When last we met, I was envisioning having a glass of wine with Lucia Whalen. You know, the well-meaning woman who made the 911 call that triggered the Professor Henry Louis Gates/Officer James Crowley fiasco - and then got dissed for doing everything right while the guys made nice over beer at the White House.

Her invitation must still be in the mail, though Gates reportedly sent her flowers and a thank-you card.

My inbox and phone line were flooded with messages from readers supporting Whalen. One of the callers was a guy named Sam Ricks. Like many readers, Ricks agreed that Whalen got a bum rap for simply doing her civic duty.

But it turns out Ricks is invested in Whalen's story a little more than your average caller.

See, Ricks, 55, is treasurer of one of the city's more active neighborhood watches - Parkwatch 9015 Town Watch, which patrols the Elmwood and Eastwick sections of Southwest Philadelphia, in the 12th Police District.

He's very into his volunteer work. He'll whip out his cell phone in a minute if he spots anything suspicious going on in his neighborhood.

More than once, he's witnessed what looked like a crime in progress. But he doesn't ask questions, just calls and reports what he sees.

Just call

"If you're not sure if a car is a Buick or a Pontiac, don't guess," Ricks advises. "Just say it's a sedan and look for what makes it different from all the other sedans, like if it has a damaged rear fender.

"Which is what Ms. Whalen did. She didn't guess if she wasn't sure."

Sure, Ricks says, the legs he's seen attempting to climb into a window on several occasions could have turned out to be nothing more than those of a resident who'd locked himself out.

But that's not his call to make. Only the 911 call is.

"It's not like you see a neon sign that says, 'Burglary in progress!' " he says. "You let the police figure it out."

And hope they use the best judgment, despite how challenging their jobs can be. Lest we forget, in the Gates case, a slight professor who walked with a cane was unnecessarily handcuffed and arrested outside his own home - presumably for the crime of talking too much - and an inaccurate police report led everyone to think that Whalen was a frightened white woman threatened by some angry black men.

Volunteers needed

But back to another teachable moment.

Though charges against Gates were quickly dropped, Ricks says the whole unfortunate incident doesn't do a thing for his cause - which is to recruit more volunteers for Parkwatch.

After a nationally publicized spectacle, "any recruits you're trying to get, you've lost them right there," Ricks says. That's the chilling nature of the Gates incident. "People will be even more reluctant to call police."

Let alone join a town-watch group, an organization that has already taken major financial and psychological hits from city budget restraints, not to mention the neighborhood thugs' "Stop Snitchin' " campaigns.

Still, the 45 committed volunteers - mostly women - of Parkwatch toil on, even though some studies show that neighborhood-watch groups do little to deter violent crime because they don't affect the behavior of the criminals.

But Ricks doesn't buy it.

"Criminals know that neighborhoods with strong town-watches will report them," he says. A 31 percent decrease in the reported 290 incidents last year from 2007 tells him his group's vigilance is working.

"The best defense is a good offense," he says.

On Tuesday, Parkwatch hosted its National Night Out meet-and-greet. Volunteers distributed smoke alarms and answered questions about what steps residents must take in case a chemical emergency occurs at the nearby Sunoco refinery.

And they're always looking to add to their 911 brigade.

"If you believe everything in the newspapers, everybody thinks we're being shot, raped, and robbed," Ricks says. "If you scare people, you're scaring away potential volunteers."

Which may mean missing out on a levelheaded citizen like Whalen.

Said Ricks: "I'd have her on my team anytime."

Contact columnist Annette John-Hall at 215-854-4986 or ajohnhall@phillynews.com. Read her work: http://go.philly.com/annette