2008 Woodie Awards
Homelessness, drug use increase near campus
Police presence in Boston Common and Public Garden heightened in response to public complaints
Darren Josey
Issue date: 9/22/05 Section: News
| |
| |
| |
|
This is a problem that appeared to worsen over the summer, some Emerson students said. Caitlin Joyce, a senior marketing communication major and captain of the women's soccer team, said she noticed more drug users and homeless people when she returned to school for pre-season on Aug. 24.
"I was very concerned because instead of Emerson students there were several groups of homeless-looking people outside of the LB [Little Building] discussing their drug deals," Joyce said. "Walking through [the Common] anytime of the day they were there."
Suffolk University Law student Alex Boyle said she witnessed some of the same changes. In the three years Boyle has lived in Boston, she said she has enjoyed walking or playing with her dogs in the Common after dark without incident. That changed on Sept. 7 when Boyle was approached as she walked home on an adjacent street to the Common and was asked if she needed any drugs.
"I was shocked," said Boyle, who called the police when she got home. "I've never had that happen to me before."
Boston Police officials said public complaints, crime statistics and research prompted them to increase patrols in the Common and Garden beginning in May.
"Plainclothes, uniformed, mounted [on horse] and foot-patrol officers have been utilized in the parks," Boston Police Spokesman Michael McCarthy wrote in an e-mail last Thursday. "And, as a result, drug arrests have doubled in that area since May. Officers have been making warrant arrests, drug arrests and public drinking arrests in the parks."
McCarthy said he could not specify what statistics prompted the heightened police visibility or the number of policemen patrolling the area.
Shannon Murphy, a sophomore marketing communication major, said she believes the more prominent police presence may have been prompted by a Boston Herald article published on Sept. 12. The article, which included several photographs of alleged drug users, chronicled drug abuse in the Common and Public Garden between the last week of August and first week of September.
The story came after the Herald printed a front-page photo of John P. Gagliardi Jr., 42 of Medford, injecting a fatal dose of heroin in the Public Garden on the afternoon of Aug. 25.
"It exposed [drug use] to the public and now it's in our face," Murphy said. "It could have been an insult to the cops because they weren't doing anything about it."
Sophomore new media major Chris Goodhue experienced the effect of patrolling policemen firsthand.
"We were in the park past 11 and a bike cop came up and told us to leave," Goodhue said.
Emerson Police Chief William McCabe said the students were asked to leave because of a rule that allows people to travel through the Common and Garden after 11 p.m. but prohibits them from loitering inside the park.
In addition to eliminating loiterers, police have also been seen forcing people who appear to be drug users to leave the park. McCabe said that although he empathizes with the Boston Police Department (BPD) and its need to clean up the area, he thinks it is unfair and dangerous to target people who look a certain way.
"You start picking and choosing and saying we don't want any people that look like derelicts-but that's against the First Amendment," McCabe said.
Jimmy, a Boston Police officer who requested he be identified by first name only, is one of the policemen stationed in the Common. He said the new patrol, known as Code 19, calls for one officer to patrol the Common for an hour before rotating with a different officer. This process continues hourly for a 24-hour period.
These patrols have increased the number of drug arrests in the Common and Garden, police said. Several students said this appeared to lower the amount of homeless individuals, drug dealers and users in the area. The city of Boston, however, must now deal with the eventual relocation of those same individuals, McCabe said.
"[The Boston Police Department] cleaned up Chinatown and then [drug dealers and users] had to go somewhere," McCabe said. "Where are they going to go next? I don't think they even know. Theatre District? South End? Esplanade?"
The issue of drug use has plagued downtown Boston for years, according to McCabe. The drug users who once frequented the area surrounding Emerson, once known as the "Combat Zone," were displaced because of Emerson College Police Department and BPD attention when Emerson moved to the Theatre District in the early 1990s.
McCabe said those drug dealers and users gravitated to Chinatown but were pushed out by the neighborhood watch and BPD surveillance cameras-initiatives that went into full swing on Aug. 1.
The drug culture has recently spilled over onto Emerson's campus, McCabe said. On Sept. 14, Emerson College Police Officer Ralph Fiore arrested a man who was found to be in possesion a hypodermic needle and a bag of heroin in his possession.
Moreover, an Emerson alum and bouncer at one of Lagrange Street's strip clubs, Centerfolds, said drug addicts are on the street everyday. The bouncer, who asked that his name not be used, said the drug problem revolves around St. Francis House, a homeless shelter located on Boylston Street.
During his three years as a bouncer working on the street known to many Emersonians as "Crack Alley," he sees drug dealers walking to the pay phones to make their calls to buy and sell drugs despite the addition of many multi-million dollar high rises. "A platinum toilet is still a toilet," the Centerfolds bouncer said.
Leah Bloom, a development communication associate for the St. Francis House, said the facility does its best to help those in need with housing, career, education and drug addiction counseling.
"Along with drug addiction comes many complex problems to which there is no one quick solution," Bloom said.
Bloom also said the shelter has expanded over the past year to increase its overall capacity for on-site housing. The expansion, which will allow for 80 more guests, should eliminate the lines of people waiting outside of St. Francis House, Bloom said.
"[St. Francis House] is constantly building out our space to better accommodate," Bloom said. "Above all, we want everyone to be safe."