Whoops! - I Forgot To Give This One A Title

I was driving home a little before 3:00 this morning when I noticed a patrol car at my intersection. He was pulled a bit past the line, so I stopped and blinked my lights to let him know I was waiting for him to pass. He didn’t budge, so I went forward and turned to park in front of the house. As soon as I parked, the car passed through the intersection and stopped beside me as I was getting out of the truck. I figured at that time of the morning, and in this type of neighborhood, he was just suspicious about me. I wasn’t drunk, and I didn’t have any crack in my pockets, so I wasn’t concerned. I just figured it would be an opportunity to get to know one more FWPD officer who patrols my neighborhood.

I was wrong though. It turns out I have already met this particular officer twice before. The first time was earlier this summer when I shouted profanities at him as he passed by my house. You might recall that I was impressed at the time because Officer Hull stopped and politely asked me what the problem was, rather than throwing my ass to the ground and arresting me. He also mentioned that he had a copy of my letter to Chief York in his car, to let me know that he and other officers were in fact aware of the problems I am having here. You’d think all that would be enough for me to remember him, but I guess that passion does a lot to fog the mind.

The second time I met Officer Hull was a month or two later, when a man was shot across the street from my house this summer. I was actually speaking with him and another officer for a few minutes before he mentioned our previous encounter, and of course I was especially embarrassed then for not having recognized him. At that time however, he told me his last name, and it was easy to remember since it is the same as one of the “famous” local families here. I even joked at the time, asking him if he was related, and this was enough to cement his name in my mind.

Now, when you consider that the first time we met involved me verbally assaulting him when he had done absolutely nothing to deserve it, and the second time we met I didn’t even recognize him, you might think that Officer Hull would rate me pretty low on his list of people he wants to be talking with. But that was exactly his reason for stopping here this morning. He said he had been trying to catch me for a while now to get a chance to talk about how things were currently going in the neighborhood.

We spoke on that subject for a few minutes, then Officer Hull gave me his business card. He made it clear that he would always appreciate any information that I could give him. He also added that he probably wouldn’t reply back to me on each individual call, so I should request that in the message if I felt it was necessary. Basically, it was an invitation to a dialogue.

This is certainly not the first such invitation. First of all, there is Officer Rice, who I have mentioned a few times before. He just came into my story here in the summer of 2006, and I have only progressed up to early November of that year on this blog, so you really haven’t understood the full impact of his presence here. For quite some time, he was one of the most active officers in this neighborhood, and there has been a lot of useful dialogue between the two of us here during the past couple of years.

But I always felt that Officer Rice’s rank as a patrol officer left him unable to effectively deal with some of the issues I am facing here. This is not a slight against his capabilities in any way, just a recognition that in a bureaucracy such as FWPD, the lower level employees are often not given the necessary means to conduct the business which they are expected to do.

I have also had in depth conversations with two members of FWPD Command Staff. I met and spoke on the phone several times with Officer Marshall in 2003. I worked with that until it became clear to me that he simply did not give a damn about the problems here and was just lying and trying to throw me off course by acting as though he was getting involved.

Then, there was Officer Jefferson who I met just this year. He seemed very sincere and I really thought he would be useful in getting to the heart of the problem here. Of course, that notion quickly dissipated the day he told me that the issues I was bringing to him were ones that I should present directly to his Vice and Narcotics Department. When I began to explain that I have tried to do exactly that, several times, but was always rebuffed there, he suddenly had to end our conversation. I’ve never heard back from him since that day, so I presume he either doesn’t give a damn or just realizes he can’t be effective on the problem - which is a scary thought, considering that he is a member of the Command Staff.

I guess I’m just going to have to accept the fact that the upper echelons of FWPD do not want to directly communicate with people like me, who are trying hard to do exactly what they claim they want me to do. And although the patrol officers certainly have many restrictions placed upon them by these very same knuckleheads, it is obvious that they are the only ones I have any chance of building some type of functional relationship with.

I have a means now for contacting two patrol officers who I consider to be extremely competent and professional. And the fact that they work on different shifts is an added strength as it gives me broader coverage. I guess that the practical thing to do at this point is to concentrate on this strength of the FWPD, and simply ignore the weakness that exists at the top. Granted, due to their rank, there is a lot that these two patrol officers probably won’t be able to do. But at least it seems like they want to help. And that is far more than my experience has led me to conclude about the Command Staff.

I’m currently working on installing better cameras, and I am repositioning them to get better coverage as well. I am certain that as soon as warm weather comes around again, the drug activities in this neighborhood will reignite to some degree. But I am also hopeful that between my cameras and the help of good FWPD officers such as Rice and Hull, it will not be as offensive towards me and my property as it has been in the past.

On another subject, last week I heard someone kicking against my retainer wall on the side of the house. This was just a day or two after my window had been busted, so I was still a bit on edge. I grabbed my gun and was about to walk outside with it in my hand, but for some reason decided to tuck it first. So I went out, expecting to hop the porch rail and be getting in someone’s face, when I discovered two young girls (probably around ten or twelve years old) setting there. They were a bit surprised, but not running and screaming, so I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t have the gun in my hand.

I asked what they were doing there and they replied that they were just waiting on the bus. They asked if I wanted them to leave and I told them it would be fine for them to set there. I told them that sometimes the squirrels make a lot of noise here, and I thought that’s what the noise was. In reality, it was just these two kids swinging their feet as they sat on the wall. I told them they were pretty big for squirrels, and they both got a laugh out of that.

This place really is kind of like a war zone at times, with all the shootings, arsons and other assaults which regularly take place here. And then there’s the decent people like Arlen and many of my other good neighbors. And of course there’s also a lot of innocent children. And this contrast really confuses things sometimes. Too much contact with the good elements here can lull one into a false sense of security. When neighbors bring me flowers to plant in my yard, or invite me to eat from their grill, it is easy to start thinking that I no longer need to keep a gun tucked in my waistband when I am mowing the lawn in the middle of the afternoon.

And of course, the opposite circumstances affect me just as profoundly. I simply walk out to check the mail, and get drawn into a confrontation with the drug dealers who are trying to take over my home. Or I set down to watch TV, and some asshole throws a rock through my window. And next thing you know, I’m screaming at the salesman who comes to my door and threatening to kick his ass if he doesn’t immediately remove himself from my property, or I almost get into a situation where I am drawing my gun on two young children.

All I can say is that if war were every to come to the streets of America, I think I will be more psychologically prepared for it than most. And I’ll have this wonderful neighborhood to thank for the training.