Chess Champion Provides the Pieces to Fight Crime

When a world-ranked chess champion read a story in the Independent that retired city cop Stacy Spell was determined to checkmate crime in his neighborhood, she decided to help.

By last week seven handsome portable chess sets had arrived in the neighborhood, sent by gender-barrier-breaking Grandmaster Susan Polgar, the director of the Susan Polgar Institute for Chess Excellence (SPICE) at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas.

Saturday morning at the square where Derby meets Norton, Spell deployed those sets and oversaw an intense match in which the Sound School’s Seth Ortiz (right) was cornering East Rock School’s Moubarak Oury-Aguy’s king with his knights and rooks.

Along with the sets, Polgar had sent instructional videos and copies of her book.

The square has been plagued in recent years by flagrantly public street sales of drugs and the crime that often follows in its wake.

The Dunkin’ Donuts in the square was the scene of a murder in December and two shootings in February of this year.

On this Saturday morning, the charming square was the scene of more games of chess than of drug dealing.

“It’s becoming infectious, like measles,” Spell said.

This was the fourth weekend Spell, president of the West River Neighborhood Services Corporation, had organized a community clean-up followed by public chess games.

At least 16 people participated. They included Moubarak and Seth and several other kids from Squash Haven, for whom the clean-up was part of the 10 hours of required community service.

Moubarak lives a stone’s throw away on Norton Street. He hadn’t played in a while; he lost to Ortiz despite a refresher course from Spell. The young man vowed to return next week and maybe bring some friends.

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