About 530 residents showed up at Park View High School in Sterling tonight for an ad hoc emergency public meeting to address the recent crime wave in the community.

The Loudoun County Government was represented by Sheriff Steve Simpson and Supervisors Susan Buckley, Andrea McGimsey, Eugene Delgaudio, Stevens Miller and Scott York. (Supervisors Lori Waters and Kelly Burk, whose districts don’t overlap with the “Sterling” area, were also present but not on the dais.)

Supervisor York did an excellent job moderating what was, undeniably, a harsh situation. He took some shots from an audience that was clearly on edge and often near combustible.

But Sheriff Simpson had to absorb more criticism than any other party and he handled it well, if perhaps too impassively. I think Simpson is a good guy and good sheriff but an incredibly tone deaf public official. In personal conversations Simpson has expressed to me he understands the problems we face in Sterling. He should do a much better job explaining how he “feels our pain” and is committed to doing more to solve our problems. Standing in a large auditorium full of people on the verge of rage over the crime problem here, he talked at length about how the Sheriff’s Office is doing all it can do and more than most people realize.

This was, to put it mildly, not the information the audience was seeking. Consequently Simpson was literally shouted down a couple times during his remarks by audience members demanding to know what more would be done, and York had to step in and restore order. At one point a gang task force deputy went to the podium to explain in more detail what was being done in the investigations that was not showing up in the news.

[As a side note to Sheriff Simpson, I would suggest he go back to the notes he brought to a Board of Supervisors meeting last year. Simpson met with officials from the town of Herndon and brought a file full of notes to our Board, and explained to them what he learned from Herndon's experience: There needs to be a comprehensive effort from the whole government. Specifically, if the government will not enforce zoning regulations, law enforcement is put in an untenable situation. Simpson did not address that topic tonight. He should bring what he learned from Herndon to our new Board members.]

Delgaudio bluntly addressed the nonexistent zoning enforcement in eastern Loudoun County as a key piece of the illegal alien crime puzzle, and Buckley went into more detail, revealing that our zoning investigation process requires investigators to call for an appointment before checking a reported overcrowded house. No surprise there is no enforcement.

Through all of this, I sensed expectation in the audience for answers which were not, up to this point, forthcoming. Within the past three weeks there have been two shootings, a stabbing, one home invasion/sexual assault, another near-home invasion, all within a three mile radius here – along with other incidents not reported in the media (or acknowledged by the Sheriff’s Office or zoning administration). So by the time audience members got to speak there were very pointed criticisms and accusations directed at the Loudoun County government.

During the audience question and answer segment, which lasted from 7:15 until 9:25, the overriding themes were fear, need for more information – especially about gangs in our neighborhoods – exasperation that the county government does not crack down on reported violations of all sorts, and demands that the Loudoun Board of Supervisors do what jurisdictions such as Prince William County and Herndon have done to dissuade illegal aliens from settling here.

Overall, I think 80 percent of the audience was primed to hear how the illegal immigration problem in Sterling was going to be solved. There was a small contingent of Help Save Loudoun members present, of which only one spoke (and not me – I am not even in the group anymore and I have already spoken plenty in this burg, and I am out of that game). But many residents of Sterling are apparently aware of what other jurisdictions have done, and there was loud approval for each call for Loudoun County to do what our neighbors did. HSL might still be small, but the Sterling community has lots of other people who want the problem solved.

Anger about Loudoun County’s lax approach to illegal immigration simmered just beneath the surface of the discussion tonight. It was apparent in the crowd’s frustration when platitudes were being delivered from the podium. But it was also evident in the negative reaction to the few speakers from the audience who tried to make the case that we should not view illegal immigration as the problem here.

Here’s why I think our county officials should pay very close attention to what happened tonight.

Supervisors Buckley, Delgaudio and York specifically addressed the problems everyone sees here every day, and they all stated a sincere commitment to revamping zoning enforcement in eastern Loudoun. That was good. But from other remarks from the dais, the response was not as good. There was a lot of talking about response times and “hotline” numbers for law enforcement bandied about – but everyone in Sterling knows that complaint calls to zoning enforcement are calls into a black hole. According to many local residents, zoning enforcement never enforces anything. And while there was mixed opinion about the Sheriff’s Office, definitely a significant proportion of the crowd had complaints about the department’s effectiveness in Sterling. So there was an undercurrent of cynicism in the audience. Cynicism, and frustration.

By the huge turnout tonight – on short notice – relative to any other community meeting held in Sterling the past four years, it is clear the silent majority is becoming much louder. If there continue to be “incidents” here, the undercurrent will not remain beneath the surface. Tonight we saw frustration, even talk by two audience members of arming themselves and taking action against local gangs. We also saw quite a lot of extreme criticism of the Sheriff’s Office and the Board of Supervisors.

Eastern Loudoun County is a tinderbox. Residents are on edge about the criminals in our midst and about our government agencies not doing their job. The citizens are paying close attention to the government and they are expecting more enforcement of our laws and regulations, quickly.

The next gathering of this sort may require more crowd control if things don’t improve here.