May 11, 2006
an open letter to the men that keep urinating in the alley
Please don’t take this wrong way, but I’ve got a question for you…
One of the neighborhood behaviors that has surprised me the most here north of Venable has been how casually a pedestrian will stop and pee somewhere. We’ve seen this by men and women time and time again in the alleys, at the street, and in the stairwell of the church across the street.
Recently the frequency of the in flagrante moments has picked up to maybe once a week. All other negative signs have been on the decline — we hardly ever hear gunshots, the hookers have really thinned out, and we haven’t had a crackhead offer to sweep our porch for $2 in quite a while… This pissing, though, seems ingrained.
I can’t help but say something when I see it happening, though I’m starting to think that it is a bad idea. At first the pissers were apologetic and would tuck and leave. They’ve taken to getting upset with me and I don’t want to get shot. All I can really hope is that they were too drunk to know where that annoying white boy was.
Which leads to my question, finally. I can understand having to pee, like really bad. I’ve even used an alley now and again. The type of alley-as-bathroom going on around here is way beyond a lapse in judgement. Again, this is ingrained behavior. So I wonder — how and when did this become ok? Has Fairmount always been somewhere that is ok to just whip it out and go to town? Fifty years ago was this kind of thing common? 20 years?
I recognized the pissing man tonight. He used to live up the street in the boarding house that burned 18 months ago and hasn’t been fixed. He used to pass by while I was working on the house. He was nice and usually drunk. He was drunk tonight. Yay for being drunk!
What fixes this kind of stuff? Do we have to shut down all the corner stores? Wait for all of the boarding houses to finally burn?
Whatever.
not to diminish your point, but in Europe (specifically belgium) peeing in the street isn’t that big a deal. There’s even bar districts that have little “wells” at the bottom of light poles to drain away the urine.
how upset do they get, anyway? I agree with you - it should be an ‘emergency’ thing, not as if the world is your toilet. i know the cops give tickets to drunk white boys who do that in the fan - maybe you could suggest that they do the same in your ‘hood. But then again, maybe the cops have better things to do.
haha funny, but not really.
my area seems to have a problem with #2. really nasty. seems someone weekly uses one spot in particular as a personal rest area. most amusing because there is always toilet paper as well!?….
Pissing and dumping in public is an ongoing problem at Tulip and Venable Streets where people buy alcohol and sit on the steps of the store or of abandoned houses and drink and drink and piss and drink and buy more alcohol and drink and and take a dump and then drink some more. This was one of the concerns I expressed to the Virginia’s ABC Department in objecting the granting of a new ABC license to the store there that provides a vital link in this chain. The ABC Board acknowledged that if they granted the license bad things were going to happen but granted the license anyhow. I’ve also spoken with Richmond’s Public Health Department about the frequency of people taking a dump in the partially fenced area behind the convenience store. The store keeps its garbage cans there and the space also makes an ideal bathroom for its customers. Public Health said it’s a police issue. And, like you, the thought of getting shot by somebody with the manners of a feral dog isn’t appealing - but I’ve found that pointing a camera at the action can dry up a stream of urine pretty effectively.
In reading the above posts I laughed b/c it was fairly amusing but then realized that what was being said was true and it was happening in an area where I live- I then stopped laughing and realized that this was a sick problem. How about police on bike patrol as 1st Precinct is at Venable and 25th? Is it possible to cut the grass down very short and remove debiris to make the area more open and exposed to deter people? You are right though, you walk a fine line in trying to stand up for what is socially acceptable and saying something to these people b/c if they have the gall to do #2 in the open outdoors they they might be crazy enough to attack you, your car, property, etc. Any other suggestions?
Yup! Keep a sense of humour and wear boots when you leave your own yard.
An additional note on European public urination: where we lived in Dalston, east London, we saw plenty of public urination by men, and on occasion a man teaching a young boy how to do it. Dalston did not have the Belgian drains, though—nor, on the other hand, Church Hill’s problem with human feces.
When I lived in Italy, men urinating in public was absolutely routine. I remember being on a train pulling into the station at Rome and passing a track worker urinating against an old stone wall while using the other hand to tip his hat to us passengers…. But Richmond’s public urinators don’t have European manners - and include both those who don’t drop trou and squat…and those who do.
whoa, whoa…nobody said anything about #2. That’s just gross. crapping in public takes chuzpah (or something) that I don’t have. I agree with the bike patrols.
I like the camera idea - how about taking that a bit further and mounting a video camera? Whether it is functional or not, a camera with blinky red light could be a deterrent.
That is absolutely disgusting! I’ve seen it in the little park at 25th and Broad. I always yelled at the guys and walked my dog a little closer to where he was. I think the camera thing is a great idea. Especially a digital. The police do have lots to do with all the shootings and crackheads. If we can just photograph these individuals in the act, get the photos to the police then maybe we can get something done about it. What do you think ChurchHillRugger?
I agree with Heather. If the police can get photos of the people, then they could identify them and let them know that people are watching. Also, if the police don’t know there is a problem then they can’t do anything about it. I don’t thin k the police knew this was as big of an issue. Like you said, Heather, they are pretty busy with the murders and et al. On a personal note, I like the new haircut.
http://www.hollabacknyc.blogspot.com/
If they can catch subway harassers, we can catch back-alley crappers. Break out those cell-phone cameras and what not.
Yes, on a recent trip to Montreal, I saw all manner of incivilities: grafitti everywhere, unkempt property, and yes, even a man urinating in public in the middle of Rue Catherine in broad daylight. The difference is that the violent crime rate in Canada does not come close to that of the US (especially old Richmond), and despite all these visible signs of disorder, you do not feel threatened: it just feels urban. Here, signs of disorder often unfortunately predict violence, and thus, we need to be vigilant to curtail such incivilities in order to curtail fear, which has its own effect on social and community withdrawal (and ultimately, crime). My recent beef with the local culture: who teaches a 7-8 year old to agressively beg for money from a stranger who bothers to say hello to the kid? Instead of the message I got as a kid to not talk to strangers, these kids seem to be taught to immediatley hit them up for a dollar! So, the first question here about how to change a culture that is pathological in a larger mainstream sense is one often asked in social enquiry… and depressingly, not answered all that often.
Hey Dr. S.,
Gimme some money!
Thanks ChurchHillRugger! Any suggestions on the best way to get pictures to the RPD? email, disk, ?
Heather, you can email them to the link when you click my name.
How about photos of the hookers and their clients, too?
Please send those to me also. I know officers that work nights so I can pass those along.
The street-peers have been down in my section of Woodville… In the mid 90s everyday males of any age would walk up and down the stretch of my street leaving trails almost everyday during the summer. A few years ago while driving my mother home, some kid was doing it facing traffic at Q and Mosby.
I’ve seen it though recently twice on 25th north of Nine Mile, at Cedar and Marshall… outside of Church Hill… the corner of 19th and Grace in the Bottom smells so bad of urine. The Intermediate Terminal is a big urinal. I’ve actually had many do it right in front of me there one day. Oh and Belle Isle… talk about being natural.
I’ve never seen women squatting and I think I saw one BM near my home on the way to work one day.
I think it’s been going on for a long time. I think it’s funny sometimes when they think they’re doing it privately and look up and they’re face to face with people. The look is hilarious. Love embarrassment! And I wouldn’t go even in the woods… because you never know who’s watching.
‘at’…me again, following up here on your comment about 7-8 year olds begging. I think a lot of this is a question of manners (which goes to parenting). I offer the following example which seems to be somewhat similar to yours. I was walking down Broad Street one summer evening about 3 years ago, past that baptist church almost to McDonald’s. Some sort of church event or summer bible school had just let out and a bevy of kids about the same age as your dollar beggers were sitting on the wall that separates the churchyard from the sidewalk. I smiled and said ‘Hi’ and the response from one cute, round-faced little boy was ‘Fuck you, bitch.’
Yes, Ms. G, you have caught me pontificating in my free time (so embarrassing). So, why do you need the money, the on-line scent biz not going so well? (LOL)
Almost too well, I’m afraid. But the PDC pays me too well to quit!
Maybe we should introduce the “Venerable Street Pissers” to the “Dog Owners That Don’t Clean Up Their Dog Crap on Grace Street” (or any other place in on the Hill for that matter) For a really good time we could include the “Chicken Bone Tossers.” I’m sure we could have some sort of happy hour function…
Hahaha! Thanks for the laugh Victoria. Perhaps we could get them together for an etiquette and manners lesson :D
It’s not just around Venable…
I was walking back to work after picking up a sandwich at Lift today (218 W Broad St). I ended up walking up 3rd Street towards Grace - where the Police Department is.
Some dude pulled out his jimmy right there on the sidewalk and took a HUGE leak. As nicely as I could, I told him to put his *** back in his pants and kept moving. He seemed oblivious to my presence.
Here’s the kicker though, there was a police officer standing in the alley behind their building watching the whole thing.
As I walked past him, he just shook his head, acknowledging the insanity of it all - but didn’t do a thing.
My boyfriend, a police officer, often says with respect to law enforcement that “if you take care of the small things, the big things will take care of themselves.”
Consistent with this message, recently the precint requested that the public take more initiative to put valuables in safekeeping, or to locate owners of valuables out in the open, rather than turning a blind eye and fostering an environment that attracts criminal activity to begin with.
With respect to this issue, it seems to me that to get the peeing to stop, the hanging out drinking — the source of the peeing and who knows what else — has to stop. Check out the following VA codes on drinking in public, and the definition of public: http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+4.1-308.
http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+coh+4.1-100+404622
In a nutshell, drinking in public is an infraction. While this likely isn’t a newsflash, it does mean that if you see someone spending quality time with a bottle on the premises of the store, or on their favorite stoop, you can call the police and expect them to have grounds to take action. If there is no police response, raise the question with the shift commander.
This may sound like a lot of effort to take in regard to what on the surface is but a nuissance, especially considering we have bigger problems in the area, but we’re lucky if by allowing drunks to lolleygag on the streets all we get is a pile of pooh.
We should call about the guys loitering and drinking on 25th street across from the pricinct?
B, the officer has to see the person drinking or see the open container on a public conveyance to be able to make the arrest. Probable cause is a fluid thing and that level differs from officer to officer. Older, more experienced officers can rely heavily on training and experience to make this leap. Other officers need more. It’s really all in what the officer feels comfortable with and what he/she can articulate. Also, if someone saw them drinking and would like to come to court, please ask for the officer to call you and you can tell him what you saw. You will be needed to come to court but this sends a powerful message to the offender…… we’re not going to take this anymore. And Calvin, I arrested one of those guys yesterday.
Hmmm- public drunkeness in Church Hill…Does this apply to SOB too? Will I get nabbed for sipping a forty on my front porch? Just a thought…
Because the police are not everywhere at all times, by calling in an offense, the citizen would be alerting a current offense to the police. There is a chance that by the time the police arrive, the offense is no longer taking place. However, if one doesn’t even place the call to begin with, well, we have the current situation. Basically, if people want less loitering and urinating, this is one way for them to take some initiative and partner with law enforcement toward that common goal.
Moreover, every time a citizen places a call, the call is entered into the CAD system that generates statistics on events. If there’s only one call on the system about public urinating, the issue probably won’t be high on the radar. If there are several calls per week in relation to the same location, that would be a squeaky wheel that is more likely to get the grease.
Re: drinking a 40 on your porch, yes you can get a ticket for drinking on your own porch. No, this is not likely to happen in the real world. The law is in place for those extreme situations where alcohol is being abused in some way.
As for probable cause associated with “Drinking in public,” the bar is not very high. No one ever drinks a Coke or a Pepsi out of a paper bag. Probable cause consists of those facts or circumstances that would make a reasonable person (note… not just a police officer) believe that a crime is, has been, or will be committed. It is safe to say that drinking out of a bottle that’s still in a paper bag is solid probable cause of drinking alcohol in public.
The only problem with watching someone drink from a bag is to identify the substance they are drinking. Older officers have no trouble getting in the fact that the substance was consistant with a malted alcoholic beverage known as beer. A younger officer, with less court and police experience may not get the same lattitude from our criminal justice system. The law says and alocholic beverage still in a sealed container is what the container is labeled as. If it is open, however, the court may require it to go to the lab for analysis. I know, sounds stupid, huh? People know what marijuana smells and looks like yet that has to go to the lab too. Now, drinking in public and open container on a public conveyance are low misdemeanor charges and the court usually does not require the substance goes to the lab. But if one of those guys gets an attorney, who knows what the outcome would be. I’m not arguing with you, I have made, and will continue to make, many arrests for these offenses because this is my neighborhood too. My family and I drive past this all of the time. TG, I know you said probable cause is what a reasonable person thinks it is but I don’t know when you were last in our courts. Sometimes, there is no “reason” to the decisions of the judges. I have argued with one of the judges over the definition of a word where the definition was taken directly from Black’s Law Dictionary. You would think this would be required reading. Lastly, B. Please call First Precinct, 646-3602 and ask for Lt Snawder (if you live in Union Hill and south of Carrington St.) He handles sector 111 and will forward this information to the officers so we can work on it. Don’t depend on the CAD system to track this information. We can gain so much more intel from talking to citizens vs. responding on a “radio call.”
I know the hoops that have to be jumped in court. Our job as police is to identify the violation not to worry about what the courts do with it. If I observe a drone drinking from a Bud bottle and testify as such in court get a conviction then we are good. If the drone gets an attorney and my case gets tossed due to “lack of evidence of an alcoholic beverage” and the next time I have to seize the bottle and send it to the lab then so be it. Bottom line is that someone got popped and they will think twice about doing it again and there will be a deterrent effect among drone’s buddies. If there’s a problem on a particular corner you have to do what it takes to solve it. I never stopped busting small pot busts because it was a PITA to send stuff to the lab (and it was). This is the way New York cleaned up Manhattan. Take care of the garbage…
Now… all that said… I KNOW how busy a beat cop is and that sometimes you can’t be dealing with the nickel and dime stuff but at the same time, if you have a problem area then some type of enforcement is in order if the citizens are complaining. A show of force so to speak. Even then, we know the balloon principal may go into effect. For those who don’t know, that’s when you squeeze the drones here… and they move or pop out there.
My fellow copper will probably agree that it’s not a simple solution but doing nothing is definitely not the answer. Citizens and police both have a role to play.
The only issue I have is…….I have never seen a drone drinking a Bud up here on the Hill. Other than that, we are in complete agreement.
uh. . . where where you guys when michelle welch was running for Commonwealth’s attorney??? her platform focused on the “broken window” theory - petty crimes such as vandalism, blight, property neglect, animal abuse & neglect, which relate directly to more serious, violent crimes down the road. . . i realize michelle didn’t have the $$$ for a major ad campaign, but it sure would have been nice to see more folks like you out there canvassing the neighborhood to defend michelle’s platform. herring(our now C.A.) liked to call her the “puppy prosecutor” b/c she prosecuted a great deal of animal abuse and neglect cases.
I would have voted for her if she would have been in the running and if I was a resident. There was no way I could ever canvas for anyone in the job I have.
I would like to know more about venable street, My son is a college student and will be going to VCU in the fall. they have rented a house on Venable street three blocks from the police department i am concerned about the things that go on,on this street can someone tell me more is this a high crime area?.
Venable is ok and rapidly improving. The 2200 block has been empty and vacant for a long time, but has basically been rebuilt from the ground up over the past year.
This area is near several sketchy areas, but in and of of itself is ok. The neighborhood south of their, Union Hill, is undergoing a renaissance. This has spread to the block right behind that block of Venable. Venable itself, particularly the block towards the police station, can be intimidating. The problem here is drunks, though.
This isn’t a shooting area, though I wouldn’t be walking around at 3am either. The neighborhood south, Fairmount, is getting a lot of new housing and restoration, too.
Crime up here, except for minor property crime, tends to happen to people that are involved in bad things. This is what makes the area look bad. Otherwise, the random scary crime may be a little lower than in the Fan. As long as your son doesn’t look for trouble and keeps an eye out, he’ll be ok.
Venable has some lovely buildings and the slope down from Tulip Street provides a nice view of the city skyline, particularly during the fall and winter. Many of the houses up and down Venable had been abandoned for decades until recently and then structures that were less than shells have been, or are being, put back together again, with a lot of faith in the street’s turn-around. Alcohol abuse and its resultant problems are usually the worst part of Venable’s problems. Like John wrote, walking around at 3am isn’t a good idea…but then that’s not a good idea in much of the city. Venable Street is a main thoroughfare for police cars coming and going from First Precinct…they’re up and down the street all the time. And the staff out of First Precinct are active participants in improving the overall quality of life in the entire neighborhood, even devoting off hours: excellent!
Robbie,
The others are right on - Venable street USED to be pretty scary and is now much better, and if your kid is smart and knows how to stay out of trouble, he will be fine. Is he renting from a private landlord or a rental agency? Many of the problems one might see in Venable are reproduced throughout the city, especially in areas where low-cost student housing can be found. So I commend you (and your son) for being part of the solution and revitalizing this area.
I would be more concerned that your son could find an affordable house much closer to campus - the distance essentially makes him a commuter student and parking at VCU can be a nightmare. That is, I assume, if he’s going to the Monroe Park Campus. If he’s going to the MCV Campus, it’s a much better location.
Maybe next semester look into moving closer, someplace like Oregon Hill, Carver, Jackson Ward, Broad Street, The Fan, Randolph, Newtowne…there’s a lot of price options that are closer and would allow him to walk or bike to school (not that you couldn’t bike to Venable Street, it would just be a lot farther and you would have to deal with some hills and/or the MLK Bridge near MCV. Church Hill/Union Hill etc is a great place to live, but for a student, it’s just far from most of the “student” type things.
While this may seem like throwing cold water on a hot idea, there is no empirical proof that the the broken windows (or, incivilities thesis) works in practice (see Ralph Taylor’s work in Baltimore). Yes, NYC’s crime rate went down during the 1990s, but there were 10 other things going on in that decade that likely contributed to the historic crime drop. Moreover, crime also went down in many cities that did not go on “Guliani time.” Which would lead one to believe that perhaps the economy and demographic trends such as the declining size of the poor, young, male cohort as well as very high levels of immigration into formerly destitute neighborhoods; high imprisonment rates; the maturing crack trade; and other policing strategies that moved the craft into the more modern context with regard to the use of information to impact strategy and tactics. (A new documentary on Guliani also points out some of the more unsavory practices of the Street Crimes Unit as well as well-publicized cases of shooting unarmed civilians and sodomizing detainees with plunger handles…also, see Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Blink” for an interesting pop-sociology discussion on police shootings). In sum, there is little proof that merely addressing small problems such a peeing in public has a direct link to serious crime. Recent research suggests that the link between the little things and big things has a social capital link. That is, small crimes actually follow big crimes as communities get more withdrawn and fail to engage in informal social control activities (see Robert Sampson’s work in Chicago). So, whether it is police engagement of these offenders, or, the neighborhood getting more middle class through gentrification, (with the resultant values shift beginning to dominate the discourse) there is a greater chance to define certain behaviors as deviant. An obvious solution, short of tying up stretched-thin police resources on peeing in public arrests, is to force the beer store to offer a bathroom to its clients. Why should society have to pay for the negative externalities of these operators?
In regards to the “if you take care of the small things, the big things will take care of themselves” and the “broken window” theory…I’m sure some of you in here have read Malcolm Gladwell’s ‘The Tipping Point’? It’s right on with the themes above.
And if you’re just into reading, try another of his, ‘Blink.’
They’re both a great, quick read. To me, they just seem to make sense, and it would hardly be a stretch to relate the recent happenings in our fair “hill” to the drop in NYC’s crime rate, etc. (from T.P.)
I thought Gladwell said that legalized abortions (future criminals were not ever born)
accounted for the Giuliani-era drop in crime? Maybe that was freakonomics…
not to open a WHOLE other can of worms, mind you, but both books make the point that what is often attributed as the cause/solution of a problem makes sense, but really it’s something else entirely, something that often doesn’t make sense at first.
And I suggest for reading the following:
1. Gavin De Becker’s ‘The Gift of Fear’ (NY Times Review: http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/becker-fear.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
and
2. Gregory Paul’s ‘Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies’ wherein Mr. Paul draws the correlation between a society’s religiosity and its rate of violent crime: http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html
ann, thanks for the suggestions. the abortion comment was from freakonomics, yes. and the idea that it’s actually small things that go unnoticed that make the really big changes down the road was one of gladwell’s theories. (not to say that it’s his alone) even though this statement is a little more than cliche, it takes some outside of the box thinking to come up with solutions to the problems that we face on a daily basis.
gladwell has some really radical ideas about a lot of things…health care and immigration in particular. (talk about a new can of worms :)
I’ll check out the references you suggested. and thank you.
Christy,
Men who urinate on public property can be a nuisance. Urinating on public property is a nasty occurrence in any fashion, form or location. It smells and simply is not sanitary! If one must urinate…try to use an actual facility.