannah say it's a good neighborhood that's starting to pick back up, with developments like Sustainable Fellwood and other new construction coming to the area. But some are worried that their progress is being overshadowed by more crimes happening there.

Betty Lloyd moved here 7 years ago, into the house her grandmother used to live in.

"We would sit on the porch at night and talk across the street to each other, and as the years have gone along it's lost some of that, well lost a lot of that, flavor," said Lloyd.

But recent burglaries and other crimes have her worried about the effect on the neighborhood's reputation.

"Don't want us to get a name that's not, that's not true. It doesn't meld with what we are. We are a very quiet community," said Lloyd.

"We're revitalizing and we can't interest people in living out here when we have different types of crime happening," said Pam Oglesby, who believes the source of the crime comes from outside the area.

"We have people that are coming in here because their cousins moved over here or their grandmother used to live here, and they do all kinds of things and it's not us," said Oglesby.

Oglesby says she's been glad to see West Savannah turning around in recent years, and does not want anything to hurt that upward trend.

"People have to understand the perception of crime many times is far worse than what is actually happening, but we are losing a little bit of ground because we are now seeing crimes that are happening," she said.

Some West Savannah neighbors met with Metro Police Thursday to talk about what neighbors can do to help police fight crime in their area. Neighbors say Metro Police are doing a good job, and they plan to meet with police once a month about what's going on in their area.