Jasbird
07-27-2003, 11:18 PM
Looks like the cops here have given up on law enforcement. I suppose
it's too much trouble to go to arrest and convict someone. Despite the
massive resources poured into it, enforcement of drug laws is very
inefficient - a drug dealer will get caught once in every 4000 to
10000 deals (depending on the type of illegal drug being sold).
So they've by-passed law in favour of making random people homeless.
Did you neighbour give you a funny look when he walked past you
yesterday? Fine, just phone up the cops and have him evicted.
Join Nate's great new USA - where human rights are 'treasured'.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
<http://www.sentinelandenterprise.com/Stories/0,1413,106~4992~1536990,00.html>
Article Last Updated: Sunday, July 27, 2003 - 7:51:25 PM EST
Fitchburg cracks down on drug-using tenants
By Evan Lehmann elehmann@sentinelandenterprise.com
FITCHBURG -- The house's door frames are cracked and splintered from
multiple police raids.
Windows in the winding stairwell are smashed, and on the top floor, at
the entrance of the building's third apartment, the door was torn
away, showing a black-resined crack pipe amid debris in the living
room.
Police from the city's drug suppression unit have raided the apartment
house at 35 Walnut St. three times since January as part of Mayor Dan
H. Mylott's effort to rid the city of drug dealers, Police Chief
Edward Cronin told the Sentinel & Enterprise this week.
But the non-descript house, located in a neighborhood along Route 12,
is more than just an apparent haven for drug dealers.
The house represents the city's new approach to attacking drug
dealers: through their landlords.
Since January, when the Mayor's Drug Task Force was implemented,
police have pressured 17 landlords to evict tenants who are alleged
drug dealers, Cronin said.
And he said the strategy is working.
90 percent success rate
"We're well over 90 percent on eviction rates," he said. "So we're
moving people out."
If drugs are discovered during a raid, the police send a letter --
with Cronin's signature -- to the owner of the building.
It says if they fail to take "all reasonable measures to eject" the
alleged dealer, they face being fined up to $1,000 or imprisoned for
up to one year.
Landlords also may be called into the Police Department, as another
tactic aimed at getting them to comply. Cronin said the visits have a
strong effect.
"We've got a ton of evictions," he said. "Sometimes they're evicted
the next day."
Dealers on Marshall Street, Kimball Street and Academy Street have
been moved out since the initiative was implemented, Cronin said,
citing just a few of the targeted buildings.
The box-like apartment house at 35 Walnut St., also has seen drug
suspects leave, according to people living in the first-floor
apartment, which they say was raided twice this year, most recently on
July 9.
The third-floor apartment also was raided, on June 24, making the
building a police target three times.
Up on the third floor, the now doorless apartment was heaped with
abandoned clothing, kitchen utensils and a pool table. The crack pipe
lay on a set of shelves.
But the tenants didn't leave as a result of the landlord, Hector
Gonzalez, ousting them. Police say he has been largely unresponsive.
Gonzalez is the first landlord to be charged under the new initiative.
He could not be reached for comment.
"This whole street has been crazy," said Honorio Lisboa Jr., who rents
a room in the first-floor apartment for $100 a month.
Lisboa, sitting on the house's paint-chipped porch, motioned across
the street to a large two-story house boarded up with full sheets of
plywood.
He said police investigated a shooting there and pointed to bullet
holes surrounded by red paint.
"They're going to tear it down and build a police department," he
joked. "I swear they should."
Chanchai Loupkhome, 18, was raking long weeds from the front yard of a
house on the other side of the street.
His parents own the multi-family building and have rented it out for
about 20 years. Loupkhome lives in Leominster.
Though he was unaware the dull yellow house across the street had been
raided, he said drugs are apparent in the neighborhood.
"I see what look like a lot of crack heads walking up and down the
street," he said. "They look like druggies. I'm not really sure if
they do crack, but they look like druggies."
It's this perception Mylott has vowed to attack. The Mayor's Drug Task
Force was implemented weeks after Cronin took office, though Mylott
said its design was crafted a year earlier.
Cronin said he was hired with a "mandate to address the drug problem"
in the city.
"We're being very aggressive, and this is just another step," Mylott
said of the initiative targeting landlords.
Controversial approach?
The move to squeeze landlords has a controversial side.
"Anybody can urge any damn thing they want under the First Amendment,"
Tony Windsor, an attorney with the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute,
said of the police initiative. "But the real issue is if innocent
people are being affected by this."
Faye Rachlin, a housing attorney with Legal Assistance Corporation of
Central Massachusetts, said "it's a little scary" that police are
threatening to charge landlords with a crime before tenants have been
convicted of selling drugs.
"I'm not sure that it's appropriate simply based on an arrest that (a
landlord) has to eject those tenants," she said.
The selling of drugs "hasn't been proven," she added. "It strikes me
that it may be a bit premature."
The Legal Assistance Corporation, with which Rachlin works, is a
non-profit organization in Worcester with a satellite office in
Fitchburg. It provides free legal representation to people with lower
incomes.
Rachlin hasn't handled any cases associated with the Fitchburg
initiative. And she thought the tactic was absent in Worcester. "We
haven't seen this type of letter going out to landlords," she said.
Landlords eager to help
Most landlords, though, comply voluntarily, eager to pry dealers from
their buildings, according to Lorie Spaulding, a co-founder of the
Northern Worcester Landlord Association.
And Spaulding thinks those landlords who indirectly assist drug
dealers should be charged.
"If you knowingly allow these things to happen, you should be
penalized," she said.
Spaulding, however, noted that a landlord doesn't hold a seat on the
Mayor's Drug Task Force, something she thinks should occur.
The prosecution of Gonzalez, scheduled to begin Aug. 1 in Fitchburg
Superior Court, will serve as a test for the city's new initiative,
Cronin said.
"Are we going to win this case?" he said. "I'm not really sure. This
is a test case."
At stake is the initiative's muscle: If Gonzalez is found guilty, its
teeth will be sharpened.
"I hope we can make things uncomfortable enough that (drug dealers)
will go someplace else," Cronin said.
Making a difference
Back at 35 Walnut St., with its splintered doorways and obvious drug
paraphernalia, Jennifer Lopez, the young, pregnant wife of Lisboa, the
first-floor resident, spoke of the raids as positive.
But she said the uncomfortableness Cronin spoke of affects more than
just suspected dealers.
Asked if the raids improved the neighborhood, she said, "I guess yes,
but not for the people that lived here that didn't have anything to do
with it."
it's too much trouble to go to arrest and convict someone. Despite the
massive resources poured into it, enforcement of drug laws is very
inefficient - a drug dealer will get caught once in every 4000 to
10000 deals (depending on the type of illegal drug being sold).
So they've by-passed law in favour of making random people homeless.
Did you neighbour give you a funny look when he walked past you
yesterday? Fine, just phone up the cops and have him evicted.
Join Nate's great new USA - where human rights are 'treasured'.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
<http://www.sentinelandenterprise.com/Stories/0,1413,106~4992~1536990,00.html>
Article Last Updated: Sunday, July 27, 2003 - 7:51:25 PM EST
Fitchburg cracks down on drug-using tenants
By Evan Lehmann elehmann@sentinelandenterprise.com
FITCHBURG -- The house's door frames are cracked and splintered from
multiple police raids.
Windows in the winding stairwell are smashed, and on the top floor, at
the entrance of the building's third apartment, the door was torn
away, showing a black-resined crack pipe amid debris in the living
room.
Police from the city's drug suppression unit have raided the apartment
house at 35 Walnut St. three times since January as part of Mayor Dan
H. Mylott's effort to rid the city of drug dealers, Police Chief
Edward Cronin told the Sentinel & Enterprise this week.
But the non-descript house, located in a neighborhood along Route 12,
is more than just an apparent haven for drug dealers.
The house represents the city's new approach to attacking drug
dealers: through their landlords.
Since January, when the Mayor's Drug Task Force was implemented,
police have pressured 17 landlords to evict tenants who are alleged
drug dealers, Cronin said.
And he said the strategy is working.
90 percent success rate
"We're well over 90 percent on eviction rates," he said. "So we're
moving people out."
If drugs are discovered during a raid, the police send a letter --
with Cronin's signature -- to the owner of the building.
It says if they fail to take "all reasonable measures to eject" the
alleged dealer, they face being fined up to $1,000 or imprisoned for
up to one year.
Landlords also may be called into the Police Department, as another
tactic aimed at getting them to comply. Cronin said the visits have a
strong effect.
"We've got a ton of evictions," he said. "Sometimes they're evicted
the next day."
Dealers on Marshall Street, Kimball Street and Academy Street have
been moved out since the initiative was implemented, Cronin said,
citing just a few of the targeted buildings.
The box-like apartment house at 35 Walnut St., also has seen drug
suspects leave, according to people living in the first-floor
apartment, which they say was raided twice this year, most recently on
July 9.
The third-floor apartment also was raided, on June 24, making the
building a police target three times.
Up on the third floor, the now doorless apartment was heaped with
abandoned clothing, kitchen utensils and a pool table. The crack pipe
lay on a set of shelves.
But the tenants didn't leave as a result of the landlord, Hector
Gonzalez, ousting them. Police say he has been largely unresponsive.
Gonzalez is the first landlord to be charged under the new initiative.
He could not be reached for comment.
"This whole street has been crazy," said Honorio Lisboa Jr., who rents
a room in the first-floor apartment for $100 a month.
Lisboa, sitting on the house's paint-chipped porch, motioned across
the street to a large two-story house boarded up with full sheets of
plywood.
He said police investigated a shooting there and pointed to bullet
holes surrounded by red paint.
"They're going to tear it down and build a police department," he
joked. "I swear they should."
Chanchai Loupkhome, 18, was raking long weeds from the front yard of a
house on the other side of the street.
His parents own the multi-family building and have rented it out for
about 20 years. Loupkhome lives in Leominster.
Though he was unaware the dull yellow house across the street had been
raided, he said drugs are apparent in the neighborhood.
"I see what look like a lot of crack heads walking up and down the
street," he said. "They look like druggies. I'm not really sure if
they do crack, but they look like druggies."
It's this perception Mylott has vowed to attack. The Mayor's Drug Task
Force was implemented weeks after Cronin took office, though Mylott
said its design was crafted a year earlier.
Cronin said he was hired with a "mandate to address the drug problem"
in the city.
"We're being very aggressive, and this is just another step," Mylott
said of the initiative targeting landlords.
Controversial approach?
The move to squeeze landlords has a controversial side.
"Anybody can urge any damn thing they want under the First Amendment,"
Tony Windsor, an attorney with the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute,
said of the police initiative. "But the real issue is if innocent
people are being affected by this."
Faye Rachlin, a housing attorney with Legal Assistance Corporation of
Central Massachusetts, said "it's a little scary" that police are
threatening to charge landlords with a crime before tenants have been
convicted of selling drugs.
"I'm not sure that it's appropriate simply based on an arrest that (a
landlord) has to eject those tenants," she said.
The selling of drugs "hasn't been proven," she added. "It strikes me
that it may be a bit premature."
The Legal Assistance Corporation, with which Rachlin works, is a
non-profit organization in Worcester with a satellite office in
Fitchburg. It provides free legal representation to people with lower
incomes.
Rachlin hasn't handled any cases associated with the Fitchburg
initiative. And she thought the tactic was absent in Worcester. "We
haven't seen this type of letter going out to landlords," she said.
Landlords eager to help
Most landlords, though, comply voluntarily, eager to pry dealers from
their buildings, according to Lorie Spaulding, a co-founder of the
Northern Worcester Landlord Association.
And Spaulding thinks those landlords who indirectly assist drug
dealers should be charged.
"If you knowingly allow these things to happen, you should be
penalized," she said.
Spaulding, however, noted that a landlord doesn't hold a seat on the
Mayor's Drug Task Force, something she thinks should occur.
The prosecution of Gonzalez, scheduled to begin Aug. 1 in Fitchburg
Superior Court, will serve as a test for the city's new initiative,
Cronin said.
"Are we going to win this case?" he said. "I'm not really sure. This
is a test case."
At stake is the initiative's muscle: If Gonzalez is found guilty, its
teeth will be sharpened.
"I hope we can make things uncomfortable enough that (drug dealers)
will go someplace else," Cronin said.
Making a difference
Back at 35 Walnut St., with its splintered doorways and obvious drug
paraphernalia, Jennifer Lopez, the young, pregnant wife of Lisboa, the
first-floor resident, spoke of the raids as positive.
But she said the uncomfortableness Cronin spoke of affects more than
just suspected dealers.
Asked if the raids improved the neighborhood, she said, "I guess yes,
but not for the people that lived here that didn't have anything to do
with it."
