Crime is down in Beechview from last year, police say, but it's hard to convince the neighborhood.

On Aug. 25, the Alpine, a bar on Broadway Avenue, was robbed. Two nights before, Marilyn Schwilm and her husband Walt, returning home from a Pirates game, got off the trolley at Suburban and Hampshire avenues, took a few steps and were surrounded by a group of young men who took Walt down and assaulted Marilyn before stealing her purse. The Sunday before, a lone gunman robbed Unique Pizza on Broadway.

And so on ... at a recent community meeting in a crowded church basement, more than 70 people gathered to listen to police officers and neighborhood organizers. Several residents told of crimes against them and their loved ones. The crimes were real, but claims of rising crime are a misperception, said Deputy Chief William Mullen.

As of the end of July, Beechview's rate of Part 1 crime -- murders, personal attacks, auto theft and arson -- was down 20 percent from the same time last year, he said. The police zone that includes Beechview has the second-lowest victimization rate in the city, he said; Zone 4, which includes Squirrel Hill, has the lowest.

But almost anyone you ask in Beechview says crime is bad and getting worse there. As if bad were not enough, rumors have begun spreading. On the heels of the Alpine robbery, two more restaurants were said to have been robbed. Mullen said not even one other restaurant was robbed. Its burglar alarm went off by accident.

With that information, some people insisted the robberies were just not reported.

Mullen said misperceptions abound in many neighborhoods about how much crime there really is. "I don't know why, but it happens frequently."

Don Bell, president of the Beechview Merchants Association, said, "We have a problem if people keep repeating things that didn't happen."

Police declined to try to explain Beechview's mini-rash of crime, much less why Beechview thinks it is under siege.

Criminologist Alfred Blumstein, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, said that when crime happens in a traditionally insular neighborhood, it looms large. He compared such a neighborhood to a house. "We all expect to feel secure in our homes. I've been a victim of burglary twice," he said. "It's an experience that highlights your vulnerability, and you might not have thought about your vulnerability before. When you are forced to think about it, it makes you a bit anxious for a while."

The overriding fear among many is of losing the neighborhood they have always lived in. They invariably link crime to what they have lost -- a once-thriving commercial corridor and the loss of control they feel over it. The commercial corridor of Broadway is dominated by vacancies.

Meanwhile, residents say they see gangs of young men wandering around, children in the streets at 4 and 5 in the morning.

"It's awful," said Donna Boyle, who manages The Huddle, a long-time tavern on Broadway. "My dishwasher was walking home one night about two months ago and was robbed by a kid on a bicycle at the Fallowfield trolley stop." She said she knows he didn't report the incident.

At the recent meeting, police were visibly frustrated by people who admitted they or someone they knew didn't report a crime while complaining about the police.

"How are we supposed to do anything about it if we don't know about it?" said Mullen.

One resident exhorted others to be unafraid. "People got to stand up," said Lynnette Taylor-Criego. She said she would watch dealers on her street.

"They'd say, 'She's outside,' and I'd say, 'Yes I am outside. I'm watching you.' " The crowd broke into grateful, admiring laughter and applause. "I called the [city] drug task force and I called the auditor general's office [Jack Wagner, who is from Beechview]. I thought he'd want to know that someone's selling drugs two blocks from his house."

She said she and her neighbors' repeated calls to 911 and the city drug task force must have had some effect because the dealers are gone.

Mugging-victim Schwilm said it will take a few more people with that kind of confidence. After she and her husband were attacked, she said, "One of my neighbors doubled back to look" when she screamed. "His son was held up at gunpoint within the last two months. He just went in his house.

"I spent the next day knocking on my neighbors' doors, telling what happened. I wanted them to see my face before the shock went away. I have some compassionate neighbors. Other people say that's what you get for being out at midnight using the trolley.

"For 20 years, I've gotten away with being carefree."