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Sunday, February 24, 2008

Publicize names of North Side drug dealers?

Donald Eugene Jackson, drug dealer,
accused of murdering a cyclist in
South Minneapolis.

I had a great conversation with another guy who is interested in
buying a house on the North Side, but frets about all the crime.
We talked about the idea of a website or blog that might post
the names of individuals arrested for and accused of drug
dealing on the North Side.

Personally, I feel there is too much emphasis on "shutting
down the corner stores" where drug dealers hang out.
Why vent fury at the store owners, who are forced to
make do with the situation because, after all, the police
aren't going to be showing up to constantly bust the
dealers or protect the stores. So what do the owners
do? They do the best they can.

When the stores get shut down, what do we have? An
empty store and the dealers just shift to another
location. Sure, one should deal harshly with stores
that sell, for example, glass pipes. That's not "making
do" that's becoming part of the problem.

I heard there was a live radio show asking listeners
"what are the locations on the North Side where
drug dealers can always be found?" But why
focus on locations or stores? FOCUS ON THE
DEALERS THEMSELVES.

The police department should post their names
and faces on a website, like the St. Paul police
department does with prostitution... so much of
which takes place in and around Frog Town,
where I currently make my home, such as it
is. Heaven knows the website isn't updated very
often, but they do get around to it every month
or few months.

So the police posting the names and faces would
be the best option. Second best option would be
a media entity, like these foaming at the chops
right wing hot talk radio wing nuts. I don't see
eye-to-eye with 'em on most things, but this
might be a place where I could find a lot of
common ground.

Third best choice? Somebody like me. Somebody
like me could collect the names...photos would
be harder...and post them. But it's "third best"
for the following reasons:

1.) Not as official as the police, not as much easy
assess to the info. The police would be the best
ones to pull off such a project, if they would put
time and effort into it. Seems like such websites
have a tendency to be announced with fanfare
but then quickly fall into being out of date and
not maintained well.

2.) Not as "high profile" as a police website or
a media entity.

So, at present, I think the best thing I can do is
urge the idea, air the idea, and promote the idea
of a website or blog that would publicize the
identities (including addresses) of accused drug
dealers.

And, of course, they'd only be "accused." Yeah,
well, the website could make that clear. Like
TJ Waconia is only ACCUSED of mortgage
fraud, and we're all just waiting for the other
shoe to drop.

1 comment:

  1. Spam rejected for a website about how to make glass pipes and bongs. Nice try, spammers.

    ReplyDelete

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