Dear Dispatch: An Unsent Letter
Working night shift at the building at in it’s not uncommon to see people hiding out smoking glass pipes (highly doubt they’re hiding out to smoke tobacco) and engaging in prostitution in the back alley when I go out for a cigarette break.
All very true – just saw a male crackhead performing fellatio on another, uglier male crackhead.
I’ve seen patrol cars in the alley a handful of times, however, the one time there was someone presumably smoking drugs in the alley and a patrol car came through the officers appeared to be looking for someone else already and paid more attention to me (and the fact that I was waving them towards the woman hiding out in the corner) than whom I would consider to have been the suspicious person.
The incident in question was definitely good for a laugh.
The neighboring business whose portion of the alley is most often used has installed cameras which probably catch most of the activities in the alley, though I would be interested to know whether their recordings are ever reviewed and what would be the best recommendation you can offer to get an available patrol car through the alley on short notice to reduce the amount of illicit activity going on back there.
There was a nasty car accident the other night and it took the police a full 15 minutes to respond – they arrived long after the ambulance and a horde of concerned bystanders.
Why this letter will never be sent: Another appearance in whichever database the local police department uses to aggregate their complaints, victims, and perpetrators isn’t worthwhile.
I figure that it does not pay to make a name for oneself anywhere in there and the most I can hope for is some bad advice on top of that…
Crackpot theory of the day: Police budgets are manipulated to allow portions of a city to go downhill – whether it be in the interest of the real estate owners who often happen to comprise the city council or some Illuminati master-plan to scare honest, god-fearing `Merikuhns into submission, it definitely seems as though most cities have corpulently-safe little suburbs surrounding their invariably-rotten cores (though there is always that one part of town with all the big houses which seems to receive just enough extra police attention to keep graffiti in check).
Update T+13.23:10
Supporting evidence?
Allen Carrel recently called police to tell them about the latest drug deal he watched go down in his Columbus city, South Side neighbourhood.
“Police say, ‘Well, why did you move here? Why don’t you move out if you don’t like it?’” said Carrel, who said he calls police at least once a week.
- Crime-ridden residents say police suggest they move elsewhere
Arbroath 2009-11-01
