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Re: Questionable Areas on Long Island

Posted by GP38/R42 Chris on Tue Aug 11 20:36:53 2009, in response to Re: Questionable Areas on Long Island, posted by LuchAAA on Tue Aug 11 20:07:14 2009.

Wyandanch Seeks U.S. Help in Fighting Crime
By PETER MARKS,
Published: Thursday, October 7, 1993



Desperate for help in waging a war they fear they are losing, civic leaders turned today to a top Federal law-enforcement official for aid in ridding this community of drug dealers and prostitutes.

Zachary Carter, the new United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, walked the streets of Wyandanch, seeking to learn more about the community and determine if Federal officials can do anything to help. Local leaders said they could not remember a United States Attorney visiting their community before.

"I'm just trying to get as much information as I can," said Mr. Carter, who was sworn in last week. Standing next to a vacant lot that the police say dealers frequently use to sell drugs, he told reporters that he wanted to explore possible avenues of cooperation with state and local law-enforcement agencies to fight drugs.

In the war on drugs, few Long Island communities are as close to the front lines as this beleaguered hamlet in western Suffolk County. Each night, residents say, drug dealers and prostitutes prowl parking lots and sidewalks along Straight Path, Wyandanch's main street, and the sound of gunfire can be heard.

"I'm talking gunshots all night," said Daria Cooper, head of Wyandanch Entrepreneurial Development Inc., a nonprofit group that is seeking to buy and renovate a rundown block of stores on Straight Path. "There are so many pushers on the street at night that if you are not buying from them, they come and jump you."

Earlier this year, the Suffolk County police increased their patrols in the area, setting up a substation on Straight Path in a 48-foot trailer that was donated by the Town of Babylon, where Wyandanch is located. Babylon officials, meanwhile, have been stepping up efforts to shut the estimated 20 to 30 crack houses in the area, using zoning and sanitation codes to condemn houses where repeated drug arrests have been made.

Inspector Thomas Compitello, commanding officer of the Suffolk Police Department's First Precinct, which includes Wyandanch, said that in residential neighborhoods, using housing laws to close crack houses can be more effective than making arrests. But condemnation also has drawbacks, he said, explaining that drug dealers evicted from one house often move to another in the area.

Local civic leaders say that while they appreciate any increase in enforcement, the measures taken so far have not stopped the pushers and the prostitutes. For one thing, they say, the substation is only staffed for a couple of hours a day.

"Two hours a day is not enough for this substation to be open," said the Rev. Michael Talbert, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Wyandanch. What it has accomplished, he said, is to "make a difference in one area for two hours a day."

Mr. Carter, whose office has jurisdiction over Long Island and the boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island, said he was not certain what kind of assistance his office could provide. But he added he wanted to examine some of the differences in state and Federal law, to determine if any Federal statutes carried stiffer criminal or civil penalties that might be applied to low-level traffickers.

Local leaders said they were pleased that Mr. Carter had accepted their invitation to tour the community, but would wait to see if anything concrete came of the visit. "It means something to me that he came out to see," Ms. Cooper said.