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This Issue 01/24/2008

Also in this issue

• Of Profits and Prophets
• Web Video of the Week
• Heavily Distorted Views
• Profile: Every Day-Lewis
• THE LINEUP: 2008
• An Uncommon Crusade

It's 9 p.m. at a Dunkin' Donuts in Northeast Philadelphia. A husky man in the corner, wearing a white hard hat, is planning his night. A cup of coffee and a cell phone by his side, he sorts through a pile of index cards that remind him of the people he needs to visit. Soon after, Greg Bucceroni, a stocky, bald man arrives, playfully flirts with the cashiers as he orders his usual coffee, then turns to greet his friend. Once Kimmins gathers his belongings, the pair exits the shop.

Every night, Kimmins and Bucceroni meet at the Dunkin' Donuts in Fishtown. They drive around the city's worst neighborhoods, stopping to talk to the citizens most at risk of becoming criminals and victims. They are crime fighters, but the tools in their arsenal don't include weapons or bulletproof vests. Through mentoring and staging vigils, these men are getting drug dealers off the city streets and preventing youths from entering into lives of crime. Kimmins and Bucceroni are part of an unofficial network of volunteer activists who are cleaning up Philly's most dangerous streets by forging personal connections with residents most in need of help. While there are some 23,000 members in Philadelphia's 732 official neighborhood watch groups, the men act independently of any group or organization when they make their nightly rounds.

Kimmins, 63, covers his curly mop of brown hair with the white hard hat, which is adorned with stickers and pins from local law enforcement agencies and activist groups. He serves as chairman for the city's Citizens Advisory Board for Probation and Parole and leads an organization called Mantua Against Drugs. He has been fighting drug violence for 22 years and gang violence for nearly twice as long. Earlier in his life, he worked as both a milkman and a middle school history teacher. While his first name is Bernard, he goes by C.B. - short for "Cool Bernie," a nickname one of his students gave him.

Kimmins says that he earned a master's degree from Temple University, attended one year of law school at Villanova University and is only a dissertation shy of his doctorate. Kimmins says that he's been "kind of homeless" for the past few years. Andee, who is the mother of his first daughter Brynne, has been giving him a place in her suburban Broomall apartment to stay for the past year, though they sleep in different bedrooms. The location is convenient for Andee, who works at the Lawrence Park Shopping Center Dollar Tree store just steps away.

Being out in Broomall isn't ideal for Kimmins though. Since his 1992 Oldsmobile has been in the shop for the past couple of months, he's been taking the SEPTA 112 bus every morning. He boards it outside the Hair Cuttery (next to the same Dollar Tree where Andee works) and takes it to 69th Street Terminal, where he transfers to the "El Train" for the rest of the ride into the city. The trip takes over an hour.