Back In The Saddle Again

I have mentioned previously that the criminal activities in my neighborhood have declined substantially this year. Here we are nearly three quarters into 2009 and, as of today, the police activity for my neighborhood is down 28% from the same period last year. I also believe that Rico has left the neighborhood, which helps to explain the sudden drop in shots fired.

I had commented before about the four biggest problem individuals here last year. Ike is dead, Jesse is in prison, R.P. turned on a friend for the police and now finally seams to have come to grips with the fact that he can no longer do business here without someone killing him, and Fred was inexplicably absent since last August when I saw a man who looked a bit like him running from the scene of a shooting that nearly killed a man.

Well, they pinned that shooting on another man. The victim positively identified him in court and even threw in a lot of details that really made him sound like a credible witness. So, based on that alone, I would tend to believe that the police got the right shooter. Of course, there is the fact that I overheard this witness speaking with two others at the trial. He was speaking with the woman who’s porch he laid on as he bled, and with the man who was the first on the scene and called the police. I heard him tell both these people “I didn’t even recognize you today. I don’t remember anything from that night.”

So, was the right guy charged and found guilty of the crime, or did the police and prosecutor feed the witness with enough information to make their case? I’ll leave that question for another post that I plan to do soon on the Allen County Prosecutor’s Office. For now, though, I just want to comment about Fred, the guy who looked a bit like the person I saw running from the scene of the shooting that night.

After being absent (or just lying low) from the neighborhood for the past year, Fred was back out on the sidewalk yesterday. I walked around to the front of my house and saw him with three other guys. It looked like one of them handed the other something (probably just marbles) and they were all in their work uniforms, and they all hushed up and tuned their backs towards me (I guess I can’t see them if they can’t see me - right?) when I appeared. But I didn’t really pay them much attention. They were standing two doors down from my house, and they weren’t being obnoxious, so I didn’t get too concerned about it.

Later in the afternoon, I saw this same gang of four guys walking around the neighborhood for a while. I’m sure they were just heading to the park to play ball, not selling drugs. Then, this morning I checked the police activity log in my neighborhood and saw this:
09F135497.…..20:53:49.…..48 SUSPICIOUS……25XX CAROLINE ST

That is the location where the main action has moved to during the past year. It has always been a very active area, and where I believe much of the problem emanates from, but because of the high traffic on my corner they have always chosen to work in front of my house. I would bet money that the suspicious activity report from last night involved Fred and his friends.

I saw something else interesting yesterday. I was working in the back yard when a uniformed officer drove past in an unmarked car. She was heading north, so I watched to see if anything was going on that way. She drove on past my house, but I wonder if she took notice of the two guys on the northwest corner at that time. Jake (another businessman who has been absent for a long time) was standing there with a man on a bicycle. Almost immediately after the cop passed by, the man on the bike handed some “marbles” to Jake, who then went over and handed the marbles to a person who had been parked along the side of the road.

So, it looks like business is back in operation now, and marble sales are good! It’s a bit late in the season, so I expect they're anxious to make up for lost profits. I just hope they keep it quiet and keep it away from my home this time.