Recent Events

You never really know what you’ll get here on any given day. There are times when the dealers seem to be everywhere, and not a cop in sight. Then there are days when the police come through here like an army; several cars patrolling for very long durations. Then there are the days where everything is quiet; no cops, no dealers, no drama. It’s days like those that actually seem very strange. You keep looking over your shoulder expecting to see something, but it remains unnaturally quiet.

It is the erratic nature of the activities here that makes blogging a bit difficult at times. I have to get in a certain frame of mind and find my focus to write, but that’s difficult to do when the subject being studied (my neighborhood) keeps morphing. As soon as I write “All is quiet,” I hear gunshots right outside of my house. And when I write something that indicates I do not feel FWPD is doing enough to address the problems here, they come through in force and quiet things down for a while. Oh well, as confusing as my story might seem at times, just be glad you’re reading my blog. If you were talking to me in person, you’d probably think I’d lost my mind completely.

Here are just a few interesting things that have occurred in the past couple of weeks. In spite of these noteworthy disturbances (there are a few others as well), things have still been relatively calm. As I said before, my chief concern is for my personal safety and for my property. The drugs might bother me, but that alone is something I can live with.

Wednesday, May 21

Very few of the dealers here seem to have their own vehicles, but they have no problem getting a ride when they need it. There are a lot of cars that make regular stops at the corners and they’re not here to buy drugs. This is part of the support network for the dealers. They bring them food, and shuttle them to another location when things get too hot. These cars often drive the wrong direction on the one-way street, they drive erratically, and by providing support to the dealers, they make themselves a general nuisance.

About 8:30 in the evening, I noticed that two patrol cars had one of these vehicles stopped about a half block south of my house. One of the regular dealers and two of his girlfriends were inside. It looked like the officers issued a citation to the driver of the car for something. I have no idea what this was about, and it might have only been a warning, but it’s always good to see nuisance people (whether on foot or wheels) being stopped by the police.

Of course these people always claim they are being harassed, saying they weren’t doing anything wrong, but I think the police usually figure out who is dealing (or closely associated with the dealers), and pay special attention to them. It does seem like it takes them a while to figure it out sometimes, but once they do, they begin to act on it.

Thursday, May 22

Several officers were gathered about half a block to the south of my house for a while. I noticed that Officer Jefferson was among them. It is always good to see cops around here, but it’s even better when a member of the Command Staff is among them. It shows people like me that they (FWPD) are taking the problems here seriously. And the dealers know that the higher the rank of the officer, the more they need to quiet down.

Thursday, May 29

An unmarked police car was parked about a half block to the west of my house in the morning. I watched until a uniformed officer walked out from between two houses while speaking with the lady who had recently moved in there. She walked to the sidewalk and began pointing frantically at several houses on both sides of the street. I’m guessing she was complaining about neighbors playing their music too loud (while selling crack!), but I couldn’t here what was being said Of course, several people besides myself witnessed this and were already talking among themselves. I expect that by that evening, the entire neighborhood knew about it. I hope she has a gun (and a fire extinguisher).

Later in the evening, I was setting on my couch watching the TV with my back door wide open (I have a latched screen door). Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a police officer enter my back yard and begin to move the trash cans around. I opened the screen door and asked if I could help him with something. He asked me if I had just seen a guy with a yellow shirt run through my yard. I told him I had not, but that someone had just cut through the empty lot behind a minute before and ran into the alley.

Friday, May 30

I stopped to talk with a friend who was doing some work on his house. The lady who was speaking with the cop the day before came out to talk with him. Suddenly, she turned to me and said “Hey, you need to know about this. There’s this guy that walks around here with a uniform like he’s checking the meters, but he’s really buying drugs. They’re all drug dealers here.” Then she began pointing at all the houses. Okay, at least now I know for sure what she had said to the cop the day before.

I had never met her before, and she seemed a little stressed out, so I carefully tried to explain the unusual situation here. I was attempting to advise her to use caution about how she acts and what she says, pointing out that everyone had seen her talking with the police the previous day. I also explained that I didn’t like what was going on either, so she wouldn’t get the wrong idea and think I was just trying to get her to keep quiet. Well, she didn’t take my advice very well. She started screaming that she doesn’t need me to tell her what to do. She also stated that she doesn’t own a gun, doesn’t need a gun, and can kick anybody’s ass (even though no one asked her about any of this).

The old guy I was trying to talk with grabbed at his hair and looked like he was about to have a heart attack. The crazy lady was still screaming as I walked back to my truck. This same lady had told another neighbor a few days earlier that the Fort Wayne police are Nazis. As I was driving away, Officer Jefferson (a member of the FWPD Command Staff) pulled up beside my house. He parked there for a few minutes speaking with a couple of guys who were walking around.

At 8:45 that evening, I was inside the house and heard what sounded like about six gun shots being fired just to the east of my house. I ran outside and saw a man casually cutting through the empty lot across the street from me. What was odd about this is that is the area where the shots sounded as though they came from. The fact that he was acting so casual actually made him look suspicious. I walked to the corner and watched him as he continued walking away. He kept looking over his shoulder at me, but didn’t say anything. I wasn’t worried though because his gun was empty (or at least nearly empty), while mine still had fifteen bullets in it.

My neighbor called to me and told me that she had seen a blue truck speeding from the area, so she assumed it was involved in the shooting. A few minutes later, a police car came through and I waved him down. I asked if he was here responding to a call of shots fired, and he said yes. I told him what I had seen, and gave a description and direction of travel for the person I had seen. I didn’t get a chance to mention the blue truck, as the officer quickly drove off before allowing me to give this information. Several police cars patrolled the are for the next twenty minutes or so. I did not see any officers stop to check the ground where the shots appeared to have been fired.

Saturday, May 31

About four in the morning, I noticed a police car parked in front of my house. I stepped outside and observed from the porch. They had stopped Tricia for walking in the street and after talking to her for a minute, they let her go with a reminder to use the sidewalk. After the officers left, Tricia asked if she could use my phone. Tricia’s not a bad person. She’s usually drunk, and frequently high on something stronger, but she’s always done right by me, so I let her use the phone.

She called four different numbers, all of which were either busy or disconnected. She asked me to dial the last number for her, and it was also disconnected. She said something that implied that I had somehow set my phone up so that it would not be able to call out. She said she doesn’t hate me for it though, so I guess we’re still good. This causes me to wonder if smoking crack makes people crazy, or if crazy people are just drawn to smoking crack. I guess this is a chicken/egg type of philosophical question. Which came first, the crack addiction or the paranoia?

Later in the day, I looked out a window and saw that someone was setting on my wall. I couldn’t see his face, but I didn’t recognize either of the two guys standing on the sidewalk next to him. I waited a few minutes and checked again and he was still setting there and was now counting his money. Only one other guy was now standing there beside him. I went out the back door and unwound my garden hose when my neighbor came over and asked what I was doing. I told him that when I turn the corner, anyone who’s setting on my property is going to get soaked.

I jumped around the corner and immediately aimed where the guy had been setting. I was on auto pilot at this point, and I really don’t think I would have been able to stop quick enough even if a police officer happened to be there at the moment. Ike jumped up quickly and I just continued spraying the flower bed. Neither Ike or the other guy said anything, but just stared at me. I turned to Ike and said “Sorry about that. I just came out to water my flowers. I didn’t expect to see anybody setting there.”

Ike’s response wasn’t belligerent, but it wasn’t apologetic either. He simply said “Man, I just get tired standing here all day.” I swear, sometimes I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at what I see and here from these guys. I responded “Look, you’re a drug dealer, I’m not. There is no reason for you ever to be on my property. I don’t owe you a chair to set on.” He just turned away and walked back to the corner with the other guy.

Later in the afternoon, a few people were talking about the shooting last night. Two of the dealers were walking through the grass, and appeared to be searching the ground. I’m sure that if they found any empty shell casings lying there that they would have turned them into the police.

Sunday, June 1

A little after midnight, I heard a loud banging on the side of my house. It sounded like someone was kicking my porch. I went to the back porch and saw a car parked right beside my house (facing the wrong direction). There were two people inside the car, and two guys standing beside it talking with them. One of the guys glanced at me for a split second, but my presence really didn’t seem to faze them too much. No one said anything, and they were all just staring at each other for a minute.

As the two guys began walking away, they kicked the car door again, and it was only then that I realized what was going on. I thought I was witnessing a drug buy, but it appeared as though it was a robbery instead. Either way, I didn’t feel compelled to call the police. Regardless of what was going on, they would have probably been long gone by the time any officers arrived. But even if it was a robbery, these guys weren’t innocent victims. There was a reason they were driving around here in the middle of the night and pulling over to talk to people they didn’t know. The way I figure, if some of the dealers are stupid enough to rob their customers, that’s actually good for me as it means at least those two jack-asses probably won’t be back.

After the two guys walked through the empty lot behind my house and into the alley, the driver of the car got out and began searching his pockets. I figured he was hoping he had a twenty stashed somewhere so he could still get his fix, but he was looking for something else. He looked inside the car and said to his passenger “Dude, they took our car keys.” He got back in the car and must have found the keys (probably in the ignition, dumb-ass) because he started the car. As they began driving away, I heard the driver say “Let’s call the police, they took us to that house.”

So Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum drive a few yards to the south, then stop and park in the middle of the road. My first thought was that they were actually stupid enough to call the police and tell them that they had just been robbed by a crack dealer (no officer, I wasn’t at the crack-house to buy crack, I swear). But then I realized that they might have finally spotted me standing on my back porch and were contemplating coming back to ask me if I had any dope to sell them. After setting for nearly five minutes, they turned and drove down the alley heading in the same direction as the guys who had robbed them just walked. I stayed out there for a while, thinking I might hear gunshots or see someone running or driving out of the alley, but that was the end of it apparently.