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Crime & Safety

Parents of Girls Robbed at Gunpoint Speak at Grosse Pointe Council Meeting

The parents of two girls robbed at gunpoint Sunday near Charlevoix and Lakeland express their concerns about neighborhood safety during Monday's Grosse Pointe City Council meeting.

"Our neighborhood is changing ... I really believe there are more things happening than we know," the mother of two girls robbed at gunpoint in the City of Grosse Pointe said Monday in an interview with Patch.

The sisters, ages 14 and 11, were assaulted and robbed while walking home on Sunday morning near the intersection of Charlevoix and Lakeland. Police are still investigating the incident and no arrests have been made. 

The suspect is described as a black male in his 20s. He is approximately 6 feet tall and weighs between 230–250 pounds. He was wearing black jeans and a black hooded sweatshirt.

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The girls' parents addressed the City's council members with their concerns for public safety during a scheduled meeting on Monday evening.

The girls' father asked if the City's Public Safety Office uses the Nixle System to alert residents about criminal activities like the one his daughters experienced.  Sunday's incident didn't appear on the Nixle system until Monday evening at approximately 7:43 p.m., during the City Council meeting.

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Director of Public Safety Stephen Poloni responded saying, "We do utilize the Nixle System. We've just been recently utilizing it."

Poloni explained that the officer responsible for updating Nixle was out in the field at the time of the incident and was unable to update the system until Monday evening.

The girls' mother also spoke to the council, saying that she had heard that a similar incident had occurred on Neff Road earlier in the day on Sunday. Chief Poloni disagreed and said it was a rumor that police had also received calls about, but that it was untrue.

In a final address to the council about Sunday's incident, a resident from Lakeland Court expressed his concern about the possible merger of Grosse Pointe Park and City public safety offices.

"I can't imagine that this merger is going to improve our surveillance and protection. I'm kind of outraged that this kind of thing is happening in broad daylight, right in front of my house," the resident said.

Mayor Dale Scrace responded saying that the consolidation public safety study being conducted is still several months away from being completed and that the resident's concern will be taken into consideration.

"There's a third world country on the other side of Mack Avenue," the resident said.

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