She and her husband, Terry, 61, a Butternut baker, have lived in their home on North Wisconsin Avenue for 30 years, and have seen the neighborhood fall into drug trafficking. The police suggested using the Armadillo.
That weekend, the truck pulled up to the offending neighbor's house. A police officer knocked on the door and told the residents a nuisance report had been filed. Within 24 hours, the Smiths say, the house was quiet. The occupants moved out soon thereafter.
"The difference was like night and day," Mrs. Smith says. The landlord, Phil Schertz, credits the Armadillo.
"The ugliness of the Armadillo is what makes it unique," says Jim Pasco, executive director of the National Fraternal Order of Police. "A police car is not a particular stigma, but if people see that thing in front of your house, they know something bad is going on in there."
It's parked in a public street, there's no wiretapping or looking in windows, and the only people it seems to annoy are the targets. Not a bad piece of thinking.
2 comments:
I hope that wasn't a real name and business they printed!
Very interesting idea, shame without the name!
Shame, schmame! The customers didn't want their pictures taken so they stayed away in droves. No customers, no business. I'll wager that a good percentage of drug users buying at these crack houses are upstanding, God fearing pillars of the community whose reputations are golden. I wonder how many Escalades and Lexuses are in now having the pucker holes in the driver's seats repaired.
Gerry N.
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