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!