Negotiating With The Enemy: October 19, 2006

I knew that I couldn’t continue sleeping in one hour increments indefinitely. Either some type of agreement would have to be reached, or I would eventually have no choice but to leave. I thought back about my observations of Carl over the years here and realized that he is actually quite pragmatic. Carl also seems like a fairly intelligent person, so I decided to just explain my position and see how he would respond to it. As Carl and I were still laughing about what had just happened, I asked him if we could step aside and speak privately for a minute. Our conversation follows. My words are in blue, Carl’s words are in red.

I’m not saying that I condone what you’re doing, but I can at least appreciate the fact that you do it relatively low-key, from your own house, rather than from my front yard. These young guys stand out here all night and day; yelling, throwing trash, trying to intimidate people that live here, and openly flashing their money and their merchandise. It seems to me that jack-asses like that, who just make a lot of noise, would be as offensive to you as they are to me.

These kids need to quiet down, and quit causing trouble.

If I accept what they’re doing against me, I might as well just put a collar around my neck, hand them the leash, and say “Here, I’m your bitch.”

People need to just respect each other.

At that point, I walked over and spray-painted over the rude message I had put on the side of my house (DRUG DEALERS SUCK DICK), then went back over to finish speaking with Carl.

These guys all talk about how they’re fearless and not afraid to die, but they never say or do anything against me unless there’s several of them, or they’re hidden. I think the fact that I not only stayed, but aggressively defended my property for the past few days should show everyone that I’m not afraid, and that there’ll be a high cost for pushing me out of my house.

I’ll talk to the other guys.

It will probably take a bullet to the head to force me out against my will. I’m sure there’s enough of you to do that, if you wanted to, but I might get lucky and hurt someone in the process. But that’s stupid to even think about that. I don’t care about what you’ve got going on, I just need people to respect me and my property.

I’ll work on it.

Carl and I then shook hands and parted ways. I am sure that after what I said he either figured I was pretty damned determined, or just totally crazy. Later that afternoon, I observed Carl speaking with a large group of the younger guys down at the corner of Pontiac and Warsaw. I assumed he was either telling them to calm their activities around my house, or he was making plans to finish me off. Only time would tell.

I had effectively offered Carl a deal here. By acknowledging that his people had the capability to hurt or even to kill me, I made it clear to him that I was being realistic in my assumptions. And by stating “I don’t care about what you’ve got going on, I just need people to respect me and my property,” I had made it clear that I was not going to be over zealous in my expectations for this neighborhood. All I wanted was a little bit of peace for my home, and my statements to Carl showed that I was willing to do what was necessary to get this. In exchange, I was pretty much stating that I would turn a blind eye to what was going on in the rest of the neighborhood.

Over the past couple of years since Carl and I spoke about this, I have given a lot of thought to our conversation. I have observed Carl well enough to know that he has good standing in the cartel, and he often seems to span the divide between the different clicks around here. I have no idea how high Carl actually ranks, but if he doesn’t run things then I am at least certain that he is close with whoever does. So I went directly to the top here and pitched a very basic business offer. Whether they chose to fight me or accommodate me, it would cost them something. I hoped to convince Carl that the former would be more expensive than the latter.

It is ironic that I had tried for ten years to establish this same type of direct communication with FWPD, but they had completely failed to perform their duties in this regard. Granted, there are some officers who are very intelligent and who communicate well with the residents here. But there is no other way to summarize FWPD as a whole than to say that that department is run by people who are either idiots, cowards or criminals. The evidence speaks for itself, and my experience here shows that the Fort Wayne crack mafia is more accessible than the police, and dealing with them is usually more productive than dealing with the police.


UPCOMING POSTS

WEDNESDAY: Forgive And Forget?

FRIDAY: Thank God For The Fourth Estate - A Local Newspaper’s Perspective