ANDERSON COUNTY — In light of a recent incident on Anderson’s east side, the residents at the East Anderson Alliance — a grassroots community group — let the city’s police chief know Tuesday night that they support police officers’ presence in their neighborhood.

“I would like them over here every five minutes if necessary,” Frances Lee said.

Lee said she has been coming to the East Anderson Alliance’s monthly meetings since the group started in 2000. She wants the police presence in the neighborhood, and she said she’s not felt harassed or bothered by officers.

As is typical for the alliance’s monthly meetings, city of Anderson Police Chief Martin Brown, Anderson City Manager John Moore and two other members of the city of Anderson Police Department attended the meeting to hear residents’ concerns.

Two of the group’s organizers, Herbert Ervin and Ron Dillingham, who leads the Anderson County Alternative School, said one of the reasons the alliance started was to bring residents together as a unified voice so city officials would “pay attention to the plight of the east side.”

And part of the group’s request when they started, Dillingham said, was to have the police patrol the area on a regular basis.

“You can’t all of a sudden say, ‘We don’t want you over here,’ ” Dillingham said.

Ervin, who works for the city of Anderson and has been an advocate for the east side, echoed the same sentiments as Dillingham. He said he and his son live on the east side and have never felt harassed by the police.

The discussions about police presence were sparked after an incident last week in which an Anderson police officer mistakenly went to the wrong house on the east side when someone called 911 about a disturbance in the area.