the neighbors are watching you

this was on the bloomingdale email listserv yesterday, and i feel it deserves a wider audience:

I just wanted to let the neighborhood know that I just wrote an email to Dana Jones, the CEO of UPO about a transaction a few days ago between a person delivering food from UPO to the residents of the basement of 62 T St. NW.

These are the same residents who were the center of a task force raid in the fall of last year due to their drug dealing and use. On Monday [2/25/2008], while the UPO employee was supplying the residents with enough food for a month, he followed the male occupant into the basement empty handed, even though there were a few more loads of food to go. He returned a few seconds later and continued unloading food, then the resident reemerged and subtly handed the driver some cash that was rolled up.

I guess my personal opinion is that the resident's shouldn't be receiving support from UPO because they are more than capable of getting a legal job that provides income. You can agree or disagree with that, but I think that we should agree that UPO shouldn't be providing these residents/drug dealers with customers disguised as noble employees.

Moreover, as I was writing that, I overheard the male resident from 62 T St. NW trying to quietly sell a TV/DVD player and a Stereo to another neighbor a few houses down. So if anyone is missing these items, 62 T St. might still have them, although it looked like he was trying to unload them pretty quickly because as soon as the neighbors told him they weren't interested he ran down the street looking for more buyers... or more things to sell.

I guess the point of this is to let the community know that we have problem residents in the neighborhood, and we aren't going to let their actions go unnoticed.

there are positives and negatives to the proximity of urban life, and lack of privacy is one of those things. i'm not going to say which category that lack falls into. one thing i do believe is that it's a good thing when people in the neighborhood look out for each other. i do feel that there is a fine line that can be crossed when keeping an eye out for illegal activity.

simply 'strange' behavior might catch your attention, but if people aren't breaking laws, then hey, don't bug them. but if there is a criminal enterprise in the neighborhood though, i think it's fair that it gets rooted out. if someone is fencing hot items out of their basement, that can only be a magnet for bigger and more heinous criminality.

of course, the issue of guilt is not one that we, the neighborhood, can determine by simple observation. but, if there is reasonable suspicion that something nefarious is going down here, i think it's only fair that the police check it out.