Bloomington Ave. Citizens� Patrol Log 6/12/02 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Our Citizen Patrol is still monitoring Bloomington Ave. and 25th St. We began the patrol the Saturday after three youths were shot on Bloomington Avenue two months ago. We are patrolling every morning at 6:00 am to 8:00 am. Again, area children organized themselves and came to our community meeting and asked the adults to please do something. So we began and have been there every morning since. The whole neighborhood says things have improved, at least near 25th and Bloomington. We have closed two serious crack houses, caught several stolen cars and disrupted the drug and prostitution system on Bloomington. The Citizen�s Patrol is the single most effective thing we have done with regard to this corner. Banding together to take our neighborhood back has taught us much, namely how bad and tragic all the illegal activity on Bloomington and surroundings is. It has taught us who is doing a lot of this and where many of the dealers, pimps, johns, and prostitutes live. Often the dealers and johns are from out of the area, way out. Coon Rapids, Richfield, over North. Patrolling has taught us how little the judges of the criminal justice system really understand about the impact and damage their �catch and release� policies have on the impoverished communities into which they continually release violent and destructive people. It has taught us how entrenched this system is and how it encumbers the entire area around the new LRT stations, Lake and Franklin, which bodes badly for the potentially bright future of this new city amenity. Patrolling has increased our contact and appreciation for the regular cops on duty every day, struggling as we are to contain all this. And this has bonded us with one another. One thing is clear, we need more people. Without more people we are pushing the dealers down to our neighbors on 28th St. If more of our neighbors and others would help, we could patrol two corners instead of one. We try to extend the patrol down Bloomington and back into 16th and 15th Ave., but this is hard to do effectively without more a lot more people. One other thing is clear, we need the police to do �buys� and raids on the houses we identify as serious crack houses. We need to have a greater effect. This becomes dangerous to us if it appears as though we have no power but are just a public nuisance. We also need to have a lot of compassion and resolve. This is a hard way to start every day watching all this sick stuff going on. Today a bunch of dealers and prostitutes were standing on the same corner as five sweet little kids. The kids peeked at them and tried to move further away. We took license plates, watched from across the intersection as deals were made, and called 911. We are probably generating a hoard of 911 calls. A sad woman comes by for coffee, says she is glad we are doing this, but admits she is part of the problem. While her kids sleep she is doing tricks to buy crack. She is an honest person. She starts to cry and says she is not ready to quit. We talk and express hope for her and her kids. She cries as she wanders off. A man comes by and yells at us, claiming we don�t live here and should get out and stop getting in others� business. Every one of us has lived here for a long time�years in fact. I asked,� where are you from?� The reply was, �I came here from Chicago at New Years�. Great. He�s been here a few months and he thinks he owns it, because he deals like so many street dealers on this street. Some of us have been here 30 years. We ask him if he has kids and tell him we are here to protect the kids. He wanders off muttering. As we hike down Bloomington dealers and prostitutes begin to peal off. We station ourselves at 28th and Bloomington. After this clears we move to 29th and Bloomington. A large white van rolls up and collects most of the girls on the avenue. We have disrupted the business and he is moving it elsewhere for the time being. We track him by car. He goes to Lake Street across from the Pioneer Cemetery and parcels out his girls there, toward Highway 55. We call 911 and report the vehicle number. We trace the car to Richfield. Back on the Avenue we see a woman who used to work at the same company as one of our patrol members. They talk about old times and how good things were. I see her later and stop and sit beside her. We talk. She has given up custody of her kids and is stuck in homelessness and addiction. She has lost everything and now is a part of a pimp�s gang of girls he puts on the avenue. He lives off her like a predator. We talk about how she could get out. I give her $20 and she starts to cry. We haven�t seen her since. This is a steady stream. We don�t know how long we will continue. We�ve been doing this for two months. We would like to go on with our patrol until we get the crime out of here and change Bloomington. Imagine huge numbers of people just taking control of the area and enjoying coffee on the avenue, with all this negative stuff gone. Perhaps that is overly ambitious, but after all our hard work we hate to see things go back to business as usual and we are making a major difference. So we�ll keep on with this. Again, join us! 6:00 to 8:00 pm on the Avenue at Bloomington and 25th Street.
Carol Pass for Bloomington Avenue Citizen�s Patrol East Phillips Neighborhood [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
