follow up on my 'neighbours' thread

[Chris McKaskell]

From 'My new neighbour: a dangerous felon. Help!'

http://forums.uechi-ryu.com/viewtopic.p ... sc&start=0

Great!

We bought in a desirable, albiet colourful little neighbourhood.

Our street is 100+ years old with both single and mutltiple family dwellings. Many are owner occupied. All in all it's been very peaceful in a pleasant, treelined-bullevard sort of way.

However, suddenly I find myself surrounded by people I suspect are crack heads and heroine adicts.

The house right next door seems to have turned into a flop house, and there appears to be a drug dealer living across the street.

This morning, around 7 AM, I noticed what looked like a drug deal going down across the street.

One of my neighbours had aready called the police who later explained that several of my new neighbours were known to them.

The police consider one of them to be particularly dangerous.

Apparently a near-by neighbourhood had recently been 'cleaned up' and all the undesireables have chosen to move in around me.

Call us when you need us -- other than that the police really didn't have any advice.

Hence this thread - I'm turning to my friends in the Uechi Community for a little help -- what do you think I should do? What would you do?

The thread gets a little derailed (imagine that) -- the important thing is that all the really bad guys got evicted and moved on.

BUT NO! It Turned out that one of them had some pretty serious mental health issues so the agency that looks after him took the landlord to court. It was ruled that the landlord was discriminating against the tenant because of his mental health issues and he was allowed to move back.

Back to square one and there goes the neighbourhood again. Fortunately we have relatively harsh winters here: so much of the stuff which would ordinarily be happenning out on the street went inside thanks to the cold and snow.

It got interesting again recently - around Christmas the fellow with the mental health issues was arrested for break and enter and having stolen property in his possession. He was held until the agency looking after him managed to negotiate have him released.

Then, last week, a neighbour witnessed and reported another drug deal. Police had already been investigating the fellow and his friends and ended up arresting 14 people for crimes including dealing, trafficking, possession of illegal drugs, possession of funds from dealing and others.

I'm curious to see if he gets out as easily again. Or does the justice system, at some point, take over from the agency. I suspect the agency will win out -- it is, after all, charged with upholding the rights of those who have not the capacity to uphold their rights themselves.

We Canadians can be pretty irrational at times about how much we fight for other people's rights -- I suspect the fellow will not be held responsible for his crimes, because of his mental health issues; and, in due course, he will be released again and be allowed to move back into his apartment as if nothing ever happened.

Just have to wait and see...

[Bill Glasheen]

Thanks for the update, Chris.

This reminds me a bit of a fellow I dealt with once. He was a paranoid schizophrenic who would decide when he did or did not want to take his meds. And whenever something bad happened, he'd pull the "mental disability" flag.

I had to deal with him because he at one time owned the dog that I rescued and adopted. Police who knew me and knew I was a martial artist would implore me to beat the $&^%&^ out of him when he'd do something stupid like commit a B&E to take the dog. I couldn't... even though I thought about it.

Then one day I was eating breakfast, and heard a news report. This fellow had ended up in prison. He had gotten belligerent with a prison guard, and got the ^&** beat out of him.

Keep at it, Chris. I wish you well.

- Bill

[Chris McKaskell]

Thanks Bill, I'll let you know if anything changes -- your situation sounds very similar: my guy is also a paranoid schizophrenic who doesn't always take his meds.

I understand that's pretty common.

Sad thing is there was once a happier place here for people like him, but back in the 80's many programs were cut and suddenly people who really could not look after themselves were released into regular communities.

Today they lead rather desparate lives filled with hunger, loneliness and want.

Based on what i've witnessed and on what I've learned by talking to people in the biz (police, and medical people mainly) -- people like my guy get picked up by dealers and gangs to do their courier work - because they are easy to manipulate and want to please people; also, they are already marginalized so they are disposable; they are not credible witnesses; and charges tend not to stick because of their condition.

Too bad really. He's at risk in so many different ways -- the street drugs he takes are destroying his health (clear to see); the gangs could kill him if he becomes a liability(who would notice?); many of his neighbours wish him harm (not that anyone would do anything so drastic); the police see him as a problem (no help there); and the fact that he doesn't take his meds makes him unpredictible around traffic (truly a sight to behold).

Since there are no longer programs for this sort of person jail might just be the safest place for him. I wonder how his caseworker views the situation.

[Chris McKaskell]

Well, he's out again and he's as beligerent as ever.

The snail-like speed at which the Canadian legal system sloughs along I figure he's only out on bail. I imagine he still has the B&E charges to contend with and the drug charges are quite recent so there's no way they've been resolved yet.

Perhaps he'll be found guilty and be sentenced.

Or maybe he'll mess up again and get arrested for something new.

His landlord is beside himself. Quite frustrating, really!

[Chris McKaskell]

as a large police officer dragged 'him' handcuffed from 'his' lair and placed 'him' in the waiting cruiser.

One of my neighbours plays hockey with the arresting officer and before 'he' was driven away the cruiser pulled up to our small group so the two of them could chat.

I don't know how long 'he'll' be gone this time, but there was a significant sense of celebration as the cruiser pulled away, and our pesence made it pretty clear how many of us do not welcome 'him' in our neighbourhood.

The momentary sense of solidarity was almost as fulfilling as seeing this bad guy being taken away by the authorities.

[Bill Glasheen]

Time wounds all heels.

- Bill

[IJ]

It's unfortunate that some mental illnesses sometimes cause violent impulses. Paranoid schizophrenia is one (but it's not common). The downside is that psychiatry gets involved in evaluating homicidality and aggressive and occasionally, people who are just thugs with antisocial personality disorder who belong in jail get shunted to psych eval and in the medical model they're absolved of responsibility and end up creating all sorts of trouble on locked wards and out in the community. Some programs pay to house and manage these thugs and or the "chronic public inebriates" on the grounds (no matter how often they use drugs / destroy the apartment) that letting them ****** up ER and inpatient dollars is ultimately more expensive, but tell that to the single parent with two kids who can't afford a home despite his/her best efforts.

Sigh.

Mental illness does a lot of things but it doesn't mandate that you become a drug dealer.

[Chris McKaskell]

So my troublesome neighbour is still in jail.

His apartment is sitting empty, but not vacant -- I noticed some workers clearing stuff out from his unit, but it looked more like garbage than furniture. I imagine when one is picked up by the authorities there's not much time allowed to clean up or take out the garbage. Perhaps other tennants complained about the smaell?? Anyway...

I was chatting with my neighbour, the jail guard, who said this fellow owed money to some bad guys and had been stealing stuff from other inmates and was looking at having a tough time inside because of it. Not much to be done about it since no one talks on the inside.

Man, talk about making some bad decisions and perpetuating a tough life.

I do feel some small sympathy, but I still don't want him living accross the street from me - ever - he was getting too aggressive and increasingly unpredictable.

The apartment is not available for rent yet so I'm guessing the agency that looks after him is still paying his rent. I wonder how long that will go on?

Now there's good use of tax payers' money!