If not for the October 1989 murder of Carol DiMaiti Stuart, Boston would have made brisk progress on crime much sooner, Flynn maintains. Stuart was a young pregnant lawyer whose husband, Charles, claimed was shot by an African-American assailant on Mission Hill. Police aggressively rousted Roxbury and Dorchester in search of the killer. A black man was apprehended in connection with the shooting. There was only one catch: the murder had been committed by the husband himself — which came to light months later when Stuart hurled himself off the Mystic Tobin Bridge. Everything "came to a screeching halt in October of 1989 with the Stuart case," says Flynn. The city and its police lost a lot of ground in reducing both racial tensions and street crime, and Boston’s murder rate reached an all-time high of 152 in 1990. The Stuart case prompted Flynn to appoint a commission to evaluate the city’s police department, headed by high-profile Boston attorney James St. Clair, who’d represented Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal and the Boston School Committee during its White-era battle against court-mandated busing. The St. Clair commission’s findings, which cited "substantial problems in the leadership and management of the department," led to the resignation of Commissioner Mickey Roache and a major reorganization of the police force.

Thanks in part to the commission’s work and Roache’s departure, the ill will that plagued citizen-police relations in Boston’s neighborhoods in the wake of the Stuart case began to abate. After the St. Clair report was released, Flynn knew that any anti-crime strategy in Boston had to include internal checks and balances and a commitment to work with the community. To replace Roache, Flynn promoted the force’s superintendent-in-chief, William Bratton, an experienced manager who’d begun his career as a Boston policeman in 1970 and had gone on to earn a reputation as an effective reformer while heading the MBTA police, the Metropolitan District Commission police, and the New York Transit Police, before returning to Boston in 1992. Bratton employed a trick that now considered old hat: he got new guns for the police. He also put in place a crime-tracking computer-analysis system similar to ComStat, the one he later became famous for implementing in New York City under Mayor Rudy Giuliani. But before Bratton’s reforms could really be felt, he left Boston to become New York City police commissioner, in 1994. It fell to Bratton’s replacement, Paul Evans — selected by Menino — to implement the St. Clair commission’s recommendations for decreasing the city’s murder rate. With Evans in place, the "Boston model" was born.

Unfortunately, the efficacy of the Boston model, and perhaps the commitment to it, seems to be weakening. Observers of crime in Boston, such as Northeastern’s Jack Levin, think there might be limits to what any mayor can do — especially a mayor faced with diminishing fiscal resources. "Keep in mind that we instituted reforms over the years," says Levin. "We never made radical changes. We’re not about to equalize opportunities between the suburbs and the cities. We’re not going to reduce the divorce rate to zero," he adds, acknowledging religious leaders’ efforts to stabilize poor communities by encouraging men to stay involved with their families. "There’s a limit to how much these reforms can make a difference."

Added to the mayor’s worries, as noted in an op-ed piece co-authored by Commissioner Evans in the July 14 Boston Globe, is the likely impact of a 34 percent increase in the population of adolescents aged 11 to 20 by the year 2006. Speaking with the Phoenix, Evans also voiced concern about the current and impending release of hardened criminals jailed in the 1980s and early ’90s. The city will need funding for services to help and monitor these ex-cons as they re-enter the community.

THE FIRST STEP forward for Menino may be to continue his public acknowledgement, begun last Wednesday, that violent crime has become a problem in Boston. By getting business leaders, such as Chad Gifford of Fleet Bank and Larry Lucchino of the Boston Red Sox, to commit to providing jobs and money to his programs, the mayor has addressed at least one concern voiced by both academic experts and community leaders: to fight crime, the city needs to make residents feel like they have a stake in the battle. "The city and its business leaders cannot afford to get out of the lives of teenagers," says Levin.

Aside from attempting to squeeze what aid he can from the city’s business community, Menino will use his position as head of the US Mayor’s Conference to win more urban aid from the federal government — something Ray Flynn tried to do when he headed the same group in the 1990s. "I’m trying to find some money to help us out," says Menino, who adds that revitalizing the dormant federal Police Bill, which would make it possible for cities to hire more police and also to engage in social-work initiatives designed to help people avoid the path leading into the criminal-justice system, is one of his priorities. "There isn’t much money, and there’s a different atmosphere in Washington."

So far, Menino is enjoying support from community leaders. The Reverend Eugene Rivers, pastor of the Azusa Christian Community, says, "By my lights, Menino has done anything any smart man can do." The Reverend William Dickerson Jr., pastor of the Greater Love Tabernacle, in Dorchester, who spoke at Trina Persad’s funeral, says that while he would have liked to see more jobs and resources in Menino’s plan, the mayor is doing as much as he can. "He can only do as much as the resources he has available," Dickerson notes. "I prefer a person saying they’re going to do x, y, and z and do it than say they’ll do it prematurely and not deliver."

But in order to make his commitment stick, Menino will have to fight his first impulse, which is to declare that things in Boston are fine — or close to it. The public seems willing to help Menino as long as he’s prepared to put in the effort, and to give him a pass for a burst of crime that seems beyond his control. When former gubernatorial candidate Steve Grossman announced that he was departing the race last Friday, he vowed to help Mayor Menino make the city safe. Menino would do well to build on the momentum of his own speech last Wednesday and let the public see a little more of his hands-on efforts, which usually go on behind the scenes. He might never play basketball with city teens like Flynn, or make dramatic visits to the poor like New York’s charismatic mayor John Lindsay, but he can — and should — let everyone know how hard he is working for peace on the streets.

Seth Gitell can be reached at sgitell[a]phx.com