Occupation of Peavey Park

BY DWIGHT HOBBES

Summer 2011: the Minneapolis Police Department struck at the South Minneapolis intersection of Chicago and Franklin. Crack dealers along with hookers and other junkies, accustomed to complacently setting up camp at the Thrones Plaza entrance to Peavey Park, hardly knew what hit them.  Literally overnight, coordinating undercover work, camera surveillance and snitches, Minneapolis’ finest had one of the city’s worst open air drug and prostitution markets clean as a hound’s tooth.
That was then. This is today—traffic so entrenched it’s now an occupation.  What should be a family friendly environment is someplace parents wouldn’t bring their children anywhere near, much less pack a picnic lunch to come and lounge on a blanket.  It’s bad enough druggies roam around looking like death warmed over.  And wake neighborhood residents at odd hours, arguing—usually on the order of, say, who took whose crack pipe.  They break into cars— apartments if possible—commit muggings and other crimes to get high. Stores along Franklin contend with shoplifting, lose customers who’d rather shop elsewhere than be around the unsavory.  Across the street, at Chicago Crossings, even cops don’t stop in for lunch at, for instance, Subway, Great Dragon or other eateries. Not because they’re slackers.  Like anyone, they feel entitled to enjoy a meal without having to go back to work and stop drug deals.  So, places lose business.  Susan, a librarian at the Franklin Branch, nervously states, “I’m afraid to go there.”  Melodie, living in the vicinity, avoids Peavey Park like the plague, commenting, “I’d love to let my kids go over to the park, but I don’t. I avoid the Chicago-Franklin corner as much as possible.”  Jerry, another area resident, adds, “It used to be, back in the day, it was a very nice park. [Save that square footage, it still is—basketball courts, baseball diamonds, soccer fields and so on.]  Through the years it deteriorated to where it’s not safe.  You never know what’s gonna pop off.  When they have stuff for the community, bands and things, it’s still cool.  That makes a big difference, especially for the kids.  But these grown people, they need to grow up.  Just last summer a mother was in the park, her and her baby got shot.  It’s just crazy.”
Regrettably, the influx of Somalis has spelled, along with respectable immigrants, those who’ve fallen in with the bad element.  Neighborhood watchdog Jim Graham notes, “There are  several Somali women prostitutes and Somali men involved in the [drug life]  I have talked to some.  Funny, they are apologetic rather than having an attitude.”  True enough, African American hookers, generally unkempt and ill-clad, often scuttling to and fro in the same clothes for days and nights at a time, are belligerent, with a sense of entitlement, convinced it is their inherent right to, as they ruin their lives, ruin quality of life around them, as living, breathing, walking, talking foulmouthed eyesores.  Point in case, chronic, high-profile fixture Chrissy,   who has had 66 combined arrests and citations and, between stints behind bars, still rips up and down Franklin Avenue at the top of her lungs, arms spasmodically flailing—occasionally stretched out  at Thrones Plaza, sleeping off a  marathon mission.  She stands out from the rest of the reprobates, but their general behavior isn’t far behind. One Sunday morning this May, while civilized citizens are sensibly going about a leisurely start today—those who don’t have work on God’s day off—at the Plaza a woman wields a claw hammer, yelling at a man, “Back off!” and “Gimme my sh*t!”.  He’s trying to reason with her.  She keeps offering to split his skull.  Idly entertained onlookers aren’t taken aback in the least, simply take it in stride, this sort of thing is that unremarkable.  There are, as well, the atypical.  E.I.: Toni aka “Grannie,” who, easily upwards of 70, can be seen, when she’s not noisily steering customers to dealers, desperately scanning the ground for crack she wishfully thinks somebody may’ve dropped; another old woman who, virtually plastered to a wheelchair, will beg someone to go in with her measly $6 on a $20 rock; or the wheelchair bound guy with a hand and wrist too twisted to smoke so he has someone hold and light the pipe for him.   Even the pathetic—a woman who constantly gets cheated, sold soap instead of crack to the tune of $30 or more and, instead of wising up, keeps getting beat and keeps whining and crying about it to whoever will listen.  And, she hasn’t been seen for a while, but the memory is vivid—of a barely teenaged girl, skin and bones, begging anyone who’ll stand still long enough for a pipe, for a lighter.
Nice junkies or not, atypical, pathetic, what have you, they need to go. Though the American Medical Association recognizes chemical dependency as a disease, debilitating addiction isn’t license to drag things down around you.  Indeed, chemical and mental health services provider Resource is at 1900 Chicago Ave.  Literally around the corner from Peavey Park. Clients daily socialize in the Resource parking lot on their way to and from the halfway houses lining Columbus Avenue, conversation bright, clearly glad to have the monkey off their backs.   Considering the rate of crack recidivism, it’s virtually miraculous they  don’t relapse left and right with temptation under their noses 24/7.  Resource President and CEO Kelly Matter comments,  “Families and individuals we serve are working hard to improve their health and lifestyles. They count on us to provide a safety zone for change. This activity—drug traffic and prostitution—is harmful to the health of our community and puts our families and participants, particularly those who use the park, at great risk.”  All the more reason to commend clients for keeping their noses clean in the face of temptation.  It certainly helps that they derive mutual support for their sobriety, by spending a great deal of their leisure time constructively congregating outside their buildings, playing cards, shooting the breeze and so forth.
Of sad note, over at 2020 Elliot Ave., Project for Pride in Living (PPL) owns an apartment building housing largely single moms who, particularly in this economic day and age, need the park as free recreation for their kids.  And have the problem literally laid at their doorstep, across the street at 21st and Elliot.  As well as the other three corners, where, of all things, kids wait for school buses mornings and step down off them afternoons.
Cecil Smith, Ventura Village Crime and Safety Committee chair and property manager of nearby Ventura Flats as well as 2106 Elliot Ave., last month poured a sticky fluid on a knee-high brick wall where crackheads sit to smoke, bold as a goat in broad daylight, directly across from a sliding board and swings playground behind the PPL building.  They sneak in the back yard at 2100 to smoke, fellate and fornicate.  There’s a spot serving the same purposes behind Chicago Avenue’s Christian Fellowship Center, a modest little mission that contributes to the community by offering coffee and donuts Mondays, now and then a  free barbecue, shoes for next to nothing and, on Sundays, a place to come get religion. Do anything outdoors while the sun is up: after dark, it’s a no-man’s land, where anyplace tucked in off the sidewalk qualifies to have a quickie and you risk your life to as much as set foot on the block.
Jim Graham asks, “Where is the BLM movement?  Do not the lives of those black children matter?  90% of the children are black and Somali children.  I wish PPL would address the issue on the corner … as good landlords should.”
Joanne Kosciolek, vice president of Development & External Affairs at Project for Pride In Living, responds, “[The organization] has been concerned … for quite some time. We are engaged with the North Phillips Neighborhood Association to address these issues.”  She adds that in the meanwhile, measures PPL has taken include:  increased number of hours of off-duty police presence; cameras strategically located around the property; and beat cops walking in the neighborhood.
Jim Graham says, “Police have told me, though Council Member Cam Gordon denies it … they are ordered not to bother them.  They say [city and county attorneys] have made Hennepin County a ‘sanctuary’… and will not prosecute dealers [for] small amounts.  For this reason they do not bother with them and useless paperwork.  Their words, not mine.”  He adds, “I have called 911 when threatened.  Police did not come, even driving by, for over an hour, and then did not stop.”  A park police officer with whom I happened to speak in passing, said that the MPD has its hands basically tied by the courts doing catch-and-release, that soon as cops lock them  up, drug offenders are already on their way back to the same corner.  So, police officers don’t see a whole lot of point in wasting their time and energy.   Inspector Cathrine Johnson, who commands the 3rd Precinct, said, “What I do know is this—the police alone cannot create the lasting change necessary to completely transform distressed spaces. Lasting change requires lasting partnerships between the police, other criminal justice agencies, city leadership, neighborhood residents and businesses, and community organizations, to name just a few. The police certainly have a role to play, but no long-term solution is possible with the police alone. I also know that lasting change takes time—often more time than we would hope.”
Regarding the MPD’s extremely effective lightning strike of 2011, she notes, “[Those] efforts weren’t just about increased visible police presence. Those efforts began long before July 2011 and included long-term investigations into gang related crimes in and around Peavey Park, a coordinated effort to suggest design changes at Peavey Park, and collaborative partnerships with businesses, residents, neighborhood organizations, Park Police, Metro Transit Police, Hennepin County, and other Minneapolis city departments. Those efforts generated positive change  in the park and surrounding area. They did not eliminate crime. They also didn’t come to an end in July of 2011. Many of those efforts continue today in various ways. Peavey Park is a different place today than it was in July of 2011. We have seen some increases very recently in [drug and drug related] activity and we are working with our partners to address those increases. My plans for the future include finding new ways to build on our existing partnerships, continuing to conduct focused investigations into the street level narcotics activity fueling some of the other crime issues in the area, adding additional beat officers to the area, and remaining responsive to community concerns as patterns in the area change and evolve.”
The Minneapolis Police Department kicked ass and took names in summer 2011.  By that fall, as  Jim Graham and others who live in the area can readily relate, Peavey Park was on its way back to hell in a hand basket.  And stands to stay there.  For the foreseeable future and well beyond.