Fire Destroys East End Neighborhood Alert Center

East Little Rock residents woke up to quite a surprise. Their neighborhood alert center was destroyed by fire early Sunday morning. The police information report says it appears to have started in the attic, but investigators are still working to find out how. The center had been there sine 1995, housing offices for one police officer, a code enforcement officer and a facilitator. The Community-Oriented Policing sergeant says the fire destroyed many of the papers and files kept by those employees as well as many pamphlets for the community, phone numbers, and some police reports. Neighborhood leaders say the center is a necessity to them, because there are so many elderly residents in the area. "We have a lot of senior citizens out there and a lot of the can`t go out to different entitites like DHS, and utitlity companies, and down to city hall," said Estella Watson, East End Neighborhood Association. "The officer who`s assigned to that area, it makes them feel like he`s their officer, this guy is almost apart of them," said Sgt. Willie Davis, Downtown Community-Oriented Policing Program. This is the 2nd east Little Rock Alert Center to burn down this year. The other was in March at the Alert Center on 21st Street. Firefighters determined the cause of that one to be electrical.