{"id":182,"date":"2015-11-11T15:44:47","date_gmt":"2015-11-11T20:44:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/herkimerpost.com\/?p=182"},"modified":"2018-10-04T15:03:10","modified_gmt":"2018-10-04T19:03:10","slug":"drug-trafficking-on-herkimers-slumlord-row-videos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/herkimerpost.com\/index.php\/2015\/11\/11\/drug-trafficking-on-herkimers-slumlord-row-videos\/","title":{"rendered":"Drug Trafficking On Herkimer’s Slumlord Row [VIDEOS]"},"content":{"rendered":"

A guest posting by Stephen Ames Berry<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Satellite<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s grown\u00a0 quieter here on Herkimer’s Pleasant Avenue. Several of our more noxious druggie neighbors have moved,\u00a0 one fleeing in the night, allegedly scant hours ahead of child protection authorities. (CPS’ taking of kids on Pleasant Avenue is no rarity. )<\/p>\n

The 24\/7 fast-food drive-thru\u00a0 pace of traffic to and from 333 Pleasant Avenue<\/a> has fallen off. We’ve had no arson or death threats or mob menacing since June.\u00a0 No one’s tried to kill our dog recently. Several of Pleasant Avenue’s more responsible landlords, aware we were besieged,\u00a0 have come down hard on their drug trafficking tenants.\u00a0 (Thank you, folks), and code enforcement of Pleasant Avenue’s abundant Section 8 rentals has acquired teeth under Herkimer Mayor Tony Brindisi. Our surveillance cameras have also helped lessen daytime criminal activity after several malicious trespassers<\/a> and slanderous harassers,<\/a> drug trafficking’s skirmishers, were publicly embarrassed on the Internet. The street is now as quiet as it should have been when we moved here 18 months ago. It’s seems almost pleasant.<\/p>\n

And had it always been this peaceful, we’d be content.\u00a0 But it wasn’t. Some of our criminalistic\u00a0 neighbors felt empowered to try to terrorize us, having no idea who we are or who we know.\u00a0 (I’ll be writing a series about these outrages on my muckraking blog<\/a>.) Unfortunately, the most depraved of Pleasant Avenue’s drug thugs<\/a> are still here, brought to heel for now, but awaiting their opportunities. There’s a sense of red eyes glowering from porches when I walk past some houses. Sadly, there’s compelling evidence that the illicit economy supporting Herkimer’s drug scrotes<\/a> is still bustling,\u00a0 its business model changed from that of brazen 24\/7 retail pickups to stealthy nighttime deliveries.\u00a0 It’s aided and abetted by Herkimer’s Section 8 slumlords, who’ve helped make Pleasant Avenue a drug dealers’ haven.<\/p>\n

If It Walks Like A Duck… Drug Trafficking Watch –\u00a0 Pleasant Avenue, Herkimer : 10\/23 – 10\/24 2015
\n<\/strong>Despite the falloff in retail pickups, Herkimer’s Pleasant Avenue still needs a traffic cop: 162 significant motion events in 24 hours caught on video, and 113 in the 12 hours from 1730 – 0530. This is a small residential street in a village on the Mohawk. On parallel Eureka Avenue, one could safely consume a six-pack at high noon on a chaise lounge mid-street and never be bothered by a car.\u00a0 So, what’s up? We’re not the road to New York Turnpike. No wonder the street had to be repaved.<\/p>\n

Analysis of our street camera feed for the 12 hours from 1730 to 0530 on October 23 – 24th shows 29 significant motion events at or related to 333 Pleasant Avenue<\/em>,\u00a0 tenanted by Joyce and Douglas Barton, another 24+ issuing from the parking lot of 232 – 234 Pleasant Avenue<\/em>, and 11 in and from the driveway of 335 Pleasant Avenue<\/em>. There’s also much coming and going from 328 Pleasant Avenue<\/em>, despite the recent best efforts of its owner. The peak period was from 1854 to 0302. These are the classic signs of a drug neighborhood.<\/a><\/p>\n

Significant events<\/em> means vehicles and people arriving and departing frequently from an address, in this case 333 Pleasant Avenue.\u00a0 If Pleasant Avenue were a drug trafficking street, 333 Pleasant Avenue with its short visits and frequent dispatches of vehicles would be its heart of darkness. In addition to arrivals and departures from Joyce and Douglas Barton’s, after dark there were at least 11 incidents\u00a0 of\u00a0 vehicles exiting or entering the driveway adjacent to the Barton’s at 335 Pleasant Avenue. (See satellite image, above.<\/a>) Also late in the evening and early morning,\u00a0 vehicles entered and left the driveway across the street from the Barton’s at least 24 times. Always the same two vehicles,\u00a0 coming and going from the parking lot behind 332 and 334 Pleasant Avenue.\u00a0332 Pleasant Avenue is currently vacant. All three are rental properties of Herkimer landlord Jay Smith. (Jay Smith owns a critical mass of\u00a0 houses on Pleasant Avenue, according to the Herkimer County tax rolls<\/a>.)<\/p>\n