Police Chief Joe Scarabino approached the Pastors and lay members at last week's meeting of the Wellsville Area Ministerial Association (WAMA) to “implore” them for their help and assistance. Scarabino said he is asking for help with an endeavor he would like to undertake and would feel assured the message would get out tenfold by joining forces with WAMA.
Scarabino said the amount of selling and use of drugs in the Village is “very,very disturbing”. As an example he cited one individual that lives in town with a 19 page criminal history. Because of non-disclosure laws the Chief was not able to name that individual but noted this is just one example of what Wellsville law enforcement is up against. In his case file he stated that there are files on at least three known drug dealers living in the village.
The Chief told the members of WAMA that illicit drugs “is a supply and demand ordeal. As long as the demand is there the supplier will be ever present”. He proposed “a night out in Wellsville, a prayer night to pray for the eradication of drugs and violence that is currently in our village”. Noting that the Wellsville police are working diligently toward this goal the department just doesn't have the numbers to effectively deal with everything. He is hoping to get at least 100 volunteers with police escorts to take about an hour some evening going around town praying against drugs and all the ill it causes.
Scarabino asked that the ministers mention his endeavor from their pulpits. In the meantime he will be formulating plans and hopefully will have something ready to put into motion by next month. Scarabino said he will attend next month's WAMA meeting to put those plans into motion. Scarabino concluded his plea saying with the encouragement he has gotten from some pastors he already spoke to he “feels he is stepping in the precipice of setting down a no tolerance law for the eradication of the drugs and violence that's in our streets.”
WAMA meets the second Tuesday of every month at 9 AM at Tonda's Place in the 4th Street Square. The next meeting is scheduled for November 8. The meetings are open to the public as well as any area member of the clergy.
ole nib
17 comments:
It good to see the Chief taking some kind of action against the drug activity in our village. We know who they are and they need to know that they are being watched.The school district is now doing their part with the drug testing and it is about time the police are taking a more active role in drug prevention.
Its a good start, its been proven the more ppl get involved in their community the drugs and crime go down. I wonder what the rest of the Chief's plans are to get rid of the drugs and hooligans?
You have got to be kidding me! If he didn't spend all day in the office thinking up words like "precipice" and "eradication" he could be out on the streets helping put these "3" drug dealers we have in jail.
i wonder if he's going to give this same plan to the newspapers to publish? and, as for disclosure laws, he could put that guy's name and record on here or in the newspapers and nothing could be done about it. Its all public record.
That's why he wanted Dave Anderson back.
I think the point that the Chief is trying to make that so many miss, is that it takes ALOT more than law enforcement to beat the drug trade/dealers in any area. It takes a community as a whole. The users in this area are in the hundreds, more than likely more. and the dealers aren't the only problem. As he said as long as there are users, there will always be a new dealer to replace them .. It also takes a community to pull together not once, not twice, but every single day for as long as it takes to not only let the dealers and users know WE KNOW who you are and are not afraid, but keep our ground and show them that this is OUR village.. And remember it never hurts to talk to those whom you know that may use to seek help in some form. Addiction is a very hard thing to beat on your own. Remember, some of those users "USE" to be our friends, neighbors, co-workers, even relatives. Help them help themselves. One person at a time and sooner or later the dealers have no business left.
I find it interesting that in surrounding towns the local PD's with the help of the Drug Task Force often conduct raids and arrest drug dealers. I know that it does take awhile to build your case against the dealers, but come on Wellsville PD, if we all know where the drug activity is taking place,surely you know too.
A year or so ago we heard of a similar situation that took place in Simi, CA. To clean up the drug problem they had the police join forces with their community's ministers and their congregations. It didn't happen over night but it worked very effectively. With their grass roots campaign they cleaned up their drug program out there. The preachers charged their flocks to join in the fight against illicit drugs. It started the ball rolling. They opened a lot of eyes of those in denial. The congregants carried the message home to their families, etc. Some found out it could happen to them or their loved ones.
You lock up one dealer there will be another one to fill the vacancy. T. Brown is correct - as long as there are users there will be someone willing to take their money.
The area churches and their members are probably the largest "special interest" group in the tri-state area. It doesn't matter what denomination it is. Collectively all those believers can put up a very effective fight against that "demon". That demon will eventually be the ruin of us all if it's ignored and not dealt with.
Kudos to the Chief for starting that ball rolling...
nib
Now that its getting cooler out the drug activity at our childrens local playground has decreased some. But i do see those whom was the leaders of the pack down there now have a drivers licenses so they spend there time cruising the town with CARLOADS of kids/children..HINT HINT..Come on everyone, wake up.
I think alot of people think of drugs mostly as crack, pot. meth. etc.. but most dont even think about the most common and easiest drugs to get on the street are Over The Counter(OTC).. Vicodin, percocet, oxycodone, valuim, xanax to name a few.. So many of these OTC drugs are circulating in our village and every other town and I believe are becoming more popular than some of the harsher seeming drugs, because of the availability of them. I've actually met people who drink alot of cough syrup to get a high. WOW. there are so many things to watch for that are right in front of us. That is why ours and every town needs to crack down on these things. There is no single solution and no overnight fix. But communities that stand and work together have a better chance of survival against it growing. Here is a website that I found while I was looking up some of the OTC drugs..
teenoverthecounterdrugabuse.com
we need to get all the out of towners that sell to the kids out of here- drum them out of town
Why is Wellsville crime hardly ever reported to the local paper? People need to know what goes on. i also have never seen a place where you ccan't walk into the station. it is like fort knox there. If you had to go there for help it would be not good and it does not create a friendly or helpful interaction with the tax payers. Lastly, similar ideas have been given to the chief who always chose to ignor them.
We can't answer for the Chief but we do know that the Police station is not manned 24/7, even doing regular business hours. There are police officers on duty 24/7 but not always in the station.
nib
Just read in the paper where Toronto arrested 6 people on drug charges with the help of the sheriff and drug task force. Why can't this happen in Wellsville ?
Rarely do we ever have drug arrests unless we just happen upon someone with drugs. Come on Chief do your job !
We think a lot of that is because of our County Prosecutor, who seems reluctant to go to trial unless they have a slam-dunk case.
Secondly is the county budget. Our Sheriff's Dept. is operating with bare bones funding and that consequently has a negative affect on the Drug Task Force staffing.
Lastly, we wouldn't be surprised if Wellsville was low on the list of priorities for the DTF since we were forced to pull our officer out. With the Village financial woes Wellsville couldn't afford to fund an officer to be a full time DTF officer.
At any rate that is what we are guessing is three of the main causes.
nib
Nib, I'm guessing that the WPD is scared and the crackslingers are glad of it! I mean, seriously, all they would need to do is hang out at certain spots and pull over people leaving these suspected drug houses. It wouldn't take long before somebody caught with drugs would roll over on the dealers. It has nothing to do with the county prosecutor....the prosecutor needs the police to get some evidence, why don't they go gather it? It's easier to chase after school kids than the gun-toting crackslingers...
Not to denegrate from the importance of the clergy in town, but are you kidding me? It's not the churches' responsibility to drive this scum out of our town-- it's the police department's and the agressiveness and tone of the campaign to do so starts with the Chief.
My parents have lived here since 1968 and my mother can sit on her front porch and count about eight drug dealers in business in my old neighborhood, which used to be a nice neighborhood once.
You'd think with all of the trouble East Liverpool police went through a few years ago at the University Club with the drug crowd from New Jersey, bells and buzzers would be going off with our police force when you see nine different New Jersey license plates over the last six months coming to town every other weekend and parking right on Main Street across from our very own nuisance bar. Maybe there's a perfectly good explanation for this, but I was brought up with the notion that if it looks like fish, smells like fish and tastes like fish--it's probably fish!
And we have a drug enforcement dog? What are they afraid of--that the dog will O.D.?
We aren't talking about criminal masterminds here. If you call in a tip, all you get for a response is "We're watching them..." How much evidence do you need? This isn't Al Capone you're dealing with. The longer it goes on, the more scumbags show up to set up shop here.
It's time the police in this town take off the blinders, get off their fifth point of contact and do something about this problem; instead of sitting up on Route 7 with half of the on-duty police force worried about giving out speeding tickets to honest working people going back and forth to work to pay their wages.
For my two cents they're either too incompetent, too lazy or in on it.
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