Couple Takes Active Role In Fighting Crime

Carol Snyder always keeps dog food, a leash and dog collars (sizes small to large) in her car - in case she finds a stray.

She’s not the dogcatcher. She’s an animal lover with a pronounced tendency not to wait for other people to solve a problem.

That may explain why the Spokane Valley businesswoman, volunteer and grandmother isn’t lamenting carjackings, bombings and hold-ups. She launched a newspaper to fight them.

Friday, the first edition of the Inland Northwest Crusader rolled out: an eight-page tabloid that Snyder hopes will help police find wanted felons and missing children.

“My goal is to make the streets safer,” Snyder says. “Criminals don’t have the right to make us live in fear of them.”

Each month, the paper will picture 10 missing kids and at least 25 wanted criminals, including their descriptions, suspected crimes and the phone numbers of the investigating officers.

It will cover seven Eastern Washington counties and four counties of North Idaho.

Like Police Chief Marge Gunderson in the movie “Fargo,” Snyder seems so darn nice you wonder what she’s doing in this picture.

“I’m not a publisher,” Snyder admits. “We’re average people in Spokane. But the whole problem of trying to educate people and clean up the streets is mind-boggling. We’ve all got to do what we can.”

In her case, it’s join the ranks of 33 Crusader newspapers in 22 states. The original Crusader, founded by Ken Donovan in Tampa Bay, Fla., has helped locate 85 missing children and 567 fugitives since 1992.

Snyder saw a profile of Donovan on “A Current Affair” last fall and called him to ask about starting a similar paper here. (Crusader papers are affiliated in name only.)

Amazingly, she was the second person from Spokane to inquire, and when that person didn’t follow through, Snyder jumped in.

Her husband of 27 years, Skip Snyder, “thought I was crazy,” but soon threw in his support.

“The police can’t handle all of it,” he says.

Since January, the couple have been attending the citizens’ academy at the police academy, gang forums, and visiting officials to learn more and to show they’re not vigilantes.

They’re early retirees (Skip Snyder is a retired construction worker) who previously had owned and operated a home health-care business.

The Snyders see the paper as another element of community policing that produced the SCOPE, COPS and Block Watch programs. Observing people is something everyone can do, even in the grocery store.

“Everybody’s got a little bit of amateur sleuth in them,” Skip Snyder said.

Steve Phillabaum, president of Crime Check and a longtime Secret Witness volunteer, said he has not seen the Crusader yet but knows that publicizing the photos and activities of criminals in newspapers and on television has a “dramatic” impact.

“The more information that gets out, the more crime that’s solved,” he said. “We love to see it.”

Spokane Police Chief Terry Mangan agrees.

“If it’s another way of communicating information with the public to help keep the community safer, we’re interested,” Mangan said.

Community volunteers are increasingly doing their share.

“We’re getting more response than ever to Secret Witness, and we’re getting more people who want to be involved,” Mangan said. “Friday nights we have more citizens on patrol in neighborhoods than police cars, and that’s our most heavily staffed night.”

The Spokane County Sheriff’s Department hasn’t contributed photos to the Crusader yet. But a similar program the sheriff runs on Cox Cable’s Channel 27 has led to the arrest of 54 percent of the suspects featured, said Lt. David Wiyrick.

“It’s astounding. It’s one of the most successful programs we’ve ever done,” Wiyrick said.

Snyder will begin distributing the first 10,000 copies this week. Regardless of the outcome, she said there is no doubt she had to do something.

‘We didn’t grow up planning to do this,” she said. “A big reason I’m doing it is for my grandchildren.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

MEMO: The Crusader will be available at major grocery stores for free or by subscription for $15 a year at P.O. Box 141570, Spokane, WA 99214.