Pubdate: Wed, 07 Nov 2001
Source: Daily Gazette (NY)
Copyright: 2001 The Gazette Newspapers
Contact:  http://www.dailygazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/105

BE MORE VIGILANT WITH VICE

Of course it's an outrage that drug dealers and prostitutes are plying 
their wares on Schenectady streets at 8 o'clock in the morning, within 
sight of schoolchildren waiting for the bus. But there was just one proper 
response for city officials who were apprised of the situation at Monday's 
City Council meeting: We're outraged, too, and we'll get police on it right 
away.

Unfortunately, that was not quite the reaction Olivia Adams - president of 
the local NAACP - got when she complained about the situation. Instead, 
Corporation Counsel Michael Brockbank asked her to provide names to assist 
police, while Mayor Albert Jurczynski and Councilman Frank Maurizio implied 
that the problem couldn't be solved unless the city school district 
cooperates. Wrong!

The problem is the police department's failure to do a better job 
monitoring a neighborhood where activities of this sort have gone on for 
years. The department stages periodic crackdowns on the dealers, 
prostitutes and johns, then it backs off. Within a few months, the hookers 
are out of jail and back on their favorite corners, and new dealers have 
moved in to take the old ones' places.

Granted, an apparent streetwalker or drug dealer can't be arrested on mere 
suspicion; a case must be made and evidence gathered. But when they're out 
on the street in plain view, to the extent that the residents of the 
Hamilton Hill and Vale neighborhoods say they are, it's obvious that the 
cops need to pay more consistent attention.

And it shouldn't take a call from a school bus driver to get police to take 
notice, or an eyewitness to do the grunt work. Not when the activities are 
so blatant and residents in the neighborhoods have complained about them 
for years.
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