Ask and ye shall receive

After my little run in with the Wicked Witch of Circulation I took it upon myself to see exactly how dangerous my neighborhood is and what kind of threats face a full grown man throwing papers from his car in the predawn hours of the day.

My first conversation with the police was specific and limited to my street and that request reveled that people on my street have no patients for loud stereos - loud music does not constitute a threat and should not scare my delivery guy. I should also point out that the loud music is finished long before the delivery guys predawn visits. Although, it should be noted that his playing of loud music could have resulted in calls to the police.

A few days later, I took Dogger for a walk and brought some paper and a pen with me and wrote down the street names and block numbers of the streets around me that could conceivably be “hooked” to mine - to see how scary my neighborhood as a whole actually is. I called the police the next day with my little list and sadly did not get the helpful woman I got the first time. The woman who answered the phone this time was not as interested in my problem or my list as the woman I spoke with before. The new lady said she would send me a list of the surrounding area - a very broad definition of “my neighborhood”.

It arrived a few days later.

I’m no fool. The “surrounding area" includes streets I avoid completely - for example, the 1000 block of Martin Street - 45 calls to police bear that out, thrirteen of those to a single address. Most if not all the calls however come from a Martin Street far, far away from me. The blocks of Martin Street that could conceivably be “hooked” to my neighborhood? Not a single call.

Not one of other the streets and block numbers on my list show any police activity. On my street there were a few calls, a “special assignment” (one of two such on the area) one call for a repo ( one of two in the area), one traffic stop, and one report of a suspicious vehicle. Hardly terrifying.

Over all, there were some real issues in the report, I counted four assaults - three on females, one armed robbery, two stabbings, three drug law violations, one indecent exposure, nine “disturbances”, two warrants served, one concealed weapon, three break in’s of residences, two breaks in’s of a non-residential, two stolen cars, five reports of begging, ten reports of suspicious vehicle or persons, and that twice people called the police to have them slim jim open their running cars. And the rest boiled down to various other nuisance calls and burglar alarm checks. And most did not happen in the predawn hours.

Out of 312 calls over a three month period - 112 were traffic stops. From my reading of the list I discovered the biggest threat to a male newspaper delivery person while in my immediate area in the predawn hours of the day would be the threat of being stopped by the cops for driving while black - Insulting, yes, enough to keep me from receiving my paper on time? No.

My next move? I’m writing to the biggest chiefest big wigs at the News and Observer and I’m going to tell them why I had to call in the first place and then why I had to keep calling and ultimately who I spoke to and what she said to me; and I’m going to include a copy of the police report and the name of the biatch who told me that I live in a dangerous neighborhood and that I shouldn’t expect to receive my morning paper in the morning. After looking over 7 and a half pages of police activity, if I'm not afraid to live here then my newspaper guy shouldn't be afraid to work here.

If you want to request a report like this for your area, and I do suggest it - I called the normal, non- emergency number of the police department and asked for a list of the police reports for my neighborhood. They sent or I could have picked up - they would not fax - a print out that listed the report numbers, the responding officers, the dates, the times, and the call classes, i.e “traffic stop” Mine ran for seven and a half pages and covered four months of calls.