Ft. Worth Police Officer tries to trample on my liberties - says "You can't take pictures." What?

I was driving through my neighborhood in West Meadowbrook early one Saturday morning and noticed yet another crime scene at an East Lancaster bar in City Council District 8, East Ft. Worth. Stopped and spoke with some neighbors who were looking over at the scene. I asked what happened, they told me someone was murdered. I drove around to take pictures so that I could post it here on Morning Coffee, Evening Wine blog site. I got out of my car and started snapping shots to prove that no matter how much Mayor Pro Tem Kathleen Hicks and the leaders of West Meadowbrook Neighborhood Association like to ignore the fact that this neighborhood is crime filled, crime does happen here more than any other Council District in this great City of Fort Worth! The Fort Worth police officer says, "Hey, what are you doing, you can't take pictures, this is a crime scene!" I said, "Yes, I can, what law says I can't! What is your badge number?" Since I live, and own a business, in one of the worst areas of Fort Worth, I deal with the Fort Worth police force probably more than any of you reading this blog post. I see the side of the Department that not many see. I feel it is my duty and purpose to report what I see and experience. It is wrong for any police officer to abuse their power and I have seen it more than once or twice and everytime I see it, it makes me wish that my business could afford the luxury of a manager so that I could run for office and speak up for the taxpayers who pay the salaries of the entire police force and who continue to elect people to office who aren't doing their jobs well. No matter what people call me, I think the truth should be dealt with in an effective, open, efficient manner. It Fort Worth politics, I feel the truth is hidden, covered up, ignored and unspoken. I did report this officer and to my knowledge, the officer has been questioned and taught a lesson.

Another West Meadowbrook Murder on East Lancaster, Council District 8 East Ft. Worth

"The pair had been smoking crack late Tuesday and got into an argument at the Luxury Inn, 2108 E. Lancaster Ave., said Sgt. Pedro Criado, police spokesman"

http://www.star-telegram.com/804/story/1203824.html

Please help me unseat the current City Councilwoman, Kathleen Hicks. She is too busy seeing how many Boards of Directors she can add to her resume while the crime in our neighborhoods and business districts go untouched. Her District has had the highest crime of all the Council Districts in Ft. Worth her entire tenure of 3+ years on the Council! Shame on her!

I can do better! I can work harder, smarter and with better results!

Please donate to my campaign at http://www.suzetteforcouncil.com/

(Political Advertisement authorized by Suzette Watkins)

Once again, The Ft. Worth Police Department Fails (at the Taxpayer's expense)

For three years now, I have been spending hundreds of my personal volunteer hours doing the job that my opponent should be doing so that people like me, who live and/or work in City Council District 8, East Ft. Worth, can live, work, play and/or retire in a safe, clean, prosperous neighborhood in this great, beautiful City of Fort Worth.

I have sent countless emails to my City Council representative, Kathleen Hicks and other City Reps, spoken on the phone countless times with 911 operators, & Shift Supervisors, spoken personally with many beat police officers, Lieutenants, Captains, Sergeants, visited with many business owners around this Neighborhood, gone downtown to meetings about this issue with my Council Rep, gone to the Police Forums, gone to Town Hall meetings for the District, have even shown up at a few Neighborhood Association meetings, worked on Committees with the Mayors Advisory Commission on Homelessness, even pleaded with the Police Department to ENFORCE the criminal trespass law --10% of the time, they have enforced it.

I agree, Homelessness is not a crime; however, criminal trespassing is a crime.

Case and point: After much hard work, I got the District Attorney's office to approve me as a representative for my business neighbor's private property so that I could serve as the complainant on the Criminal Trespass warning that has to be written before one can be taken to jail for Criminal Trespassing. This letter, which I have faxed to the Captains that work this Division, authorizes the officers to issue a warning to perpetrators of the Criminal Trespass law. If the individual is caught on the property a second time, he/she goes to jail.

This tool works lovely because 99% of the individuals don't want to go to jail. It interrupts their druggin and drinking, so....they stay away from the area where they were given a Trespass Warning.

Problem is.....we as Business Owners on E. Lancaster cannot get the Ft. Worth Police Department to consistently enforce the law.

I called two nights ago on 4 people criminally trespassing on private business, posted property and requested that the Officers follow procedure and give me a copy of the trespass warning. Officers came out and did not issue a Criminal Trespass Warning. Nevermind that they gave tickets for drinking near a shelter, that's not the point. The perpetrators should have been issued a Criminal Trespass Warning along with their ticket for drinking w/in 1000 feet of a shelter.

The reasons that I have been given are the same reasons I've been given 100 times before: officer forgot, officers didn't know they were suppose to, officers aren't aware of the procedure, the Divisions are different now and we don't know the history, etc.

I have asked, pleaded, begged, along with several other Business Owners around E. Lancaster and we get NO CONSISTENT RESULTS!

What we do get is lip service from the Ft. Worth Police Department's Big Shots...(the ones who we taxpayers pay hard earned tax dollars to manage & lead their part of the deparment and to make sure the the communication flows up and down the Department) that there will be "zero tolerance" that there will be "community this and community that," I say that 50% of that talk has been nothing but BS! (Here in Texas, that means Bull Shit!)

I say, it's time that the people of District 8 elect a representative to the City Council office that really does give two hoots about what goes on in this District, someone that will actually advocate for, and expect change, someone that will hold all of those Captains, Lieutenants, Sergeants of the Police force (whose salary is paid by the taxpayers) accountable to their words, someone that will actually get her hands dirty and not go along to get along in the bureaucratic game of politics nor go along to get along for fear of ruffling feathers in the name of personal political gain.

http://www.suzetteforcouncil.com/

http://www.suzetteforcouncil.com/donate.html

Why would you hang out all day & night at a Convenience Store?

The Good Neighbor friendly owner of this corner store has gone to the trouble to put up those shiny metal plates on the black post in order to keep vagrants from sitting there and passing the time, dealing drugs, drinking beer, smoking crack, loitering, and various other past times on his property. He also does not sell the 40oz. fortified alcoholic beverages which greatly helps the habitual drunkards from hanging around his business which greatly helps this intersection of E. Lancaster & Riverside from looking as filthy, unsafe & infested with criminal activity as it has looked in the recent past.

Another City Council District 8 - East Lancaster/East Ft. Worth/West Meadowbrook Neighborhood Crime

"A woman was sexually assaulted in an east Fort Worth parking lot by a man who supposedly was going to help her after her car broke down, police said."

http://www.star-telegram.com/804/story/1170884.html?mi_pluck_action=comment_submitted&qwxq=5581276#Comments_Container

East Ft. Worth suspected Killer had past Criminal History

"According to Texas Department of Criminal Justice officials, Coulter was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 1994 on an aggravated robbery conviction out of Amarillo. He was paroled in August 2004, after serving almost 10 years, and his sentence completed in February 2007.
Tarrant County court records and Fort Worth police reports show Coulter had two misdemeanor convictions in 2008 for assault with bodily injury – one involving a 61-year-old male victim and the other a 52-year-old female family member. In both cases, Coulter was sentenced to 60 days in jail."

http://www.star-telegram.com/229/story/1127459.html

How many times have I said that our elected officials must start to CHANGE the way we punish criminals. Especially, first time, non-violent offenders, drug offenders, Misdemeanor offenders, etc. Putting criminals in a room for a period of time and expecting them to be a changed person when the door is open is a waste of millions of our tax dollars.

Help me get elected to the District 8 City Council seat and you will see an outspoken working girl for the people. You will see someone advocating for DIFFERENT ways of conducting business in our City Hall, jails, municipal courts, county jails, state prisons, neighborhood homeless shelters, neighborhood motels, police department staff duties and accountabilities, neighborhood associations, etc. With a seat on the Council, I will be better able to directly influence CHANGE for the taxpayers, the homeless population, the criminal population, the non-profit businesses....everybody! Everybody is somebody in District 8 and everybody needs some accountability thrown their way. What we do in government MUST work for the people....the taxpayers....the owners of government!

http://www.suzetteforcouncil.com/

www.meetup.com/suzette-watkins

www.youtube.com/suzetteforcouncil

When Government doesn't listen to the people this is what happens

it ends up taking much longer for things to improve, much longer for businesses to thrive, much longer before the tax revenue is increased to its potential, many more lives lost and on and on and on. I know for the past 3 years I, along with Mike Phipps, Flora Brewer and others, have been pleading with my City Council representative, Kathleen Hicks and Mayor Moncrief to do something about the drug business and criminal activity along E. Lancaster by the homeless shelters and on down into the neighborhoods of East Ft. Worth. Asking that they provide more treatment beds, accountability and stop the revolving door in the jails. Finally, as their re-election season is slowly coming around and they are hearing the same words from people in the influential political circles to do something about it, seems that may be taking some action.

On another note, yesterday at the joint meeting with the Gas Drilling Task Force and City Council, we heard several times, experts tell the members, and members admit, that time is not on their side with cleaning up the environmental damage that they have, and are, allowing the gas drilling operators to do to our air quality. Perhaps if our local government, including Neighborhood Associations, would have listened to the concerned citizens about environmental issues with drilling that were raised years ago, studied the issue like they study other things such as Modern Street cars, our air quality would be much better and we could wholeheartedly believe Mayor Moncrief when he so emphatically says that "Quality of Life has always been a top priority here in this City and will continue to be."

http://westandclear.com/2008/10/01/joel-burns-streetcar-blogging/
http://www.star-telegram.com/news/story/974464.html
http://www.star-telegram.com/news/story/968503.html

Sycamore Creek Bridge

In attempting to get some revitalization going in East Ft. Worth, about 1 mile east of downtown off E. Lancaster Ave (State Hwy 180), I'm hoping to convince Kathleen Hicks (City Councilperson for the area) and Marc Veasey (State Rep) to obtain some money for restoring and beautifying Sycamore Creek Bridge, Sycamore creek bed with some lighting, bike trails that connect to Trinity Trails and a bike lane for East Lancaster. I noticed yesterday, that this bridge was part of the Works Progress Administration of 1935:

( "work program for the unemployed that was created in 1935 under U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. While critics called the WPA an extension of the dole or a device for creating a huge patronage army loyal to the Democratic Party, the stated purpose of the program was to provide useful work for millions of victims of the Great Depression and thus to preserve their skills and self-respect. The economy would in turn be stimulated by the increased purchasing power of the newly employed, whose wages under the program ranged from $15 to $90 per month.")

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/648178/Works-Progress-Administration

The beginning of this request will be today at the Lancaster East Business Association meeting - see post below for details.

Lancaster East Business Association (LEBA)

LEBA's purpose is to promote revitalization and gentrification of the East Lancaster Business Corridor. We are poor and don't have big money backing us or our area of the City so we really need concerned Fortworthians to please attend this important meeting Tuesday, April 29th at 2pm and voice your vision to the City of Ft. Worth planning department who is suppose to be in attendance to listen. Our Association's boundaries are from I35 (really Riverside due to West of 287 being Near Eastside Urban Village) to Beach Street only.

Meeting will be held in the small chapel of the Salvation Army 1855 E. Lancaster just east of Riverside Dr.

All interested people are welcome. Please come share your thoughts & ideas with the City and help us get something going over here just east of the beautiful and energetic downtown Ft. Worth.

A few of my ideas/thoughts are:

1. Beautify Sycamore Creek Bridge and the creek bed to include bike trails that connect to the Trinity Trails.

2. Get rid of the nasty motel/hotels and put in mixed use zoning in those areas.

3. Create bike riding lanes from downtown to at least, Sycamore Creek.

Friday tour of scenes in East Fort Worth

Bush signs Second Chance Act into law..will it help homelessness in Ft. Worth?

"The Second Chance Act is designed to help reduce the number of convicted felons who become repeat offenders by funding job and literacy training, substance-abuse treatment, counseling, education, housing and mentoring services for ex-offenders upon their release."

http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080409/NEWS/80409054/1006

According to the founder of Tarrant County Re-Entry Services and the local police officers that work the beat around ALL of the homeless shelters in the City of FW (East Ft. Worth-- not a good decision by Mayor & City Council years ago), we can count on 99% of the "chronically homeless" individuals that roam the streets of E. Lancaster and other parts as being x-convicts. Hopefully, the City of Ft. Worth and Tarrant County will ask for funds to "help" people get integrated with society and become self sustaining legally as opposed to continuing a life of crime in order to put money in their pockets. Notice that "housing" is not the first, second or third on the list in this article unlike our City government who say that "housing" is first priority. That's hogwash in my opinion and makes no sense long term.

Is there really a "need" for Permanent Supportive Housing in Fort Worth?

Below is from the City's 10 year homeless plan:

"FORT WORTH NEED

Using Tarrant County’s 2007 PIT data to determine the size and demographics of the homeless
population, we have been able to develop an annual estimate of homeless households and the need for
permanent supportive housing. The PIT (point in time) report contains two key pieces of information:

1) a total point-intime
count of homeless persons and

2) self-reported characteristics of the homeless persons that
completed PIT surveys.

Based on Tarrant County’s 2007 PIT, CSH estimates that at a single point-in-time, Fort Worth has:
• 2,878 homeless persons or approximately 1,548 homeless households3 and,
• Of those surveyed, 36% are in shelters, 7% are outdoors (unsheltered), and 56% are in transitional
housing and all are in need of permanent housing ,
• 19% have been homeless for more than one year and 18% were homeless four or more times in
the past 3 years, and
• Approximately 53% of homeless persons surveyed have potentially chronic and disabling
conditions that would call for supportive services to remain stably housed.
o 26% report a mental illness and of those 36% believe their mental health condition limits
their ability to live on their own,
o 23% report a permanent physical disability,
o 9% report testing positive for HIV4,
o 23% report chemical dependency issues and of those 17% report chemical dependency as
a contributing factor to their homelessness, and
o 17% report a problem with alcohol dependency and of those 11% report alcohol
dependency as a contributing factor to their homelessness."

http://www.fortworthgov.org/PlanningandDevelopment/info/default.aspx?id=48530&linkidentifier=id&itemid=48530

IMO, No there is not a need yet, in Fort Worth for more subsidized public housing units and just because other major cities are doing it doesn't mean it works long term or erradicates chronic homelessness. It just means that Mayor Mike Moncrief and Otis Thornton aren't willing to think outside of the box and try something different, even on a small scale. They don't really want to "invest" in long term solutions. They want to do what everyone else is doing and hurry and put up some walls and say, "look what we did." While year after year the taxpayers will be footing the bill for more and more and more subsidized public housing because the "need" will continue to grow until you do something different, think outside the box and invest in people's mental and emotional health, which BTW, includes tough love and paying consequences for their actions and choices. What Fort Worth needs are:

1. Central Resource Facility - with all the contacts for services that are necessary for homeless and the 20% of homeless who are diagnosable severely and persistently mentally ill.

2. Many more Long Term Rehab facilities

3. Highly paid social workers and counselors who conduct self improvement classes (which serve as community service hours for #5 below) and one-on-one counseling services (which can also serve as commnity service hours for #5 below).

4. Good paying jobs for x-cons.

5. Self help educational consequences for ALL Class C Misdemeanor offenders, including indigent individuals.

Give us the five things above and then and only then, let's see how much of a dent we've made in the chronically homeless population BEFORE you spend millions of our tax dollars on public housing.

At this moment there are at least 71 (25 Project-Based Facilities and 46 Tax-Credit Facilities) properties in the City of Ft. Worth inwhich rent is based on income and/or available to households below the median average income. In Tarrant County, there are over 1000 units of low income public housing units with no time limit for homeless individuals. They are:

Ft. Worth Housing Authority, Butler Place 412 units, Caville Place 300 unites, Fair Oaks 76 units, Fair Park 48 units, Hunter Plaza 234 units, Samaritan House 8 units (prefer HIV+), Union Gospel Mission, 16 units. Are every one of these units filled? I will report back, more to come on this post.

MHMR of Tarrant County - What are they doing exactly?

OK, so I go the CB Sports over off E. Lancaster (just east of Riverside) to drop off some shirts for embroidery. When I get out of my car. I see this woman (looks like a man in one of the pics, but she's a really "pretty" female, believe or not) sitting at the next business doorstep sort of in a fetal position with her shirt pulled over her knees. The next day my friend, who owns a business nearby, calls and says that there is this woman hanging around who obviously is mentally ill, what should she do. I say, call The Paradise Center (South Jennings - blue awning) or Lynne (http://www.capsmi.org/) or the police but they won't do anything unless she is in "emminent harm to herself or others."

Long story short, this afternoon I went over to where the woman was laying and asked if she was ok, she said "I'm alright." She got up and walked away. I called the police, spoke with the officer for about 15 mintues picking his brain for how to improve the system and help these people. After the officer left, I sat there in my car watching this lady peek around the corner of the fence to see if I was waiting in my car. Finally I decided to move the car, a little so that she would come back to the church parking lot and I could have a better chance of "engaging" (buzzword buzzword) her in conversation. She proceeded to walk back to her church doorstep home and few belongings. I rolled down my window and said, "What are you doing out here sleeping on doorsteps, are you alright?" She replied, "I'm alright." We went back and forth from opposite sides of the street for a minute or two. She was actually sort of fun to talk to. She said she was wealthy. When I asked who she was talking to when she wasn't talking to me, she said she wasn't talking, she was singing. After a while, I asked if there was anything I could get her, or do for her. She said get her some food. She wanted fries, hamburger and soda. I went down to the local hamburger joint and got her just that, brought it back, parked, to see if she would come over to the car. She did. I looked straight in her eye and asked, "Why are you living on the streets, I worry about people like you?" She said, "Bless your soul. I'll be alright."
I told her that my friend owned a business around here and to please let us know if she needed anything. She said she lived at the Salvation Army and had been here since Christmas.

My point is:

1. What is MHMR of Tarrant County doing for people like this woman?
2. How much money does MHMR take in for helping the mentally ill in Tarrant County?
3. Where is the money going?
4. Is it true that the CEO of MHMR of Tarrant County makes $300K per year in salary?
5. If so, why? What is it exactly that the CEO is doing for MHMR?
6. Why is Mayor Moncrief and Otis Thronton so focused on "Affordable Housing?"
7. Why is money for social health mental/emotional/psychological services always last on the list for which to spend money on?
8. Why is housing always first? It's easier to get and build, that's why.

Yes, along with this story we called MHMR hotlines, etc. There is no real help.

The solution? HOLD PEOPLE ACCOUNTABLE! In other words, for this piece of free bread, you have to go talk to this lady right over here in the next room, you have to watch a video, you have to do something....nothing is really "free." We have to find a way to "engage" these lost souls in conversation, even if it's two or three words, and show them that someone DOES care and that their life is worth having, living, caring for and taking care of. That's the bottom line and it's expensive, up front, but pays off in the L O N G R U N . Otis Thornton, (CFW Homeless Coordinator) has to get off the "affordable housing" (walls) fix, and put our taxdollars in social/mental/emotional health services! Which is expensive and more "in depth," more of an "investment." Pay social workers/counselors close to top end pay, open Central Resource Facility where ALL SERVICES that homeless & mentally ill need!! Hold people accountable, even if it's say something before getting a hand out. For this is HOW you BUILD SELF RESPECT AND WORTH in people who have NONE!!! Hello, am I reaching your brains Mayor Moncrief, Otis Thornton and all of you people who don't have any "contact" with the homeless and persistently and severely Mentally Ill "folks" (buzzword buzzword) in our great City of Fort Worth? We MUST "invest" in mental health services and emotional r-e-h-a-b-i-l-i-t-a-t-i-o-n. Otherwise your homeless bill will go up every single year from now till eternity.

No overbearing caseloads!! MHMR pays too much at the top and not enough at the "street level!"

East Lancaster between downtown and Beach Street

Quite a few vacant buildings over here. A few acres for sale here and there. A few nasty hotels/motels that need demolishing, beautiful State Highway (E. Lancaster), gorgeous median, lots of potential. Great view of and proximity to downtown Ft. Worth. Restaurants, bars, Starbucks, condos, lofts, mixed uses desperately needed over here. Great buys on buildings. Help!

East Lancaster Just Outside of Downtown

People who have lived in this neighborhood since childhood will tell you that this street and neighborhood used to be beautiful. One lady told me she used to ride her bicycle from View Street (West Meadowbrook Neighborhood) down E. Lancaster to Cobb Park! WOW!! This used to be brick corridor and have large beautiful homes along the street. WOW, what a difference a generation or so makes!! Again, so important to pay attention to local politics, be involved, speak up and out, etc. I still think the neighborhood is beautiful with all the trees and it is so very close to downtown, maybe some day, we'll be able to live here and ride our bikes to the Saturday Rahr brewery for free beer tasting on Saturdays, or take a hike thru Tandy Hills Park, or have a local neighborhood restaurant where we could get a nice salad. Hope you enjoy the pictures.