My First Letter to FWPD: September 16, 2003

Following is a letter which I sent to Officer Marshall, a member of the FWPD Command Staff in September of 2003. In this letter I offered my complete assistance, including allowing FWPD to station officers and cameras inside my home in order to help eradicate the drug problem here. I also offered to act as a liaison between FWPD and other people who wanted to help, but feared retribution.

There may be legitimate reasons why FWPD chose not to accept this offer. Regardless, I still would have thought that the officers who patrol this area would have been informed that they had a potential ally here. Obviously this did not occur, as for the next three years almost every FWPD officer that I encountered here treated me as though I was just a wandering crack-head. One officer I met, after convincing him that I was legitimate, actually asked me if I would allow FWPD to install cameras on my property to monitor the drug house. When I told him that I had made that offer already, three years prior, he just looked at me in disbelief and asked if I was kidding him.

Read this letter for yourself and decide if it makes sense that Officer Marshall and the FWPD would simply choose to throw it in the trash can. I apologize in advance for my bad spelling in this letter, but I was typing it at work, and I was tired!

16 September 2003

Officer Marshall,

I want to thank you for taking the time to come to my home on Thursday to discuss the problems we are having in my neighborhood. After having met with you in person, I can see that you share my concern for these problems. I appreciate all that you and your fello officrs are doing to help improve the quality of life in my neighborhood. I, and other residents in this area, realize that your department can be useful in heping us to deal with the problems. I am sure also that you realize that assistance from the residents of this area can be an aid to you and your department.

I realize that the degree of concern for the drug related problems varies widely among the residents of my neighborhood. Some of the people who complain about the probems are just as likely to complain about the police when they work toward eliminating these problems. I realiz this can be very frustrating for yourself and other officrs. Likewise, I hope you realize that the level of concern for these problems also varies among members of your own department. While I am certain that the majority of your fellow officers are truly concerned with improving the quality of life for the people they serve, I also believe that to some theirs is simply a thankless job that they are glad to forget about at the end of the day. It has been my misfortune to deal with some of those officers (in my opinion) in the past, and I hope you can appreciate the frustration this causes.

I requested to meet with you in person with the hope that we could begin to establish a relationship based upon our comon goals. I believe this was accomplished with our meeting. I am now convinced that yu are a dedicated and competent officer who is truly concerned about the problems in my neighborhood. I hope also that I have convinced you that I am a concerned citizen who is willing to work with your department to address these same problems.

My request to have you come to my home, rather than meeting at the police department, was to have communicated a message to two different groups of people. The first goup includs those neighbors of mine who share my concerns. Some of them, for various reasons, are reluctant to contact your department and unwilling to invite an officer to set on their front porch to discuss the problems. The second group includes those who are causing the problems. Many of them are under the mistaken notion that all the residents of this area are unwilling to openly coperate with your department.

I have received a positive response from the first group. After our meeting, some of my neighbors inquired as to what you (FWPD) intend to do about the problems here. When I explained that it will be necessary for us to work with you to achieve success, some of the reasons for their shyness were revealed to me - It seems that an anonymous tip about a problem neighbor loses it’s anonymity when an oficer shows up at the callers door! I have assured them that I know a dedicated and competent officer (That’s you!) who is willing to help us deal with our problems. I have also let them know that I can help provide a degree of separation if they are unwilling to be seen as too closely associated with your department.

With the second group, I was not as sucessful. I had hoped, by showing tht mine is a police-friendly home, to convince them that they should take their problems elsewhere. Unfortunately, they are not as receptive as the first group. In the past few days I have personally notified several people that they are not welcome to stand on my property. In addition, when I see suspicious activity on the sidewalks and streets in frot of my home, I make my presence known to them. The usual result is that they quickly go away, only to return again soon after I go inside or leave. Finally, last night I had to chase too men out of my back yard and about a dozen out of my front yar. This is a situaton that is becoming intolerable, and I will need your help to effectively deal with it.

Protocol would have dictate that I deal with this most recent problem by immediately calling your department that night. Please try to follow my explanation of why I did not do this and try to understand the situation that I am faced with. Yesterday, I worked for twelve hours. I was trying to get a little sleep last night before I had to return today to work another 12-hour shift. Had I called in last night, I think that the probable result would have been for your department to send a car or two to the area. Had any of the trespassers still been present when your officers arrived they would most likely have quickly vanished between houses to disapper into the night. In addition, I might have been questioned as to why I called in over "nothing” (Point being that if I called FWPD every time someone stands on my property or I see suspicious activity, I will perhaps be labeled a nuisance and not receive help when it is truly necessary.) Instead, I chose to notify these people (In a not too polite manner) myself that they were violating my rights and that I would not tolerate this. The net resul was the same - in that they left, but will return again later - but I achieved immediate results and was able to go back to sleep sooner.

Please do not take my explanation as criticism of FWPD. Rather, it is a testament to the transient nature of the drug traffickers, as well as your inability to immediately deal with the problems (since you do not, and can not, always have an officer present right when the problems appear.) It is my belief, and I assume you will recognize this as well, that many of the narcotics-related actions taken by your department often result in merely pushing the problm to another neighborhood. While I do appreciate anytime an officer drives through my neighborhood and chases off the offenders, it must be recognized that without arrests and convictions this problem will simply re-emerge at another time or place.

Getting To The Point

I do not know if my neighborhood is the worst, as far as drug trafficking is concerned, in Fort Wayne, but it certainly must rank high. I have lived here for over 7 years and have watched as the activities rise and fall. It is clear to me that the narcotics problem in my neighborhood is a persistent one and will not be significantly diminished unless a significant number of people are arrested, rather than just chased off. It is also clear to me that this will not happen unless your department is willing to change it’s approach to dealing with the problem (Again, no offense meant, but the same old approach will result in the same old results.)

I am sure that, in an attempt to learn what is truly going on here, FWPD has undercover agents perusing my neighborhood, and I applaud your creative and brave efforts in this respect. However, I am equally certain that no one riding through on their bicycle or making an occasional buy can learn as much about this neighborhood than if they actually lived here. I am not, of course, suggesting that I am more informed about the narcotics business here than is your own department. What I am suggesting though is that if my residence (with a unique view of the activities on both Suttenfield & Warsaw Sts.) were combined with the expertise of your officers a significant, and hopefully long-term impact could be made.

I will leave it to you to decide if mine is a useful offer, and I will defer to your professional judgment as to where we go from here. However, if you are not willing to take my offer, please advise me on how I should deal with the situation here. To date, the most frequent advice I get is to phone the police and let them do their job. This begs me to ask the question - Do you really want me to call FWPD every time someone steps on my property or that I see suspicious behavior in the Suttenfield/Warsaw area? This would probably require a private line and a dedicated operator.

Final Note

I realize that some of my call to you may have seemed less than polite. However, please keep in mind that my situation is very frustrating. At the end of the day, Suttenfield St. is where I go home to, and I can not escape the problems there. The situation I found myself in last night required immediate attention. After shouting at 12 men to “Get the F*** off my God D*** property,” I was in no state to be talking with the police. If my message to you this morning sounded confusing, consider what it would have been like if I called last night. I do appreciate the professional manner in which you have responded to my situation, and I will try to extend the same courtesy towards you. If I can be of any help to you or your department, please contact me.

Sincerely,
Phillip D Marx

Home Phone: 479-4010
Cell Phone: 704-0212
Work Phone: 745-1893

Obviously, this letter is not completely self-explanatory. I will therefore spend the next several posts recalling what happened here during the summer of 2003. As you read these posts, I will reveal some of my own flaws in both judgment and demeanor. Although some of my accounts do not paint a nice self-portrait, I feel that including them is necessary in order for the full story to be better understood.

In my defense, I would like to point out that in the letter I apologized to Officer Marshall for my previously rude behavior. I also attempted to minimize the unprofessional behavior of a few individual officers, and characterized most of the problems here as being caused by factors that were beyond FWPD’s control.

REO SPEEDWAGON: In Your Letter