My HUD House: Archives: June 2009

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Guns In America

Much has been written about the issue of gun rights / gun control in this country. We have had several vigorous discussions on this topic within our local blogosphere, and much of what is said here seems reflective (on both sides) of how the issue is being discussed throughout the nation. Both sides always try to ground their argument to the U.S. Constitution, especially the Second Amendment. Now I certainly don’t dismiss the constitutional view. In fact, it is of paramount importance because it represents the law - as it is currently written. But there is another view which should also be considered just as well, which is that of common sense.

Imagine that we were all coming together today to form a new nation, and it’s laws. Imagine that we have no existing constitution to guide us for a moment, and then, let’s begin to discuss the issue from there. One would hope that any laws derived at through this method would closely resemble those laws which already do exist today. If not, then this proves that the current laws lack common sense (or perhaps just those who interpret them are lacking.)

I think the founders of this nation realized that such a schism between the standing law and common sense could easily occur. Times change, so it is simply ridiculous to think that all the issues of the modern-day world could have even been conceived of over two hundred years ago when the Constitution was written. People also change, and it is likely that if the people of today were writing a new constitution from scratch, it would likely diverge from our existing document in many ways. And this is why the founders allowed mechanisms for altering the Constitution, the means of which is provided for in Article Five of the Constitution itself.

So, my thoughts here about guns stem mostly from what I think the law should be, not what it actually is. It may be that the way I think the law should be is significantly different than the way it actually is. If a large percentage of the population were in agreement with my sentiments on the subject, then that would indicate that perhaps we should be discussing whether the law needs to be changed, rather than simply trying to interpret it. If you wish to reply to this, please don’t cite the Second Amendment. Just explain where you agree or disagree with my beliefs and my logic.

________________________________________

Okay, after writing to the point where my words were getting to be as long as the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence combined, and still not having fully expressed myself adequately, I have decided upon a different strategy - that of personal experience.

I will begin by telling you that I never owned a gun before living in this neighborhood. Then one day I overheard the local drug supplier telling one of his dealers here (as he pointed at my house) “Fuck him, take him out.” That threat, however, was not the actual cause which compelled me to purchase a gun. It was the fact that the Fort Wayne Police Department and the local DEA agents all seemed to dismiss the serious problem I was facing. I was placed in a situation where a man was threatening my life and the law enforcement agencies who should have acted to protect me simply told me not to worry about it. Well, it was my life, and I was worried, so I bought a gun (two actually!) and a permit to carry a weapon.

I will go on to tell you that for the next six years I carried my handgun only intermittently, never drew it in public, and only mentioned the fact that I had it to a very small number of people. All that changed in October of 2006 though, the night the drug dealers fire-bombed my home in retaliation for my speaking with the police about the problems here. After I saw the flames on my back porch, I exited the house with my Glock in hand, and I was very prepared to use it. That night I also spoke directly to the mother of one of these drug dealers, telling her “Your son is part of this shit, and it’s got to stop before somebody ends up getting hurt.” I still had my Glock in my hand as I gave this warning.

By the next morning, the drug dealers here were all fully aware that I owned a gun, and what model it was. For the next few days after this, the drug dealers were acting very aggressive towards me. I decided to speak with one of their leaders, letting him know that I was prepared to use my gun(s) to protect myself. In no uncertain terms, I told him that I would take a bullet to the head before allowing them to force me from my home. I also made it clear that, although I was certain to lose in a battle against all of them, I was fairly confident that I would score a kill before I went down myself.

I am certain today that it was this desperate act which first convinced the drug dealers that I was someone credible, someone worthy of giving consideration to. If not for the fact that I was armed, and that I convinced the drug dealers that I was determined to use my weapons to defend myself, I am certain that their encroachment upon my home would have continued and grown worse.

As it were, the drug dealers and I came to terms of a sort. Although no explicit agreement was made, for the next twenty months the drug dealers largely confined their activities to the sidewalk in front of my home, rather than my front yard and porch. In return, I only spoke to them or called the police when they were being particularly noisy or otherwise bothersome. It was an agreement which the police department seemed to have accepted long before I ever arrived here, so I really did not feel as though I was doing anything wrong with this arrangement, just what was necessary.

This arrangement always was a bit shaky. The guys never could resist the temptation to set on my retainer wall to rest a bit, or to use my yard as a staging pad for their activities, but at least they were now staying of my porch and out of my mailbox! Then, in June of 2008, an event occurred which again disturbed the balance. After observing two of the most obnoxious drug dealers of that year setting on my front wall for about ten minutes, I went out to confront them. I jumped the rail on my porch, and somehow managed to land on my feet on the sidewalk in front of them. Startled from this, they began to respond aggressively as I told them to get off my property.

One of them backed down immediately, but I locked eyes with the other for a minute and it seemed as though a physical confrontation was about to ensue. There were a couple problems though. First of all, while I have no doubt I could hold my own against either one of these guys, I am old enough now to realize that just about any two guys would probably be able to overpower me. And given the nature of these two in particular, I had no doubt that if we came to blows they would have sought to maximize the damage. The second problem was that I did not have my weapon on me at the time to defend against such an attack. Luckily that event ended without a fight. Two months later, one of the drug dealers shot a man right across the street from my home, seriously wounding him.

Also for consideration is the young drug dealer who lives only a half block from my home. He and his friends were shooting at each other here several times last summer, and I believe he was the driver in a drive-by shooting that occurred outside of my immediate neighborhood that summer. This person has been one the most incessant problems here for at least the past four years. I believe he has been a confidential informant for the police for at least the past two years, and it is their quasi-protection which I believe encourages him to act so obnoxiously.

In light of what I have experienced in my neighborhood, I am convinced that those who manage FWPD don’t really give a damn about people like myself, who are suffering under the oppression of criminal tyrants. And the patrol officers are simply too few to rely upon them as a first line of defense. Since the summer of 2008, I have rarely stepped outside of my home without having my Glock on me, and I have made certain that everyone here knows this. I own a gun, and I carry it, because if I did not, I probably would not have a home. It is that simple.

When you compare Fort Wayne to cities such as Detroit or D.C., one simply has to wonder what they were thinking when they proposed making it illegal for citizens to have a gun inside their own homes. In my opinion, such a law would be cause for revolution. And don’t call me a radical for this, unless you are willing to throw our founding fathers in the same lot.

That being said, I have no problem with requiring a criminal background check before either purchasing a gun or receiving a permit. And although I may not agree with all the restrictions that currently apply, I do believe that people who have committed violent crimes against others should be forced to give up their right to bear arms.

I also have no problem with creating a registry list of all guns and their owners. While I do not find the notion that our own government might someday try to impose a tyranny upon it’s people to be paranoid, the notion that they could do so without raising serious alarm among the population is nonsensical. The first day that they would collect the weapons from a few homes on the list would be the cause which would impel millions of gun owners to rise against them.

The reason I think such a registry would be practical is because the millions of guns that are possessed by criminals are usually given to them by those who can legally own guns. Either that or they have stolen them from such persons. Regardless, if a gun which you purchased ends up in the hands of someone who is not allowed to own a gun, I think you’ve got some explaining to do. Either you acted illegally, or just carelessly. I realize that accidents might happen, but I think there should be a three strikes rule which states that if your weapon is found in the possession of a criminal three times, then your right to purchase and own a gun should be revoked.

Anyway, to celebrate my belief that law-abiding citizens should have the right to both own and carry a weapon for their personal defense, I have written a song..

Sung to the tune of “Love Grows where my Rosemary goes”

I live with the crime I
It surrounds me all the time
But nobody messes with me
Because my Glock goes wherever I go
And nobody knows like me

Fifteen in the clip
That’s enough for any shit
Why I survive is really no mystery
Because my Glock goes wherever I go
And nobody knows like me

It’s worth carrying the extra two pound
It's a decision that’s sound
And I just gotta say
It’s really got a magical spell
And it’s working so well
That’s why I clean it each day

I'm a lucky fella
And I've just got to tell ya
That I love the Second Amendment
Because my Glock goes wherever I go
And nobody knows like me

It’s worth carrying the extra two pound
It's a decision that’s sound
And I just gotta say
It’s really got a magical spell
And it’s working so well
That’s why I clean it each day

I'm a lucky fella
And I've just got to tell ya
That I love the Second Amendment
Because my Glock goes wherever I go
And nobody knows like me

[Fadeout:]
It keeps going every place I’ve been
And nobody knows like me

If you’ve ever seen it, you will not forget it
And nobody knows like me

La la la- believe it when you've seen it
Nobody knows like me

Thursday, June 11, 2009

How’s it Going?

I’ve gotten that question lately from a few of my blog readers. I guess that my going over a month without posting makes people wonder. Well, back in late April I was commenting about how things had quieted down in my neighborhood this year. I had noticed the trend as early as March, and by the beginning of May it was undeniable that something significant had changed here.

Some of of my neighbors have told me that my cameras are responsible for the change. But It was way back in August of last year that I installed them, and the block was still pretty active for quite a while after that. Several months ago, I began to notice that the guys were congregating more at a less busy intersection a block from my house. Occasionally one or two of them would walk to my corner and check the traffic, but they didn’t remain there in large numbers or for long periods of time as they had in the past. For the past couple of months though, the activities throughout the entire neighborhood have been remarkably subdued.

Of course, when I say things have calmed down I am talking on a relative scale here. Compared to most other neighborhoods, this place is still off the hook. But compared to how things were in this neighborhood last year, it is actually quite peaceful. Below are some numbers to help illustrate my point. It shows the number of reported incidents for certain types of activities here for the first five months of this year and for the first five months of 2008. While these reports do not show the full extent of the criminal activity here, I believe it is accurate to assume that a change in reported criminal activity reflects a similar change in actual criminal activity.

To view all reported police activity in my neighborhood, click here
To view all reported police activity throughout the entire city, click here
To see an explanation of signal codes for police activity, click here
To see a precise definition of “My Neighborhood”, click here

As you can see, the column for 2009 makes this neighborhood look quite chaotic. However, by comparing to the 2008 statistics it starts to look much better. All but two of the categories which point to violent and/or drug related activities have gone down or remained unchanged.

The last two categories show a similar change in the way the police and the residents here have behaved. Less crime equals less calls to the police and less traffic stops by the police. The criminal activity in my neighborhood, which last year was nine times as much as the average Fort Wayne neighborhood, appears to have decreased by approximately 32% this year. While it should be obvious to anyone except Chief York that this neighborhood still has some very serious problems, at least they are less serious than they were before.

I might be convinced that my cameras are what made people quit trespassing on my property, but the trade here is simply too lucrative to think that this alone could have shut down the street action. No, there is something different here now and it looks to make this summer the quietest one I have enjoyed during the entire thirteen years I have lived here. With hindsight, I can now see that I had a few clues to what was actually going on, but I can honestly say I didn’t see it coming until I read about it in the paper (actually, I heard about it from Bob G. first.)

So, let’s follow the trail of clues and see where it leads us.

Clue #1: May 9, 2008.
Sitemeter tracks visitors # 2,097 and # 2100 to my blog. Both these visitors came from the Information System of the U.S. House of Representatives, in Washington, D.C. I believe this was a day or two after Mitch Harper had mentioned me on his blog, and I expect that is what brought them to my site. Although one of these visitors viewed six pages and remained for over eight minutes, I really didn’t expect much to come of it.

Clue #2: May 14, 2008.
Sitemeter tracks visitor # 2,510. This was from Fort Wayne Newspapers, in Washington, D.C. Okay, Sylvia Smith (I suppose) stayed for three and a half minutes and visited three pages. I could now be assured that at least a few folks in the capitol were having a good laugh at my expense. But Smith writes for the Journal Gazette, so I really didn’t expect her to investigate or to help put the media spotlight on my situation.

Clue #3: July 10, 2008.
Councilman…I mean Officer “Clayton” stopped behind my house and we talked for a minute about Max and Fred, who were shooting at each other down here earlier in the day. He responded by saying “Well, things are going to change soon. There’s going to be some things happening here real soon.” I really didn’t take this as anything other than a friendly gesture. He knew I was under siege, and perhaps thought that a little encouragement might help.

But if the police hadn’t brought this problem under control for the past decade, I really didn’t see any reason to think it would be changing anytime soon. I just smiled and told Officer Clayton to let me know if he needed anything from me. The next day, Max and Fred were shooting at each other again. I guess the change was going to have to wait until a later date.

Clue #4: July 21, 2008.
Michael Summers, prints a story about my blog in The Fort Wayne Reader. It was a very well written piece and I figured that it might bring a bit more attention to the situation. That could be good or bad, so I’d just have to wait and see what happened next.

Clue #5: July 25, 2008.
Officer Rice stops while driving through the alley behind my house and we talk about what has been going on lately in the neighborhood. He casually mentions that he has read my blog, but we didn’t get into a discussion about it. Afterwards, I wondered what to make of this. From what I have observed, Officer Rice is the model of what a good officer should strive to be. Knowing that at least one good FWPD officer was able to hear what I had to say without it being filtered through the subterfuge of the Command Staff made me hopeful.

But reading my blog, it is easy to confuse my anger with the inept management and a few bad officers as a general criticism of the police. Also, I’m sure that the cops talk among themselves, and I had no idea who else had learned of my blog from either Officer Rice or from the Reader article. Maybe one of the bad cops was reading it, and maybe he passed it on to the gangsters here in hopes that it would raise their anger towards me. Again, I’d just have to wait and see.

Clue #6: January 13, 2009.
Sitemeter shows that visit # 10,027 came from the U.S. Department of Justice - Home of the FBI. The visit only lasted a little over two minutes, and only viewed two pages, but I doubt if somebody at that level would waste their time if they hadn’t found something interesting to read. But I’d already visited the DEA, several years ago. Chuck made it clear to me that he wasn’t interested in looking into the drug supplier here who had told one of his guys to “Take me out.” According to Chuck, they had bigger issues to deal with.

Well, as far as I can see, the government is pretty much a sham at all levels. I really didn’t expect anyone at the Justice Dept. to do anything more than DEA or FWPD did, which was to just ignore me. However, a week later (January 21) the same IP Address at Justice visited my site again. Sitemeter showed the visit lasted 0 seconds, but I still began to wonder what they might be looking for.

Clue #7: May 3, 2009.
Officer Rice patrols my neighborhood with a passenger who was dressed in civilian clothes. I made a note of this because something about him seemed a bit out of place. I’ve met the FWPD chaplain before, and unless they hired a new, younger chaplain in the past two years then it definitely wasn’t him. I also realize that the police let civilians ride along occasionally, but this simply is not the kind of neighborhood where a cop wants to get tied down with that kind of baggage.

I should also point out that, as far as the police go, Officer Rice pretty much runs this block. In the three years since I first encountered him, he appears in my journal on ninety eight different dates, more than any other officer in my journal. The guys here have his car number memorized and call it out as soon as it appears. Three years ago, the guys used to laugh at Officer Rice, telling him to his face that there was nothing he could do about what was going on here. Now, Officer Rice’s mere presence often causes people to turn around and walk the other way.

I mention this because if a VIP were to be given a tour of this neighborhood, it makes sense that the responsibility would be given to Officer Rice. I have also heard that Officer Rice is a member of FWPD’s gang unit and that he has aspirations for joining the FBI some day, which correlates nicely with the final clue.

Final Clue: May 28, 2009.
The News Sentinel reports that the FBI has sent a special team to Fort Wayne to help get our violent gang problem under control. I am not conceited enough to think that my blog is what brought the FBI to Fort Wayne. But I do think it’s very likely that either Mark Souder or Sylvia Smith read and then talked about the crazy guy (me) back in Fort Wayne. They say that D.C. is a small town, where word travels quickly, so I think it’s entirely possible that this is how someone at the Justice Department got wind of it. I imagine the decision to assist Chief York was made well before they ever read my blog and probably even before the blog was started.

But I do hope that someone from the FBI Special Gang Unit has looked this blog over pretty well, for within it they might find some clues as to what the real problem is. In a nutshell, I would suggest that the fact that my neighborhood has served continuously as an open air drug market for at least the past thirteen years is one part of the problem. I would also suggest that the fact that nearly six years ago I offered (to a member of the FWPD Command Staff) the use of my home to install surveillance cameras and station undercover officers, yet this offer was never acted upon or even acknowledged, might be a part of the problem.

I would also suggest that the fact that three years later (2006), an FWPD officer asked me if I would be willing to let his department place surveillance cameras here, apparently unaware that I had already made the offer to his boss, is a part of the problem. And I would suggest that the fact that after I told this officer that I was agreeable to his request, and he said he’d have to clear it with his boss, yet I never heard back from him on the matter, might be a part of the problem also.

I would go on to suggest that the fact that I had to send a certified letter to the Chief of Police, detailing what is going on here, in an attempt to force his department to quit understating the problem might be a part of the problem. And I would suggest that when a citizen’s home is fire-bombed by the violent drug gangs which Russell P. thinks do not exist, and the police department’s response is to suggest that I quit making noise, might be a big part of the problem.
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Finally, I would suggest that the FBI consider that if something as big as what was going on here can be brought to a grinding halt, that this indicates the activities are far more organized than FWPD would ever concede. And the coincidental fact that this shift seems to have occurred around the same time that the FBI came to town, yet nearly two months before their arrival was publicly announced, makes one wonder how these guys knew to calm themselves down.

Clueless
Chief York says the federal agent’s presence here does not mean that this city has a gang problem. According to York, the Fed’s just like to be close to the people they serve. Of course, FBI agent Wendy Osborne says about the special unit “We like to think there is a need for it, or we wouldn’t have put one together..”

Perhaps Chief York is just plain stupid, or maybe he’s being misled by those within his department who he relies upon to give him useful and accurate information. Regardless, Chief York needs to get a clue about what is really going on in this city and in my neighborhood. In 2007, Fort Wayne had 24 murders. That’s two per month or about one per 10,000 residents.

Last year, I believe the number of murders jumped to around thirty. That’s one person killed here every twelve days. Maybe, Chief York doesn’t realize that Fort Wayne rates a seven on the violent crime scale (Detroit rates an 8). I know our local media often sleeps on a lot of these issues, but York has the raw data available to him so he really has no excuse.

Maybe, because many of these murders appear to be drug related, that is why Chief York doesn’t see it as a problem. But Chief York needs to realize that as this problem continues to grow, the likelihood of there being truly innocent victims will increase. The seventeen year old kid who was murdered a couple days after Christmas spent the entire summer of last year selling drugs in front of my home. He was shot while riding in a car at the intersection of State and Hobson. Better be careful Rusty, that’s not exactly the inner-city. If you don’t keep the problem corralled, folks that actually matter to you are going to start to worry that you can’t keep them safe.

There was an attempted murder right across the street from my house in August of last year. I witnessed the shooter as he fled from the scene. The same shooter is accused of at least two other shootings last year, one of which resulted in a homicide. It appears that Max, who lives a half block from me, was the driver of the car for one of these shootings. Somehow, Max went from being a suspected accomplice for attempted murder into the star witness against his co-conspirator. Needless to say, Max is not being charged with a crime now. Max has been the most pernicious drug dealer here for at least the past four years, and I believe he has been a confidential informant for FWPD for at least the past two years. I believe it is the quasi-protection of FWPD that encourages Max to act so boldly.

It really is unfathomable how the Chief of Police can say that this town does not have a violent gang problem. Either he is extremely ignorant, or he’s just a damn good liar. Regardless, recognizing and admitting that one has a problem is always the first step to solving the problem. If Chief York is not going to be honest and direct with the people who pay his salary, then I suspect he will be dragging his feet somewhat with the fed’s as they move on to his turf.

Fort Wayne definitely has a violent gang problem, and my neighborhood is at the epicenter of it. I’m thankful that the FBI is here, and hopeful that they’ll bring good results. But realistically, I know that with someone like York at the helm of FWPD an optimal resolution to the problem will never be achieved. Chief York, by exhibiting either great ignorance or just a lack of concern, is the greatest enabler for this problem’s continued existence and growth.

So, there you go. Now you know how it’s going!

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

My Neighborhood

My home is located at the SW intersection of Suttenfield and Warsaw Streets, in Fort Wayne, Indiana. I have defined the boundaries of my neighborhood as being Creighton Avenue (two blocks to the north), Pontiac Street (two blocks to the south), Lafayette Street (two blocks to the west), and Hanna Street (one block to the east.)

My neighborhood comprises twelve city blocks, and covers an area of approximately 0.056 square miles. The entire City of Fort Wayne covers 79.12 square miles. Therefore, my neighborhood equals approximately 0.07% of the City. All things being equal, my neighborhood should then experience about 0.07% of the total crime in Fort Wayne. Apparently though, all things are not equal.

Determining the exact ratio of crime in my neighborhood to crime in the entire city is problematic because I do not have all the information needed. For example, every month, the police department lists over 450 incidents as having occurred at 1300 E Creighton Ave, which is the Fort Wayne Police Headquarters. Although that address is probably legitimate for what comprises the bulk of those incidents (video pickup), the number of vice, narcotics, and violent offenses listed there would indicate that these crimes actually occurred somewhere else. Since the video pickups are not really a crime in themselves, and since the other incidents occurred in undisclosed locations, I have factored these out of the total calls.

There is another category of calls that are listed as either being outside the city, or as location unknown. These number approximately 35 per month. Finally, there are approximately 70 incident reports per month which are never publicly released. I have factored out all of these incidents for the same reasons as stated above. After adjusting for the misinformation provided by the Fort Wayne Police Department, I can begin to arrive at a rough approximation of the true ratio of criminal activity in my neighborhood as compared to that of the entire city.

Using a six-month sample period covering the dates from May 1, 2008 to October 31, 2008, I come up with the following data:

Incident reports in my neighborhood……………...…………626
Incident reports in entire city..………..….……….……..103,866
Incident reports listed at 1300 Creighton Ave….....……2,878
Incident reports OC or location unknown……………………431
Incident reports not publicly released………………………..420 (approximate)

Now, using 626 as the numerator, and 100,135 as the denominator, I come up with a neighborhood to city crime ratio of 0.0062. What this means is that my neighborhood, which comprises 0.07% of the city, experiences 0.62 percent of the City’s total crime.

In simple terms, my neighborhood experiences about nine times as much crime as the average Fort Wayne neighborhood does. Every day (on average) there are at least three instances of reportable police activity within two blocks of my home.

In the previous 24 posts, I have included the FWPD activity logs for my neighborhood for the past two years. Take a look at them and see how they compare to your neighborhood. I already know how they compare to Chief York’s neighborhood, and that explains why he doesn’t think we have a gang problem. After all, people aren’t shooting guns behind his house, or selling drugs in front of it, so what’s the problem?