How Do Your Police Measure Up?

I would like to say, optimistically, that 2014 is going to be a GREAT year for Pottstown or... even just a BETTER year.

However, I don't feel the conviction of HOPE as we approach 2014.  

For the past year I've watched, helplessly, while drug dealers operate from three different rental houses on our block and some even sell to kids in the alley as they make their way home after school.  At least one of the drug houses is funded by the Federal Government & HUD voucher housing, managed by Montgomery County Housing Choice Voucher aka Section 8. 

I can't help but wonder how large are the arsenals of weapons concealed within their rental homes and the potential tragedies that will bring the cops, investigators, the D.A.'s office and the coroner to focus their attention here, after the worst has happened.  I wonder, more often now, why the same energy isn't given to prevention.   

There are, of course, a plethora of other anti-social behaviors that go along with illegal activities at these rentals like -  fighting, wandering the streets stoned, child neglect, harassment, trashing their rentals, spitting on the sidewalk when you pass by ... to name a few.    

Most recently, a man was arrested at the drug house across the street for robbing Redner's mini-mart a block from my home on Christmas Eve afternoon.  I've called the police over 10 times on the renters at that property alone and the landlord just as many times or more.  There was an arrest made at the residence this spring too.  Nothing has changed.  

I've called police many many times in 2013, (I expect to be on a first name basis with dispatch in the new year).  Police will say they are aware of the drug activities at certain properties but... their awareness doesn't bring resolution, ever, sometimes for years, same house, same drug dealers.

I also called the landlords, constantly this past year, they have a million and one excuses for not evicting their nuisance tenants.

Frankly, income investors know the score and they rightly assume that nobody in authority will force their hand, in this community, to make them clean up their properties and get rid of the criminals they rent to - - and from my experience, they are secure in their defiance of my requests that have now turned into pleas.  They placate me and go on about their business.

I am beyond disappointed with the lack of communication from the Police Department in Pottstown.  Chief Drumheller, like his predecessor, has shown no propensity for engaging with the community or speaking with the press about his plans, if any.

I find consolation in the blog posts of retired Madison, Wisconsin Police Chief Couper.  Smart, experienced and compassionate, Chief Couper provides a glimmer of what good policing can be and it's impact on a community.   

His post, that I've re-blogged above, struck a chord.  I realized, as I struggled to answer the questions he's poised, that the majority of residents in Pottstown know so little about who our Police Chief is and what his department stands for, myself included. 

All that I believe I know about the Pottstown Police Dept. is simply rumor, innuendo -- and -- the FACT that 2013 may prove to be one of the most violent years in recent history.  The FACT that often times the trouble makers are given free reign to disrespect the cops sometimes even yelling up in their faces when tensions arise and the cops take it from them.  

Many residents have expressed feeling isolated with these struggles as though no one on the outside can see this oddly secretive and violent little borough, despite the alarming crime statistics that are posted on every nook & cranny of the internet.

We need help.  We need intervention. 

I'm weary as 2013 comes to an end with the Dec. 19th stabbing of a mother by her son, the arrest of the robber on Christmas Eve and the December 27th shooting death and injury of two known drug dealers in one of the seedier apartment complexes in the borough.  

The 22 y.o. man who was killed had been arrested a year ago on drug charges in our community but was free to keep selling drugs while he awaited trial. 

I'd like to hope for better for Pottstown but as this year comes so violently to a close...

 I can't seem to find a reason for optimism.