Chester City police officer Mark Crawford is the quintessential beat cop.
As he patrols the streets where he grew up, residents invariably call his name, wave, or tell him about new babies.
"I believe in the city," said Crawford, 40, who is African American and grew up next to one of Chester's worst housing projects. "My dream as a kid was to be a cop."
It wasn't a dream that made his mother happy. Too risky, she said.
This impoverished city of 37,000 people has a murder rate twice that of Philadelphia and some of the state's highest rates for other serious crimes.
But Crawford, and many of his fellow officers, show that it's possible to police a tough city without the mass arrests used by some other small Pennsylvania cities - tactics that can leave communities embittered and hostile.
Police do use some questionable tactics, including mass strip searches. Chester City's loitering law is being challenged in state court as unconstitutional.
But unlike other small cities in the region, police don't give tickets for jaywalking. Chief John Finnegan said officers simply "don't have time" to cite large numbers of people for disorderly conduct.
Another important difference: Chester, with the county's largest African American population, has a diverse police force, with 33 black officers. By contrast, nearby Upper Darby - with the county's second largest African American population - has one black officer.
Crawford, who lives in Chester, sees himself as part of the community, not at war with it.
"I know where they come from," he said. "It helps me with what I'm doing now."
A 1985 graduate of Chester Upland High School, Crawford bounced between jobs, working as a security guard and selling SEPTA tickets.
While working for Chester's Department of Licenses and Inspections, he began to recognize stolen cars left in vacant lots and back yards.
Officers encouraged him to join the force. He waited eight years, until he turned 33. He's glad he did.
"I just wasn't mature enough," he said.
At the beginning of one Friday night shift, Crawford got a call to help chase down a man who had tossed a gun out his car window on I-95.
Crawford responded at 90 m.p.h.
When he reached the scene, other officers already had the suspect in handcuffs. Three children were in the car, one of them the driver's 5-year-old son, terrified and sweating in the heat.
Crawford took the boy to an air-conditioned police van and spoke with him quietly.
