An unlikely hero

Modest Roxbury woman earns Boston's crime-fighting award

By Russell Nichols, Globe Correspondent  | Reprinted from the Boston Globe, Aug. 10, 2005 

She is 5 feet tall. She wears pink Capri pants and white blouses adorned with flowers; no mask in the drawer, no cape in the closet. Luz Maria Colon says she is no hero.

''Do I walk up and stand face to face with drug dealers?" she said. ''No."

But Colon's efforts in organizing a neighborhood crime watch committee and coordinating self-defense classes for women and children propelled her into the spotlight last week, when the Boston Police Department named her Crime Fighter of the Year.

While Colon, of Roxbury, said she would rather avoid the attention, community members who know her agree that the award is much deserved and overdue, especially in light of what she has overcome.

The cubicle in Colon's Dudley Square office is cluttered with verses from the Book of Psalms. Colon lowers her head when someone compliments her work. ''It's not about me," she says over and over. She argues that ''Crime Fighter of the Year" is too grand an award for one person, that she represents but a pixel of the big picture.

But police officers, local business owners, and co-workers who call her ''the gem of the community" have witnessed her secret identity. Her obsession with community development stems from her origin.

Colon moved to Boston from Puerto Rico when she was 14 years old. Her English was rough, but she learned as she went. She graduated from Jamaica Plain High School, left a business school in Brighton, and got married in 1991. Nine years later, her husband left her and their two children. She had been working at the New England Baptist Hospital, but her shift was cut. She became a stay-at-home mother and took care of her ailing parents until they died in 1999 and 2000. As her private world crashed within her, the real world evolved around her.

''You get rusty if you stay in the house too long," she said.

In 2001, Colon enrolled in several professional training programs, including Technology Goes Home, a computer-training course offered by the Madison Park Development Corporation. She started in 2001 as a volunteer there. Two years later, she established the Safety Committee for Orchard Gardens and Orchard Commons, which brought together residents, city officials, and police for monthly meetings to address safety concerns.

Now, as the case manager for Madison Park Development Corporation programs in Roxbury, she helps residents find computer training, financial seminars, and job opportunities.

''She's unlike most do-gooders," said Michelle Green of Boston, an administrative assistant for the corporation. ''God wakes her up and says, 'You got to do this today,' and she puts that first."

Colon also coordinates self-defense classes for women and karate classes for young people, which are taught by Boston police officers.

Colon was in her office last Wednesday, the day after National Night Out, an annual event designed to send a message that residents do not tolerate crime. She helped organize an event for National Night Out in a public parking lot across from her building: Hundreds of volunteers came from all over Roxbury to help clean it up.

Roger Garvin, 59, the owner of a beauty salon and furniture store on Washington Street who is better known as Mr. G, said the lot was packed with people sweeping and picking up trash. The barbecue chicken there was good, but it was the atmosphere of community, Garvin said, that made the event a success.

''Even you got me with your smile," Garvin said to Colon last Wednesday afternoon. His wide grin made her blush.

If Roxbury represents a melting pot of diversity, then Colon has been holding a candle beneath it for the last four years. Through outreach programs, she bends color lines to form community circles. But she does not like to talk about it.

Debra Groomes of Boston, Colon's field supervisor, found out about the award two days after Boston police presented it to Colon on Aug. 1. In Groomes's office, Colon told her the news. Groomes leaned back in her leather chair, eyes wide and mouth open in genuine surprise.

''How come you didn't tell me?" Groomes asked.

''I don't like telling people," Colon replied, fidgeting with her hands behind her back.

Then her cheeks turned the color of her Capri pants, she lowered her head, and shrugged.