Now It’s On…

or rather, they are on - the cameras that is. Things were pretty quiet here for a couple days after the recent shooting. I did not once see any of the dealers loitering in front of my house. Then, a few days ago they decided to return to business as usual.

I first noticed a group of about five of them standing by the alley behind my house. This didn’t affect me much because they really just looked like they were standing around rather than selling drugs. Also, even though I’d prefer that the ones who do sell weren’t anywhere in this neighborhood, they were actually standing closer to one of their own houses than to mine. My goal is to keep people off my property and to keep from loitering around my home. If I were to worry about every guy that stands for a few minutes in the alley, I really would be taking on an impossible challenge.

So after watching them for about ten minutes, I saw they were joined by another of their friends, Ike. After a few minutes, Ike left the group and walked north, towards my house. When I looked out front, I noticed that he and another guy had decided to stop on the corner for a while. I immediately called FWPD. I reported that there was a suspicious person out front and requested they send a patrol car by to check on it. I gave Ike's legal name and his street name, as well as a description of how he was dressed. And although I was pleased that the operator did not waste time by asking the usual "are they armed?" type of questions, she did ask for a better explanation of why I considered Ike's presence here to be a problem.

My reply was “This person is a regular drug dealer here. I don’t know if he’s selling right now, and I’m not going to wait to find out. These guys are the ones responsible for all the shootings that are happening here and I am getting tired of it. I don’t want to come home and find a dead body on my porch one night. I am getting tired of this and it is going to stop. This guy does not even live in this neighborhood. You need to send a car by now to get this drug dealer away from my home.” I also added a request that they not broadcast this over the scanner, as the dealers are obviously listening to it.

The first patrol car arrived within a few minutes, but there was no one standing on the corner by then. A few minutes later, two patrol cars came down the wrong way on the street in front of my house and stopped a man who was there. He protested as they searched his pockets, but one of the officers responded that they were responding to a citizen’s call, so they were obliged to investigate the matter. The ironic thing is that the guy they were searching, Sherrod, does not appear to me to be a drug dealer. Two years ago he was, but he has was absent for a long time after that. He recently returned to the area, but from what I have observed he is not selling. He was actually just walking past my house when the police stopped him, so it is understandable why he might think he was being harassed.

A few minutes into this, Ike showed up on the corner and the police began searching him as well. Obviously, he would not approach two police officers who were in the process of searching someone if he had anything to hide. Needless to say, the police found nothing on him. Maybe Ike wasn’t actually selling that day, or maybe he hid it somewhere when he walked away, but the end result is that this is the type of thing that looks like a frivolous call to FWPD. After the police left, I noticed they stationed a patrol car a block away, facing my house, for almost a half hour. A couple hours later, they did the same thing again. During this time, there really wasn’t a lot going on, and that concerns me because it might be used by FWPD to incorrectly portray this neighborhood as being calmer than it really is.

Calling FWPD is pretty useless on things like this. Even when they actually find the dealers standing around when they arrive, nothing seems to happen. Even when they find a small bag of crack cocaine lying on the ground next to where they were standing, and even when they apprehend one of the guys who tries to flee immediately upon seeing the police, nothing seems to happen. I’m tired of having to peek out my windows every five minutes to see what is going on here. I’m tired of having to call a police department where quite a few people who work there just don’t seem to give a damn or have a clue. I’m tired of working so hard just to keep things from getting worse, rather than actually making them better. So I decided to change my approach.

I have been considering installing security cameras here for quite a while, but hesitated for two reasons. First of all, I am certain that many of the dealers will see this as a provocative act on my part. Two years ago when I communicated with Chief York and some of my neighbors about this matter, the drug dealers tried to burn my house down in response. I am quite certain that there are a lot of guys here who want these cameras taken down, and are probably considering their options. Since a lot of these options would likely result in my own demise, I have taken some appropriate precautions. I have made some modifications to the inside of my home which should fortify it to a large degree against being penetrated by bullets, and I remain very alert whenever I am outside.

The other reason that I hesitated was out of consideration for some of my good neighbors here. Nobody wants to be spied upon, even if they’re not doing anything illegal. And it is impossible to view everything that effects my property without viewing others properties in the process. Unless I want to put a forty foot high curtain around my house, my cameras here will necessarily seem intrusive to others to some degree. I did take the diplomatic step of telling a few of my neighbors what I was doing, and requesting their input on the matter. Every one that I spoke with has been understanding, although one neighbor did request that I tilt a camera slightly for her sake.

I had decided long ago that if I ever did install cameras here I would follow two rules. First, I would install them in obvious locations. While it is true that I am now observing things here with my cameras, it is inaccurate to portray this as spying. There is nothing sneaky about what I am doing and the only people who will be caught doing something illegal on camera probably need to be locked up for their own safety. The other rule is saturation. As I said above, I am sure that many people are considering how they might remove these cameras. The fact that I have installed twelve cameras (so far) probably makes most of them reluctant to take any action.

There has been absolutely no activity on this corner for the past three days, although they still loiter in other areas nearby. I have seriously upped the ante here with this action. It is unlikely that someone would shoot at or try to pull down one camera when they know that they are being watched by others. Basically, for this problem (from the drug dealer’s perspective) to be eliminated, my house will have to come down. So I’m just waiting to see what happens. I don’t know whether the currently calm state of affairs will hold, or if it’s just the quiet before the storm.

I would just ask one favor of my loyal readers. If you hear in the news that another man was found shot on a porch here in the Suttenfield Warsaw area, and FWPD Chief Rusty York publicly proclaims that this occurred because citizens won’t communicate with the police, please write a letter to the editor or put a post on your blog calling him a useless, lying sack of shit.

Update: News media coverage of last weeks shooting

In an earlier post, I had mentioned that I thought Even Goodenow’s (News-Sentinel) article had modified my quote to protect my identity. As I followed this story, I began to think that there must have actually been another witness to the event. Her description was more detailed in some respects (I did not mention the height of the suspect or the color of his arm sling), and there was another detail changed as well, so I really started to think it was from another person.

It has recently been brought to my attention by a credible source that Evan Goodenow was in fact quoting a second witness in his article. He agreed to quote her anonymously out of consideration for her safety. Although I think it was clear that I was only speculating about this, I want to apologize for any confusion that it might have caused.