Guys on the corner
It is difficult to judge if the corner is getting better or worse since last year. I know it is better than the first year I moved here, but comparing it with 2005, hard. The problem, our friendly neighborhood drug dealers.There was a crowd of surly teens that used to hang out in front of one house, where other surly teens lived. Sometimes there would be a little back and forth to the corner but they'd go back to their friend's house. Recently I have noticed that some surly teens have taken to hanging out on the corner, where normally they had not been before. It seems to me that they are trying to make new hang out spots. One neighbor mentioned that they had set up in front of her house, with chairs. She called another resident for neighborhood reinforcements. I haven't heard of the kids doing it again.
Recently I heard of an old timer confronting the guys on the corner about cleaning up. The corner boys asked the old timer why everyone called them drug dealers. Ha! Let's see, you hang out on a corner, in a neighborhood where you don't live, where there has been drug activity before. Gee, I don't know. It's one thing when you hang out in front of a friend's house, it is a whole 'nother when it is on the corner or in front of someone you don't know.
And since I'm slightly touching the topic, out neighborhood crack ho has branched out into drug dealing. She doesn't do the corner, she hangs out in the middle of the block and it has been mentioned by a neighbor that she was spotted distributing something in a tiny little baggy. Is this improvement, because to be a seller you must be able not to smoke up all your inventory. But she's going to get caught one day, if the cops bother to stop her, because she isn't as organized as the dealers. The dealers don't keep the inventory on their person. They hide the drugs in garbage cans, in people's yards, in other neighborhood nooks and crannies so when they are stopped by the police they don't have drugs on them.
Is it getting better or worse? Still very hard to tell. I'd like to think as more folks who are less tolerant of drug dealing and anything that looks like drug dealing remain and like minded folks move in, yes, it will get better. More people calling the police, fewer people providing shelter and safe haven for the dealers, more people maintaining their properties so there are fewer places to stash the stashes, those things should make things better.
posted by Mari @ 31.3.06
5 Comments:
311, 311, 311....
What I don't get is this... who buys all these drugs? I mean, entire blocks have gentrified, public housing has been torn down, etc, etc... And yet theres still tons of dealers hanging around. Do people drive all the way in from MD and VA to buy drugs at the same old corners? Can't they get drugs closer to where they live? Just seems odd ...
- JM
JM-
I hope you're sitting down. Yes, people drive from MD & VA into our fair city to buy drugs. I know, I know, you're SHOCKED. Perhaps even in disbelief. But if you need proof,look at the license plates of the buyers.
They don't want their MD & VA friends and neighbors to know they are druggies.
I was driving home down 1st St. NW one night about a year ago. I was somewhere in the vicinity of 1st and T St. NW when I came to a stop at a stop sign. There was a car on my left, facing west. That car was at the intersection first. I waited for the driver to proceed, but he didn't.
Instead, I saw the driver fire up a crack pipe while he was sitting there at the stop sign. This illuminated his face quite well. He was a 20-something white kid in a nice car with VA plates. He never even saw me. I guess that he had just completed his purchase, and couldn't even wait to get out of the 'hood before lighting up.
I was once walking a friend's dog in an alley near Crispus Attucks park. Same deal; nice car full of young white kids with VA plates, dressed like they were going to the prom. Yeah, they're driving in the alley because they have a good idea of where to find drugs.
For reasons like these, I was happy when the VA plates came off my car and I joined the ranks of those who are Taxed Without Representation. At least I don't look like a druggie driving in from the 'burbs when I come home in my car. (I had been solicited for drugs and prostitution up and down 1st St NW several times while driving my car with VA plates)
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