Case in-point. Yesterday, I called 911 on 3 individuals selling pot at the corner of 26th & Knox (big suprise). Within 5 minutes, a squad arrived. Only to find that the 3 individuals in question had changed shirts and didn't fit the description I gave to the 911 dispatcher. The squad slowly drove by the individuals, cleared the call (required when they respond) and continued onto the next call. The long and the short of it - The City will now have to continue to respond to these individuals (selling drugs), because they were astute enough to a) carry a cell phone, and b) have someone monitoring a police frequency on the scannner that would call them and warn them. This is an easily correctable issue. The police have the capability to send the call-out silently.
Another case in-point. One of the "chop-houses" (a place where the dealers stash their pot/crack to package it for distribution) is located at the southside of the intersection at 26th & Knox. Our neighborhood agency is in the process of setting-up a meeting between the renter, the landlord, the neighborhood representative, the SAFE officer and the City Attorney to "deal" with the on-going issue. Why not send the SAFE officer (or the City Attorney) out to video-tape the activity prior to the meeting to eliminate it?
Recently, I sat in a neigborhood meeting (JACC) where we heard the same promises of stepped-up action from our 4th acting (or seated) precinct inspector (at the 4th precinct) in the past 5 years. I don't blame the new inspector for not having answers to our issues. Or, to be able to assure us that significant change will occur. I blame all of us collectively, for not looking at (and accepting) our failures in the past, and correcting our activities/actions in an attempt to bring about significant and positive change. As a community, by a show of hands, we showed a unanimous support for both the introduction of foot patrols and the enforcement of the curfew law in our neighborhood as a way of curbing crime (I still have a 4" knife in my kitchen drawer from the last gathering of 30 or so youths from in front of my house at midnight no too long ago) . Apparently, even though we live in this neighborhood, we don't have a good read on what needs to be done. As neither request will end-up being implemented. Why not let a community have more of a voice in the type of police prtection it wants? If they're wrong, who do they have to blame? Taking a reactive approach to crime is NOT working. It needs to become more proactive. It'll become much easier to face budget cuts if we choose this path.
We should expect more and pay less. It's up to us to become smarter and more thirfty.
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