Slate: Did the Police Fail to See the Signs in Cleveland?
My first job out of college was as an English teacher at a high school just three blocks from the house of horrors. I lived seven blocks away from the abduction site [How did the police not notice that three young women of similar description disappeared from the same block-and-a-half within a 24 month period?] I know this neighborhood and its people; the police were never, ever interested, even back in the late 1970's, in actual police work in these city blocks. Usually, the best and brightest of the CPD were not posted to this district; it was seen as punishment duty.
This has been challenged in recent years as young couples are buying those inexpensive homes and renovating them; however, there has been some "resistance" from the local constabulary and some spectacular examples of unprofessional and even brutal behavior towards the public.
As a neighborhood activist once said to me, paraphrasing Richard Pryor: "Down here, 'justice' means 'just us'".