By Patrick McGroarty and Bill Forry
Reporter Editors

The murder last weekend of a recent college graduate from New York City who was shot and killed outside a house party on Geneva Avenue has caused an avalanche of media attention and incited new cries to address criminal bloodshed across the city.

As Dorchester residents reacted to the third murder in Dorchester's C-11 police district since January 1, police officials pledged to address the matter of late-night parties that have ended in tragic violence at least three times over the last six months.

"We continue to address the ongoing problem of gang violence and after-hours parties," said Ed Davis, Boston's police commissioner, at a press conference Monday held specifically to discuss the circumstances surrounding the death of Chiara Levin, a 22-year-old Kentucky native and New York City resident who was killed on Geneva Avenue early Saturday morning.

Levin, in town for a family gathering, had gone to a downtown club on Friday evening with two friends. As the club closed around 2 a.m., the three friends accepted an invitation from three young men they had just met to go to a party at a house at 415 Geneva Avenue. Around 4 a.m. the three friends and their three new acquaintances were back in their car when a fight broke out in front of the home and then gunfire erupted. Caught in the crossfire, Levin was struck in the head. It took 40 minutes for her acquaintances to drive to Boston Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.

"The coward responsible snuffed out the life of a beautiful young girl by using indiscriminate gunfire," said Davis. "This epidemic is occurring across the nation… we will do everything we can as a police agency to bring these people to justice."

According to Davis, officers in the Boston Regional Intelligence Center, whose duties include monitoring the Internet and locally posted flyers to learn about illegal house parties before they occur, have shut down ten such parties since the first of the year. In addition, Davis said up to 15 'birthday parties' organized by individuals with known gang connections have also been halted.

"Anyone aware of an after-hours party occurring, we want to be notified. Call 9-1-1, tell the operator where it's occurring, and we'll send officers to shut it down," said Davis.

Two recent parties prior to the gathering that led to Levin's murder also ended with shooting deaths. On Nov. 25, Jonathon Calvin Jacques, 18, was shot and killed outside of a house on Milton Avenue where a party had gone on for four days over Thanksgiving weekend despite repeated calls from neighbors to 9-1-1. And on New Year's Day, 14 year-old Jason Fernandes was shot and killed outside another house party on Clarkson Street.

In a February interview with the Reporter, Davis said he hoped that "houses that are a common nuisance" would get more intense scrutiny. "The role of inspectional services with the city can play an enormously important role when you trying to prevent a crime from happening," he said.

When asked then whether the C-11 Party Line, a distinct phone line that allows residents to report noisy gatherings during the summer months, could be expanded, Davis said that centralizing the party line was under consideration,

"It doesn't make a lot of sense to have one officer in one district assigned to the party line when that could be very helpful citywide," Davis said, "so let's have one officer assigned citywide to the party line who can get the information out to the districts. That's an example of centralization that makes sense."

This week, BPD spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll said that plans for the party line would be examined more closely as "we approach the summer months."

Driscoll also said that the police had begun a more aggressive strategy to pre-empt potentially dangerous house parties. Last weekend, Driscoll said, patrol supervisors visited five houses across the city where officers had developed intelligence indicating parties were scheduled to take place.

The resident responsible for the party at 415 Geneva has been cited for hosting an illegal party, though Driscoll said that the police received no 9-1-1 call from around that address, and no calls were made to report the shots fired.

Asked to react to the house-party problem, Codman Square activist Cynthia Loesch said that neighbors in her community feel that parties need to get a more focused approach. "When residents call, the response is always that there are other things we have to deal with. We need to give [young people] a better outlet to party, but more attention needs to be put on the house-party problem. It happens over and over again."

Davida Andelman, a Clarkson Street resident and outspoken neighborhood activist, said that beefing up the party line that was pioneered in the mid-1990s in Area C-11 is something that she and other activists have repeatedly asked police to do.

"One of the main catalysts of the party line was all these congregations of young people," said Andelman. "We've been dealing with house parties for years and years. One of things we've talked about is to have it not just in summer months, but year-round. The catch here is always, 'if they have the resources.' "

Even when the party line is operational, Andelman said, she has heard anecdotally that calls sometimes go unanswered. "We're not living in the 1900s here. We need to have the police rank and file to cooperate with us. It shouldn't be an overtime program. "There are parties all the time that go late into the night. Even this weekend, we heard music later and longer into the night. In terms of house parties, institutionalizing the party line is critical."