Taking Notes: October 24-29, 2006

Prior to October of 2006, I never actually kept a journal of the activities here. I occasionally would jot down some notes on scrap pieces of paper, then set these aside somewhere to be forgotten. By this point though, I had seen enough to realize that there was an organized criminal enterprise going on here. And it was equally apparent that the police were aiding it either intentionally or simply through their ignorance and lack of concern.

But I really didn’t have the time to tackle a problem that big because I worked full-time and had recently returned to school. All I wanted was for people to quit selling drugs from my property, to quit throwing trash in my yard, and to keep quiet. As far as I was concerned, the drug dealers and the incompetent/corrupt FWPD could do what they wanted with the rest of the neighborhood, just as long as they gave me a little peace in my own home.

Then, the attack on my house motivated me to get more involved. It was now undeniable that my economic security and personal safety were at risk, and I therefore needed to better understand the problem. So I went into information gathering mode, and in late October I began to dedicate a lot of time to keeping track of what was going on here. For a while I would note just about any time that I saw a drug dealer, suspected drug dealer, or police officer in my neighborhood. At first, I was not even sure what to look for, so I just made very basic notes of who, where and when.

I have said before that there does not seem to be solid lines of division between the different players here, but you can see stronger and weaker associations. From just the short sample below, certain patterns can begin to be discerned. For example, Sheldon, Sherrod, Darrell and Daniel seem to have a very close bond with each other here. Eventually this information helped me to understand some useful patterns of behavior, but in the beginning it was just a jumbled mess of unintelligible information.

When I compiled my notes from the first eleven years that I lived here, it came up to fourteen typed pages. These notes were sparse and lacked a lot of detail. From October 2006 until the present, my notes cover fifty three pages. So I went from a little over one page per year to a little over one page per month. This massive increase of information has certainly led to many useful discoveries, but it has it’s drawbacks as well. Often, when searching for a specific event which occurred in the past two years, it is a struggle to find it among the mass of words.

I also began using a lot of short-hand techniques for writing more information in less space. Below, I will present a short sample of my notes from a week at the end of October 2006. Many times, I have not fully explained in my notes what happened, but these notes are enough for me to recall the event more clearly. In the notes included here, the date is in bold and the time of day is underlined. The monikers such as NW or SE tell which corner the persons were standing on at this time. Carl’s was the most active drug house in the neighborhood at this time, so I referred to it as WDH (Warsaw drug house.)

I will not try to explain everything here, but if you have questions feel free to ask. And I do not plan to post this type of detailed information for the rest of the time here. I just thought this would be a good example to show the type of information base from which I am currently drawing on to tell the rest of this story.

TU-24
09:00 Left phone message with Officer Michael Joyner (427-5842), asking for opportunity to speak with him.
10:00 Saw 5 guys (Sheldon, John) outside my house, reading my new message (Way the world is/could be). Went out to get mail and talked with them - friendly
encounter.
11:00 Went to talk to Frank Gray about complaint.
NW (5X)
12:30 Returned home. Marine recruiter parked on SW corner in front of my house. He was talking with Sheldon, Daniel and another guy. They nodded at me, so I went over and joined their conversation. I asked Sheldon if he was going to be a Marine, and he said maybe. I asked the Marine how much money he makes and he said $100K. We were all impressed. He said he would be making more now, but he had done some stupid stuff when he was younger and gotten in trouble. I told him I think we’ve all done some stupid stuff before. Sheldon was friendly towards me. Daniel was “not unfriendly.” As they walked away on N side of Suttenfield, heading W, Sheldon shouted out loud “I’m going to be a Marine!” A patrol car (xxx) pulled up beside the Marine and officer started talking with him. Appears Marine was friend of officer and officer requested he come here to talk to the guys.
WE-25
09:30 SE-Jay
11:30 NW (Sheldon, Sherrod, Daniel)
13:30 NW (Sheldon, Darrell, X)
15:00 SE (6X)
NW (Jay, Darrell, Sherrod, X)
16:47 Joyner returns call and leaves message.
20:00 NW (Jay)
SE (John)
22:30 SE (Jay, John, X)
Called Joyner and left my schedule for the next day, asking if he’d call back when convenient.
23:00 W of NW (Jay, John)
23:50 SE (Jay, John, X)
TH-26
10:00 NW (Jay, Gordon)
11:00 NW (Jay, Gordon, Orrin, X)
12:00 NW (Jay, Gordon, Orrin, X, Rosalynn)
12:15 Car stopped in intersection and Jay began approaching. Gordon jumped in front and cut him off. They bumped chests and lightly scuffled for about 10 minutes, sometimes in the middle of the street. Gordon made reference to my sign, and seamed like he might be agitated about it.
15:10 NW (Sheldon, Orrin, Jay, X)
17:30 Leaving house, saw Gordon and asked him what he thought about the situation. He said I was being fair, but that I should settle down now as I had made my point.
FR-27
01:30 Gordon & John were walking by and stopped to talk. Gordon offered to let me look at his “Club” magazine. He asked when I was going to take my sign down. I declined to answer, and changed the subject.
08:45 Received call from xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (xxx-xxxx). He spoke about problems he’s had on xxxxxxxxxxx St. He said he felt like police were ignoring him also.
12:00 SE (2X)
WDH (9X)
SU-29
23:00 Car (silver, 4 door) pulled up on E side of my house. I went outside and saw Gordon was walking around WDH w/2others, looking for something in the grass. I went to front porch and Gordon walked by, mumbling something about Darrell. I said nothing. Gordon headed W on Suttenfield. I heard whistle from E side of house, Gordon returned to the front of the house and asked me if I had seen Darrell. I told him I hadn’t seen anyone. Gordon walked around E side of house. A few minutes later, I walked to back yard to find that car and Gordon were gone.

UPCOMING POSTS
Wednesday: The Police Crack Down In Crack-Town
Friday: Please Arrest Me