Why don't these crack dealers get arrested?
November 7, 2005 4:49 PM Subscribe
I live in the Central District in Seattle and see crack being dealt on a daily basis. About 15 guys hang outside of a local gas station at a bus stop, at a major intersection at certain times of the day, and are criminally blatant about it (i.e. visibly exchanging drugs for money, counting money). How is this permitted to happen?
I know I can call the police, but that's not really what I'm asking (the dealers aren't really the problem, it's the users that give me problems). The police have to know about it. Aren't they required to do something if they see it?
I know I can call the police, but that's not really what I'm asking (the dealers aren't really the problem, it's the users that give me problems). The police have to know about it. Aren't they required to do something if they see it?
Response by poster: It's just so blatant, it's at a public transit bus stop, and I'm sure off duty cops can drive by and see the same thing. I don't think it's possible for them NOT to know...
posted by iamck at 5:04 PM on November 7, 2005
posted by iamck at 5:04 PM on November 7, 2005
We've had some similar problems in my neighborhood (also in Seattle). Yes, there are lookouts, and people scatter when the cops show up. Unfortunately the cops can't do anything unless they see the crime being committed.
posted by litlnemo at 5:07 PM on November 7, 2005
posted by litlnemo at 5:07 PM on November 7, 2005
Arresting, booking, processing, and trying drug dealers (who are at the bottom of the ladder) costs the city/whatever a lot of money and it doesn't contribute to getting crack off the streets because another crackhead kid will be recruited to take the one who just got arrested's place.
That and cycling these lowlives through the prison system only educated them - on how to be better criminals.
posted by PurplePorpoise at 5:08 PM on November 7, 2005
That and cycling these lowlives through the prison system only educated them - on how to be better criminals.
posted by PurplePorpoise at 5:08 PM on November 7, 2005
The AM/PM on Cherry? I call that place the "Nightmare Gas Station" - it's horrifying what goes on there. I wish I had a better idea for you, but I just think the SPD has bigger fish to fry.
posted by tristeza at 5:09 PM on November 7, 2005
posted by tristeza at 5:09 PM on November 7, 2005
The problem's that to know about drug dealing and to bust drug dealers in a fashion that won't end up with people (like, say, cops and bystanders) getting killed, won't compromise undercover cops' identities (a valuable asset departments don't risk lightly), and will lead to convictions (i.e. watertight evidence and no violations of procedure) are really, really different things.
posted by Zed_Lopez at 5:15 PM on November 7, 2005
posted by Zed_Lopez at 5:15 PM on November 7, 2005
1. If I may be so bold as to ask, what intersection is this? I live by the Central District, and I'd like to know what areas to avoid, if possible. (If you don't feel comfortable posting this, my email is in my profile.)
2. You could call the King County Metro Transit Police. 206-684-2761, as another option. They also police the bus stops.
3. 'Seeing it' may be the key - they may have to physically witness the crime happening, otherwise it may not stand up in court. I've seen drug dealers arrested in Downtown Seattle (2nd and Pike), so I know that the cops do act on it. But otherwise, I'm not sure about the Central District cops.
posted by spinifex23 at 5:16 PM on November 7, 2005
2. You could call the King County Metro Transit Police. 206-684-2761, as another option. They also police the bus stops.
3. 'Seeing it' may be the key - they may have to physically witness the crime happening, otherwise it may not stand up in court. I've seen drug dealers arrested in Downtown Seattle (2nd and Pike), so I know that the cops do act on it. But otherwise, I'm not sure about the Central District cops.
posted by spinifex23 at 5:16 PM on November 7, 2005
There's the same problem where I work. People just dealing in plain view, outside a daycare no less.
The police occasionally come over here and watch, but I think because it's a poor area they mostly just don't care. They come in, the dealers move somewhere else. They leave, the dealers move back in. I think the effort it would take to clear the area of drugs is more than they're willing to spend.
posted by Anonymous at 5:24 PM on November 7, 2005
The police occasionally come over here and watch, but I think because it's a poor area they mostly just don't care. They come in, the dealers move somewhere else. They leave, the dealers move back in. I think the effort it would take to clear the area of drugs is more than they're willing to spend.
posted by Anonymous at 5:24 PM on November 7, 2005
(the dealers aren't really the problem, it's the users that give me problems)
Even if you could make them leave obvious public places, they'd just start dealing in their houses or some such location. The users would probably still live in the neighborhood, because chances are they don't have any other options.
posted by afroblanca at 5:28 PM on November 7, 2005
Even if you could make them leave obvious public places, they'd just start dealing in their houses or some such location. The users would probably still live in the neighborhood, because chances are they don't have any other options.
posted by afroblanca at 5:28 PM on November 7, 2005
Response by poster: spinifex23 -
Tristeza nailed it - it's the AM/PM on Cherry. But you don't need to worry about anything, I've never had any problems besides being asking if I want to buy some "stones." (Also, if you're in the area you might want to check out Deano's, a fun little neighborhood bar, with plenty of the same going on in/outside (but they have really good food!)).
posted by iamck at 5:36 PM on November 7, 2005
Tristeza nailed it - it's the AM/PM on Cherry. But you don't need to worry about anything, I've never had any problems besides being asking if I want to buy some "stones." (Also, if you're in the area you might want to check out Deano's, a fun little neighborhood bar, with plenty of the same going on in/outside (but they have really good food!)).
posted by iamck at 5:36 PM on November 7, 2005
I believe it's also true that the SPD is very understaffed compared with many large-city police departments. Look up some stats on officers per capita and you may be surprised.
I have seen busts of street dealing in various CD & south Seattle locations, like the mini mart on MLK just south of Jackson, and the Exxon on Beacon Ave on North Beacon Hill, but it's rare.
At least you haven't yet seen a guy die in front of your house from gunshot wounds as I witnessed when I lived in the Judkins Park neighborhood...
posted by pitchblende at 5:46 PM on November 7, 2005
I have seen busts of street dealing in various CD & south Seattle locations, like the mini mart on MLK just south of Jackson, and the Exxon on Beacon Ave on North Beacon Hill, but it's rare.
At least you haven't yet seen a guy die in front of your house from gunshot wounds as I witnessed when I lived in the Judkins Park neighborhood...
posted by pitchblende at 5:46 PM on November 7, 2005
The police don't care about drugs being sold unless middle class (or wealthier) white people complain about it, and they don't complain about it unless it comes into their neighborhoods.
Also, the police are generally scared, and will rarely act unless they're very confident that they'll come out unharmed. They're not just going to walk up to a group of 15 drug dealers, especially if the group happens to have colored skin individuals. They'd rather just sit in their cars and talk about how they'd like to cleanse the earth of "these people."
posted by dsword at 5:52 PM on November 7, 2005
Also, the police are generally scared, and will rarely act unless they're very confident that they'll come out unharmed. They're not just going to walk up to a group of 15 drug dealers, especially if the group happens to have colored skin individuals. They'd rather just sit in their cars and talk about how they'd like to cleanse the earth of "these people."
posted by dsword at 5:52 PM on November 7, 2005
Maybe the cops are starting to realize something:
Via HRW, April 2003 Backgrounder:
According to the latest statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice, more than two million men and women are now behind bars in the United States.1 The country that holds itself out as the "land of freedom" incarcerates a higher percentage of its people than any other country...
Contrary to popular perception, violent crime is not responsible for the quadrupling of the incarcerated population in the United States since 1980. In fact, violent crime rates have been relatively constant or declining over the past two decades.
Perhaps the single greatest force behind the growth of the prison population has been the national "war on drugs." The number of incarcerated drug offenders has increased twelvefold since 1980. In 2000, 22 percent of those in federal and state prisons were convicted on drug charges.
And maybe they're looking north of the border.
posted by ori at 5:56 PM on November 7, 2005
Via HRW, April 2003 Backgrounder:
According to the latest statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice, more than two million men and women are now behind bars in the United States.1 The country that holds itself out as the "land of freedom" incarcerates a higher percentage of its people than any other country...
Contrary to popular perception, violent crime is not responsible for the quadrupling of the incarcerated population in the United States since 1980. In fact, violent crime rates have been relatively constant or declining over the past two decades.
Perhaps the single greatest force behind the growth of the prison population has been the national "war on drugs." The number of incarcerated drug offenders has increased twelvefold since 1980. In 2000, 22 percent of those in federal and state prisons were convicted on drug charges.
And maybe they're looking north of the border.
posted by ori at 5:56 PM on November 7, 2005
Norm Stamper, the former Seattle police chief, recently openly gave his opinion on the hopelessness of the "war on drugs," how much it was costing taxpayers, and his pro-legalization stance in this LA Times Op-ed. While I'm not doubting that he continued to uphold the law despite his beliefs, it does put into question how much motivation and effort the SPD devotes to combating drug-related crimes.
posted by junesix at 6:29 PM on November 7, 2005
posted by junesix at 6:29 PM on November 7, 2005
so what's up with deano's?
posted by subatomiczoo at 6:55 PM on November 7, 2005
posted by subatomiczoo at 6:55 PM on November 7, 2005
Response by poster: Deano's is fine - I went there after a fight with the girlfriend, when I was feeling particularly self destructive. I was wasted and everyone was very friendly.
posted by iamck at 7:03 PM on November 7, 2005
posted by iamck at 7:03 PM on November 7, 2005
Drug laws are made to be selectively enforced. If you live in a poor area, then this sort of street market will be allowed to exist with an occasional sweep. If you live in a more affluent, then street sales will be stopped but drug sales will of course continue to occur in other ways.
The laws also give police a reason to selectively stop and search anyone. Of course, it those who are poor or are members of minority groups will get stopped far more often.
If drug laws were enforced rigorously and evenly it would be impossible to build enough jails to house all the prisoners. Meanwhile police have a great excuse to harass anyone, politicians can blame social ills on drug instead of poverty, and nothing gets done.
posted by rdr at 7:12 PM on November 7, 2005
The laws also give police a reason to selectively stop and search anyone. Of course, it those who are poor or are members of minority groups will get stopped far more often.
If drug laws were enforced rigorously and evenly it would be impossible to build enough jails to house all the prisoners. Meanwhile police have a great excuse to harass anyone, politicians can blame social ills on drug instead of poverty, and nothing gets done.
posted by rdr at 7:12 PM on November 7, 2005
wait til the smoking ban goes into effect satewide in washington. you'll see blatant criminality everywhere. the cops can have a new target.
posted by brandz at 7:33 PM on November 7, 2005
posted by brandz at 7:33 PM on November 7, 2005
Crack shmack, I wish I knew where the open-air marijuana markets around Louisville are. (But it's probably not a good idea to tell me in public in case the cops don't know.) Why are the most destructive drugs so easy to find?
posted by davy at 7:43 PM on November 7, 2005
posted by davy at 7:43 PM on November 7, 2005
Arresting a street-level dealer doesn't do much to stop crime. You want to get to the top, cut it off at the head. And to get to the top, you have to get lower-level people in a drug organization to turn because not that many people in a drug organization are going to touch the drugs and therefore be possible to catch red-handed. And getting someone to turn is hard because most people don't want to be shot, and witness intimidation is a big problem (at least in my city). Not that it matters anyway, because just like in any business, if there's a demand, someone will step up to fill it. At least that's what I've learned from careful study of "The Wire."
posted by Airhen at 8:11 PM on November 7, 2005
posted by Airhen at 8:11 PM on November 7, 2005
Also, if you take away an addict's fix, you are probably going to see more violence because they are jonesin'. Letting people get their fix will keep the peace to some extent. After 3 days cold turkey without nicotine I was a raving lunatic, and could have killed someone for looking at me the wrong way.
Now I'm going to chew another piece of Nicorette.
posted by Sorcia at 8:27 PM on November 7, 2005
Now I'm going to chew another piece of Nicorette.
posted by Sorcia at 8:27 PM on November 7, 2005
there's another dirty truth besides what dsword said ... that if they're busy out on the streetcorner selling crack, they can't be recruited by organizations that have subversive or revolutionary intentions ... not that the local police department has anything to do with that ...
opium ... or crack ... or meth ... IS the religion of the people
posted by pyramid termite at 8:48 PM on November 7, 2005
opium ... or crack ... or meth ... IS the religion of the people
posted by pyramid termite at 8:48 PM on November 7, 2005
I know this was a philosophical posting, but I live in Seattle's CD too, and have seen the same stuff going down, so I wanted to add a real-world-related comment. There's a community Web site run by this guy Andrew Taylor just for what they call the Miller Park area, which includes Deano's, AM/PM, and the places listed on this thread. I think more than it being that the cops care or don't or whatever is that like everyone who has too much work to do and not enough time, they allocate resources based on who's bugging them at the moment, which is why people report stuff to him to keep track of. Many voices, that kind of thing.
Particularly bad areas of the CD seem to get temporarily less dangerous-seeming when either something really bad happens, like a homicide, or when enough people call in about it, and they're just tired of hearing about it.
If you're curious, on that same site is the public safety page where people report break-ins, as well as what the City Council, Seattle police dept., etc. are doing to try to improve things. Mostly on this site it's bureacratic solutions, but hey, at least he's trying something, right?
posted by jbucks at 8:53 PM on November 7, 2005
Particularly bad areas of the CD seem to get temporarily less dangerous-seeming when either something really bad happens, like a homicide, or when enough people call in about it, and they're just tired of hearing about it.
If you're curious, on that same site is the public safety page where people report break-ins, as well as what the City Council, Seattle police dept., etc. are doing to try to improve things. Mostly on this site it's bureacratic solutions, but hey, at least he's trying something, right?
posted by jbucks at 8:53 PM on November 7, 2005
I have way too much knowledge, now, about how to handle drug dealing. We had shootings up the block the summers of '03-04, but this year we've only had one real problem with an incipient front-porch drug operation.
The police want to do something about it, I'm quite sure, but a) they often have bigger fish to fry; b) street cops aren't so great at permanently busting up dealers, just scaring them away for a while; c) drug task forces are backed up years, not months; d) the cops would rather bide their time, get an informant in place, and use a street arrest to convict a bigger fish, than flush the whole thing away every other day; e) squeaky wheel problem.
You may want to talk to your neighbors. Find out how many of them have seen things -- probalby many of them don't call on stuff like this because they think it's futile. Talk to the closest business owners -- they're probably infuriated. Talk to your alderman (or equivalent). Get a little neighborhood lobby going, and by collective action you'll get more people realizing how important this is.
posted by dhartung at 9:51 PM on November 7, 2005
The police want to do something about it, I'm quite sure, but a) they often have bigger fish to fry; b) street cops aren't so great at permanently busting up dealers, just scaring them away for a while; c) drug task forces are backed up years, not months; d) the cops would rather bide their time, get an informant in place, and use a street arrest to convict a bigger fish, than flush the whole thing away every other day; e) squeaky wheel problem.
You may want to talk to your neighbors. Find out how many of them have seen things -- probalby many of them don't call on stuff like this because they think it's futile. Talk to the closest business owners -- they're probably infuriated. Talk to your alderman (or equivalent). Get a little neighborhood lobby going, and by collective action you'll get more people realizing how important this is.
posted by dhartung at 9:51 PM on November 7, 2005
Unfortunately the government thinks the only way to fight the drug war is to lock everyone up in prison instead of providing treatment centers and money for social support programs. It is so much more effective in their eyes to spend so much more on prisons.
posted by JJ86 at 12:50 AM on November 8, 2005
posted by JJ86 at 12:50 AM on November 8, 2005
This is somewhat tangential to the discussion and I can't obviously post the whole story here but for those of you more interested in this topic, theres a bestselling book called Freakonomics on the market written by this brilliant and provocative economist named Steven Levitt.
In the book there is a whole chapter devoted to an amazing study done by a student at the U. of Chicago who was somehow able to allow a violent crack gang to let him just hang out, observe and interview them. In the end he befriended one of the leaders in the organization and the result was a really fascinating look at the crack trade from an organizational / business point of view and he was able to show that the trade is actually run almost exactly like a corporation with each member in the org. having different incentives. What was most interesting was that he found that for all but the top leaders in the organization, the risk vs. return on investment was totally unproportionate and shockingly, when they did the math they showed that a lowest level street dealer could actually make more money working a minimum wage job !!
Pick it up its so worth a read !!
posted by postergeist at 9:34 AM on November 8, 2005
In the book there is a whole chapter devoted to an amazing study done by a student at the U. of Chicago who was somehow able to allow a violent crack gang to let him just hang out, observe and interview them. In the end he befriended one of the leaders in the organization and the result was a really fascinating look at the crack trade from an organizational / business point of view and he was able to show that the trade is actually run almost exactly like a corporation with each member in the org. having different incentives. What was most interesting was that he found that for all but the top leaders in the organization, the risk vs. return on investment was totally unproportionate and shockingly, when they did the math they showed that a lowest level street dealer could actually make more money working a minimum wage job !!
Pick it up its so worth a read !!
posted by postergeist at 9:34 AM on November 8, 2005
iamck, I know someone who would like to get in touch with you in regards to this matter. Send me your email.
posted by y2karl at 10:39 AM on November 9, 2005
posted by y2karl at 10:39 AM on November 9, 2005
Iamck, call Crime Prevention at SPD East Precinct and ask Sonja to tell you how many violent crimes occur every month at Deano's.
posted by onegreeneye at 10:31 PM on February 18, 2006
posted by onegreeneye at 10:31 PM on February 18, 2006
This thread is closed to new comments.
I don't know about the central district but in the ghetto where I come from you don't call the cops. The cops are just as bad as the drug dealers (from the ghetto perspective). If you call they are almost forced to come and if they start patrolling the dealers will move on. If you don't call them how are thinking they know about it? Dealers are smart they'll just not deal in front of a police car. If the police aren't specifically looking for suspicious activity in x area they aren't going to necessarily notice it in a seedy neighborhood.
posted by geoff. at 4:52 PM on November 7, 2005