Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, November 24, 1995 TAG: 9511240055
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DIANE STRUZZI STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The writing is on the wall in this Northwest Roanoke neighborhood. Literally.
The graffiti spell out obscenities and threats to police. They proclaim the establishment of a group called the 11 Street Hustlers.
"This is their newspaper," said Bob Jones, president of Peoples Electronics Supply Inc., which has a storefront painted over by the vandals.
For four months, the scrawls on his and other properties have greeted motorists, customers and residents of the 11th Street area. To some, the writings are just a reminder of the neighborhood's burdens - drug dealing, prostitution, vandalism.
"The graffiti is a billboard saying this is a wide-open place and you can do what you want to here," said Earl Rogers, president of Rent-Alls, the company that owns one of the defaced buildings. "You can buy drugs, find prostitution - I find prophylactics in the parking lot."
The spray-painted words at 11th Street and Moorman Avenue are a visual testament to the tug-of-war between the neighborhood and those who want to deface it.
Walk around the corner to a lot filled with truck trailers, and there's a mural of threats to the city's vice bureau.
On 11th Street, the graffiti are directed at the Police Department's Community Oriented Policing Effort, which began patrolling the area in April. Within the first couple of months, the officers made 41 crack and marijuana arrests. "It's their way of telling us, 'We're not giving you this area,''' said Sgt. Butch Steahly of the COPE unit.
Perseverance can be successful. In this case it was.
In July, when COPE organized a group of residents and business owners to paint over the existing graffiti, the vandals returned 10 days later, posting their reply.
COPE didn't disregard it. Rather, they arrested the three juveniles and one adult who vandalized the property. Someone in the neighborhood had seen them painting the graffiti and called police. Police considered the fact that someone cared enough to call a major accomplishment.
Each of the defendants was convicted of defacing property, given a 30-day suspended jail sentence and ordered to paint over the graffiti. That is supposed to happen within the first two weeks of December, Steahly said.
COPE, which usually patrols five Roanoke housing projects, moved into 11th Street and the Melrose Avenue area because of the high number of patrol calls.
"I think there's been an improvement," said Lawrence Hamlar, president of Hamlar-Curtis Funeral Home, which has been in the neighborhood more than 40 years. "Things are much neater ... less loitering, less trashing. But we can do better."
A neighborhood organization sent Mayor David Bowers a petition in October signed by 65 business owners and residents. The letter declared their commitment to cleaning up their neighborhood and making it one to be proud of.
Getting the community to work together was a major step in fighting problems in the neighborhood, Steahly said.
"We can go in and clean up an area," he said, "but if we don't leave something there to keep it going, it's gone."
by CNB