Story Photos
 Photo by Greg Ebersole Brenda Rismoen, right, and Linda Brigham run a neighborhood watch group on 16th Ave. 'I love it here,' said Rismoen, who has lived on the avenue all her life. 'I just wish it would go back to the way it was.' |
Dark times in the Highlands: Neighborhood's troubles intesify at night
Monday, July 18, 2005 11:51 PM PDT
By Tony Lystra
Printable version
E-mail this articleEditor's Note: Daily News reporter Tony Lystra lived in the Highlands, in the 200 block of 24th Avenue, from June 1 through June 30. This is the third in an four-part series documenting what he found there.
The kid had knobby knees and long, rail-thin limbs that seemed to sprawl in every direction. It was a body that had suddenly burst into adulthood and now didn't know what to do with itself.
At 2 a.m., the kid, who couldn't have been more than 19, stood on Alabama Street, fiddling with a wad of $20 bills. He wore an Ecko ballcap, turned askew on his head, a bright red jacket and a pair of long, black shorts. Black gloves covered his hands.
"I like to keep it ghetto," he explained.
The young man, who did not give his name, was on his way to a meeting. He did not say with whom or for what, but he didn't need to.
"I think these bills are marked," he said, the words coming fast and frantic. "Somebody is trying to set me up."
Everybody on the street here seems to talk fast after midnight.
The Highlands, this small district south of Beech Street, is the city's most crime-infested neighborhood. Much of the lunacy happens after dark. Dumpsters mysteriously catch fire. A lawn chair somehow finds its way into the middle of Alabama Street. A brick flies through a window. A bullet pierces a barbecue. A parked car disappears.
Although the neighborhood amounts to only 13 percent of the city's population, the city's Street Crimes Unit made nearly one third of its drug arrests here between January 2004 and May of this year. Heroin, speed and cocaine are common, but methamphetamine is said to be the cheap mind scrambler that drives much of this crime.
The traffic after midnight is astonishing, especially for a small town. Car after car speeds by. And everywhere there are people walking and smoking cigarettes.
On a warm, June night, a young man hit the bushes as a Longview police car rounded the corner of Alabama and 24th.
On another night, a group of women, in their mid-30s, it appeared, stood in front of a chain link-fence along Alabama. Their hair fell to their shoulders in large, frizzy heaps reminiscent of a 1980s heavy metal band. When an unknown car approached, they scattered, as though a teacher had caught them smoking in a high school bathroom.
If Alabama Street is the neighborhood's artery, the gravel alleys, which run behind the houses, are its veins. Wander into the dark, weed-choked pathways, where it seems nobody belongs at any hour, and you will find plenty of people standing around, some under a dimly lit carport, some invisible, emerging from the blackness only feet from your nose.
"There's a lot of the population that moves after dark," said Longview Police Officer Douglas Monge, 37, who has patrolled the Highlands for years.
"The area," he said, "is proliferated with vehicle prowls, theft and small burglaries" --- all to support drug habits.
Aside from the cover that darkness provides for their nefarious careers, burglars and car prowlers also operate at late hours because they "know when we're doing paper work, when we're out patrolling," Monge said. "The bad guys... do a lot of intelligence stuff on us."
Tough to be an outsider
In many cases, Monge said, the Highlands is more dangerous to outsiders than to those who live there.
"If Jane Q Citizen is driving down Alabama Street and her car breaks down, I don't suggest she walk by herself," he said. But if a woman who has lived on Alabama for years wants to walk down to the park at midnight, she is less likely to run into trouble.
Why? Because thugs smell fear.
"There's a sixth sense." Monge said. "They hone that skill."
People who don't know the Highlands become frightened, he said. Their posture changes. They become easy targets, someone who will probably hand over her wallet to the first person who says hello.
"If you have someone who looks like a victim," he said, "they're going to be victimized."
By contrast, criminals know a Highlands local will probably beat them senseless before they hand over a nickel, he said. They aren't an easy target, and everything about them says so.
Approach them as they walk along a darkened Alabama Street and they will look you up and down. Skeptical. Guarded. Hardened. On a June night, most declined to give their names. One said she was leery of undercover police operations.
People wander to all-night mini-markets for sodas and snacks. They pass between friends' houses. Unemployed, or working odd hours, their schedules are far from normal.
On the same June night, at around 1:30 a.m., a man sat on his darkened stoop, reading a letter aloud. Nearby, a young man walked with a friend toward a market. The orange glow of a street light showed that his hand was covered in a dirty bandage.
"A guy robbed my house," the young man said. "I broke my knuckles on his face."
Then there is Latisha. She walked alone along Alabama after 2 a.m., shoulders back, head up, headphones blasting in her ears. Latisha, in her early 20s, said she found a job doing some painting for an acquaintance. She was headed to a friend's house, she said, to pick up brushes and buckets.
The young woman, who did not give her last name, said she "hates the ghetto." She spoke fast and mushed her words together as though her tongue were swollen.
Latisha said she recently spent three weeks in the Cowlitz County Jail. Asked why, she said something about a boyfriend, $3, and a reckless driving charge. She also said she stopped using drugs during her incarceration and hasn't used since.
Asked what her drug of choice was, she said, "Meth, like everybody else."
Then Latisha removed from her pocket an official-looking certificate, printed on green paper. The document's borders were laced with intricate patterns that made it look like a treasury note. The text was spotted with exclamation points.
"Look!" she said, and held the letter out to be read in the street light. "I'm going to win $3 million!"
At first, she appeared to be joking. But there was no irony here. This was her hope, and she was carrying it in her pocket along Alabama Street at 2 a.m.
'Iron Man'
Will Stanford sat on his porch and smoked his cigarette beneath a tattered and faded American flag. Long, greasy strands of dark-brown hair slithered down his neck.
Fruit flies swarmed over the porch while a pit bull named Kool-Aid mounted a frantic search for her litter of puppies, which were hidden from the landlord at a friends' house. In time, the dog gave up and settled in a visitor's lap.
A toilet was tucked behind a bush near the porch. Stanford had been trying to unclog it, he explained, but blew it up instead. It was unclear how this happened, exactly. He blamed the debacle on his neighbors, who, he said, had been flushing diapers and tampons.
This is how to kill a day in the Highlands, according to Stanford: Look out for your pals. Smoke some cigarettes. Have a laugh.
"I'm happy all the time," he said. "Just breathing air and helping somebody out."
"Iron Man," by Black Sabbath, pounded from a stereo speaker. Stanford explained that he had been at the legendary Woodstock rock festival in 1969. Black Sabbath had not been there, but no matter.
"Raises hair on my arms every time I think about it," he said.
Then Stanford pointed to a velvet Jesus that hung on his living room's wood-paneled wall.
"He was there."
Stanford, a disabled iron worker who broke his back on the job years ago, has been in the Highlands since December of last year. He cannot remember why he came to Longview.
"I ask myself that every time I turn around," he said.
He said he can't read or write. He is "around 60." He lives largely on Social Security benefits, but said he can't remember his income.
"It's direct deposit," he said.
On the wall of his tiny 16th Avenue apartment is a shrine to Stanford's sons --- photos from when they were young.
"My kids are all locked up," he said. "One borrowed a car. One borrowed a gun. One got into drugs."
Now, Stanford said, he has "adopted" between 10 and 15 homeless kids --- teenagers and twentysomethings --- who drift through the neighborhood. He doesn't know all of their names, but he usually feeds them, lets them hang out on the porch.
One of these youngsters, a 22-year-old named Joshua Rhode, said he has been homeless since 2000.
"I'm running away from reality," he said.
On this June afternoon, Rhode stopped by Stanford's porch to borrow a cell phone so he could check in with his mother in Missouri.
"What time is it?" he asked Stanford.
Both men looked at their wrists. Neither had a watch.
Stanford searched for his phone, under papers, behind knickknacks. When he scooped up a walkie-talkie, Rhode said, "Naw, that won't reach Missouri."
Moments later a cell phone was produced and Rhode called his mother.
These homeless kids, Standford said, are never allowed to stay the night, unless they sleep in his front yard.
"I like my own space," he said. "When they start invading my space and give me stress, it's time to back off."
There is a code in the Highlands, Stanford said: Respect your elders. Don't cause grief for someone with more stature than you have. Mind your tongue.
This code, he said, is enforced by a quiet current of vigilantism that runs through the neighborhood's culture. It is a reward system that nourishes those who tread lightly and punishes those who don't.
"It's like a union," said Stanford, who explained that he used to be a Teamster. "You pay your dues here and everybody's happy. ... If you don't pay your dues, you get taxed."
He was not entirely clear about what getting "taxed" involved, but it didn't sound pleasant.
"You could get hurt in this neighborhood, but there are people right there for you, too," Standford said. "We kind of watch ourselves and take care of our own."
Asked if he had ever slapped anyone around to enforce these rules, he said, "That could be incriminating."
The watchers
If you don't visit drug houses in the Highlands, odds are you pass the time in another pursuit: counting the cars that do.
Brenda Rismoen, 42, and her friend, Linda Brigham, 39, said they recently counted 33 cars an in hour and a half making quick trips to and from three houses on their block. Not one of the cars stayed more than 10 minutes, they said.
The pair, who both live on 16th Avenue, are like two hawks, perched in their nests, watching every little twist on the street. From their living rooms, just a few houses apart, they type instant messages to each other on their computers.
"Car in."
"Car out."
"Did you see that?"
"Check that out."
Some neighbors, Rismoen said, have noted that the two women are always in their windows and poke fun at them.
But Rismoen and Brigham insist there is good reason for this obsessiveness.
Rismoen said she has lived on 16th Avenue her entire life, but the neighborhood has "hit rock bottom" during the last five years.
"I remember growing up down here," she said. "We didn't have to lock our doors. Even 10 years ago, we would get together with the neighbors for the Fourth of July, for barbecues, to set fireworks off.
"We never do that anymore," she continued. "It went down hill big time."
Rismoen's family is clustered along 16th Avenue. Her father lives just up the way; her daughter lives close by.
But Rismoen said she would have left the neighborhood long ago if her family wasn't here.
"I love it here," she said. "I just wish it would go back to the way it was."
Asked if the police are doing enough to quiet the neighborhood, Rismoen said, "To be blunt, no."
"We don't even get police patrols down here," she said.
Longview Police Chief Alex Perez said he is sympathetic to the frustration, but the department has other neighborhoods to patrol, too. With only 53 officers, the department cannot dedicate more time and effort to the Highlands, he said.
There are other complications, as well, Perez said. For example, it's not as easy to shut down a drug house as people think. Perez said his officers cannot arrest someone simply because cars keep coming and going from his or her house.
"We have to be able to make the case," he said.
Perez, who has been a staunch advocate of block-watch programs since he was a beat cop in Inglewood, Calif., said he wants more of the groups to spring up in the Highlands. That way, police can partner with an organized group to solve the problems.
Rismoen and Brigham have followed Perez's advice. They formed a block-watch group, which they said is attended regularly by a handful of neighbors. When the pair distributed fliers last summer about an upcoming meeting, some of the street's troublemakers moved away, they said.
The pair also organize an annual summer block party, which is becoming more popular. In 2003, only 15 attended. Last year, the number had increased to 50.
For Rismoen and Brigham, the block party has become an annual reprieve from weirdness and worry. Other days and nights are a different story.
Rismoen said her father was attacked in his garage and hit over the head. Her daughter's house was burglarized.
Several years ago, Brigham and Rismoen said, a man slit his wrist around 5 a.m., then stumbled through the neighborhood, dripping blood on the sidewalks, streets and gravel alleys. He survived. Rismoen and Brigham said they spent part of the day dousing the neighborhood with bleach.
These and other experiences have made them leery. For example, Brigham, who has lived in the Highlands for eight years, said she won't let her 15-year-old daughter walk Alabama Street during daylight hours --- even just to visit a friend's house.
Asked why, she said, "The people hanging around --- I don't know, I just worry."
Coming Wednesday: Daily News reporter Tony Lystra recounts his own experience of living in the Highlands.
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