Tag Archives: drug crime in Dickinson North Dakota

Everyone In Dickinson Needs To Get Ready For A Huge Amount Of Theft

Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , ,

For those of you who have never read my blog articles before, I have experienced a great deal of theft since moving to downtown Dickinson in the Spring of 2017.  In my almost 51 years of being alive, I had more theft in Dickinson during these past three years, than in the entirety of my previous 48 years, living in eight different states.

In 2017 I had my truck stolen, with $2,500 worth of tools, equipment, and valuables in it.  In 2018 I had a mountain bike stolen off the back of a different vehicle, by two people who used a rotary Dremel tool to cut through the cable lock, and a short time later someone cut through the cable lock on a different bicycle of mine parked in the apartment building bicycle rack.

In 2019 and 2020, one of my neighbors had a locked bicycle stolen on two different occasions, another neighbor had his vehicle luggage carrier stolen, one neighbor had his wallet with a week’s pay inside of it stolen from his vehicle parked in his driveway, an apartment neighbor had a revolver stolen from behind the backseat of his vehicle in the parking lot, another apartment neighbor had his stereo and speakers stolen from his vehicle in the parking lot.  There were more thefts than this, it’s hard to remember them all, and many attempted thefts.

In 2018, I installed two security cameras outside of my apartment that record continuously.  When I am home, I can usually see the video monitor that shows what is happening outside in the parking lot and out on the street beside my apartment building.  Do these cameras record these thefts and attempted thefts, and do I give the video to the Police?  Yes.

From watching the video monitor when I am home, from watching the video recordings of the thefts and attempted thefts, and being outside my apartment building, I can tell you what is happening and what to look for.

During the afternoon and evening, males between the ages of 17 to 30 walk the streets like they are trying to get somewhere, but if you watch them, watch what they are doing, and where they are going, you will see that the route that they are taking is not necessary or not getting them anywhere the quickest or most direct way.  Nor are they going to or coming from a place of employment, store, or business.

When I am walking, I don’t walk as close as possible to parked vehicles, within inches, when the roadway and sidewalk is 40 feet wide, but I am not checking to see which vehicles have the door lock buttons pressed down, and what items are inside of parked vehicles.  I also don’t walk holding my phone at chest height, video recording what is inside of parked vehicles on the street, but I am not planning on coming back late at night to steal things.

A few of my neighbors and myself, we have followed the people who have walked beside our vehicles recording what is inside of them, and we have called the Police.  One time the Police did catch and arrest one of these people a short time later, for fleeing, eluding, resisting arrest, and other charges.  Another time, by the time the Police arrived we couldn’t find the person, but a short while later another apartment resident caught this person in the fenced-off, utility corridor behind the apartment building, questioned them, and told them that they had to leave.

The thieving people are usually males between the ages of 17 to 30.  They are usually drug addicts and drug users.  They are unemployed, do not have steady employment, or do not have good employment.  They live in low-rent apartment buildings, subdivided houses made into low-rent apartments, with their mom, or with their grandmother.

If they lived with their father or grandfather, these older males would say, “Oh no, you’re not going out at 1:00 a.m. to steal things in this neighborhood and bringing it back here.”  But women, who knows, maybe they are either dumb or they play dumb, their little angel who has been arrested multiple times for theft and possession of drugs, he’s just going to visit his friends at 1:00 a.m., he’s not doing anything wrong.

Because the Police can’t be everywhere at once, and it is technically not illegal for unemployed, drug-addict, criminal record males to be walking the streets between midnight and 3:00 a.m., the Police have a hard time preventing or catching these thieves.  And because mothers and grandmothers are either dumb or are playing dumb about the five bicycles, five car stereos, five laptop computers, and five mobile phones stashed in their garage or basement by their unemployed, drug addict son, the thieving continues.

In the past two days, I was out working on my vehicles during the afternoon and evening, and never ever before have I seen so many young males between the ages of 17 to 30 wearing hoodies, walking down the streets and sidewalks getting as close as they can to parked vehicles, and looking in parked vehicles.  They were like moths or insects buzzing around and bumping into a porch light as far as cars parked out on the street.

This neighborhood that I live in is a bad neighborhood.  It is mostly a blue-collar, lower-middle-class, poor, drug addict neighborhood.  It’s the very low rent apartments, high number of subdivided homes made into low-rent apartments, poor single mothers and poor single grandmothers, that provide the habitat for these unemployed, drug addict, criminal record, thieving young males.

What can you do?  Whenever you see a male between the ages of 17 to 30 walking down the street or riding a little BMX bicycle down the street in Dickinson, don’t try to think that they are going to or from work, going to the store, or going to visit a friend.  They don’t have a job, they don’t have any money, and if they are going to visit someone’s house it is drug related.  Watch what they do, watch where they are going, try to figure out where they are going or where they are coming from.  They are out looking for anything that they can steal.

Make sure that every window and every door in your house or apartment is closed and locked.  Before you go anywhere, and before you go to bed at night, make sure that all ground-floor doors and windows are closed and locked, especially in the basement, and the garage.

Install flood lights and motion activated lights to illuminate your front yard, back yard, and vehicle parking areas.  Try to reduce the amount of possible concealment around your house, such as overgrown hedges, bushes, and shrubs.  Do not leave anything outside during the day or night that would attract thieves, such as bicycles, lawn mowers, snow blowers, air compressors, chain saws, welders, motorcycles, fishing poles, golf clubs, ice chests, etc.

Apartment building owners and home owners need to install fencing not just to keep people who don’t belong from accessing their property, but to block off the backyard cut-throughs that neighborhood children create, but end up getting used by vagrants and thieves at 1:00 a.m.

Most importantly, start watching what passersby are doing in your neighborhood, and ask yourself what are they doing, do they belong here, do they have a reason for being here, do they look like they are actually trying to get somewhere, or do they seem to be here for some other purpose?  If you see someone acting suspicious, let your neighbors know, so that they can watch too, put away their belongings, lock their vehicle doors, and start being more careful about locking up their house.

These young adults that you see walking around the streets in Dickinson, do not give them the benefit of the doubt anymore.  You don’t have to stop and question them, just recognize that they are a threat, because so many people in Dickinson are drug addict thieves.

The People, Police, And Judges In Dickinson Need To Change Their Attitude About Crime

Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , , ,

In 2017 through 2019, many times it seemed like the crime in Dickinson, North Dakota was out of control.  I had never personally experienced very much crime in Dickinson until I moved to downtown Dickinson in the spring of 2017.  Within a couple of months my pickup truck was stolen.

By making flyers with a photograph of my stolen truck, and handing these flyers out all over Dickinson and the neighboring towns, I eventually received some phone calls and leads about who had stolen my truck.  I found out, the person who had stolen my truck, he very recently had been released from prison for vehicle theft, and that there was currently a warrant out for his arrest for possession of stolen property.

I got my truck back about a week after I found out who had it.  In the process of trying to find my truck, I read the complete criminal record of the person who had it, and the criminal records of this person’s friends and associates.  This was my introduction to the fact that Dickinson has a large amount of residents who are repeat, continual, habitual, life-long criminals.

One of the things that I used to try to locate my stolen truck and the person who had it, was Facebook.  I looked at this person’s Facebook posts, the people that he was communicating with, who these people were, and where these people were located.

The Facebook posts and Facebook friends, showed that there were easily more than several hundred drug-user, drug-addict, thieving men and women in Dickinson who were not ashamed, and not intending to stop what they were doing.  Their names were familiar from the weekly Dickinson Press newspaper articles “Crimes & Courts” and “Police Blotter”.

I had always been interested in reading the Dickinson Press newspaper articles on crime in Dickinson, reading the names of the people who were caught, and what they had been arrested for, to see if there was anyone that I knew, or to save their names in my memory in case I met them in the future.  But after seeing all the drug-addicts/criminals on Facebook, seeing that they all loosely knew and associated with each other, reading their criminal records on the ND Court Repository, I learned that not only does Dickinson have a large permanent habitual criminal population, but from reading the Dickinson Press, I now saw that these people are continually arrested again, and again, and again, over and over, with no end in sight.

I wasn’t the only person who saw this.  The parent company of the Dickinson Press newspaper, Forum Communications, their owners, editors, staff, and reporters noticed this too.  In August of 2019, Forum Communications, through each of its newspapers published five articles on crime, courts, prisons, parole, and probation written by reporter Sam Easter.  Here is the link to the gateway article: https://www.thedickinsonpress.com/news/crime-and-courts/4046635-Too-big-too-fast-North-Dakota’s-other-housing-problem

The reporter Sam Easter was so thorough and detailed in his newspaper articles, that I think many North Dakotans lost one of the main, most important observations and conclusions:  There are so many habitual, repeat, life-long criminal offenders in North Dakota because they are not being sent to prison, or being kept in prison, because it costs $43,000 per year to keep them in prison, and only $1,700 per year to keep them on parole/probation.

For some of the families in the Dickinson area, a life of crime is just a lifestyle choice.  To them, a little bit of marijuana, a little bit of methamphetamine, a little bit of heroin, some drug dealing, some stealing, some robbery, some check fraud, some assault, fleeing & eluding, probation, and violation of probation, make for a good way of life, that they pass on to their children.

When will you learn, to just put each of these fuckers in prison for ten, fifteen, twenty years, and just leave them there for their entire sentence?  You think that it costs $43,000 per year to keep them in prison, how much does it end up costing when they are not in prison and breeding five to ten children who will be exactly like them?  How much does it end up costing when they are not in prison and introduce 50 to 100 people to meth or heroin and get them addicted?

The People, the Police, and the Judges in Dickinson are too tolerant and lenient on crime.  In the past in Dickinson, there probably were individuals who might have committed a crime only out of desperation, impulsiveness of youth, or drunkenness.  Their criminal behavior might have been corrected by a short time in jail and probation.  But this is generally not the case in Dickinson anymore, the people who are being arrested, have been arrested again, and again, and again with no indication that they are going to stop what they are doing.

The policy or practice of no jail time, suspended jail time, short jail time, and probation is sending a message to the hundreds of habitual repeat criminals in Dickinson that they have nothing to fear, they can keep right on doing what they have been doing.

Look For People With Phones Taking Pictures Of Your Property In Dickinson, North Dakota

Uncategorized, , , , , , , , ,

In May through July of this year, I had to telephone the Police in Dickinson about seven times due to the theft or attempted theft of my property, or other people’s property in downtown Dickinson where I live.

What my neighbors noticed in June, was that people would walk beside our vehicles with their phone held out in front of them or beside them, taking pictures of what was inside our vehicles.

In late June, one of my neighbors got in his vehicle, and he tried to follow and take a photo of one of the people who was doing this, but he tried to turn away, and get away in order to not be photographed.  This particular person was arrested out on the street about three hours later for several different charges unrelated to the photographing of property inside people’s vehicles.

Since then, I have caught two other people photographing what was in the back of my truck or inside of my vehicle.  In July, one of these people was a young, plump, red haired girl that was about 14 years old that was out walking her small dog.  I was across the street sitting in my truck talking on the phone one evening, watching this girl walk around the corner and walk down the sidewalk, then she stopped at the back corner of my other vehicle, took her phone out, and began videoing what was inside this vehicle of mine.

I had to stop my phone call, quietly get out of my truck, crouch down below the roof of my other vehicle across the street, sneak over there, and when I stood up at the front corner of my vehicle, the very first thing that she did was try to hide her phone.  I was not mean to her, I explained to her that I had had my property stolen from my vehicle recently, why was she videoing what was in my vehicle?

I waited for her to walk away and around the corner, then I drove down a parallel street, until I could see what house it was that she returned to.  Was she spotting things to steal for an older brother, or do people pay kids to locate things to steal?

The second person that I caught videoing what was in my truck, was in late August.  Me and my neighbor were working on his car on one side of the street, and I looked over to see a skinny man about 27 years old, walking on the other side of the street where there is no sidewalk, walking in the street, passing just an inch beside each vehicle, with his phone held out in front of him, pointing inside of these vehicles.

No, he was not on his phone having a conversation.  No, he was not out getting some exercise.  I waited for him to get to the next corner, where he made a right turn to head east.  I got in my truck, and I followed him, staying about a block away.  At the very next corner he made a right turn, to head south.  When he got to the next corner, he saw me, and he stopped.

It appeared that he lived about one block away, whether it was the shitty house on the corner, or the apartment building across the street, I don’t know.  But he saw me, and he knew, that I knew what he was doing.

For those of you who don’t know what I am talking about, people leave things in their vehicle:  phone, phone charger, music CDs, wallet, purse, laptop computer, camera, radar detector, tools, etcetera.  Rather than stand there for a minute looking through a car window at the dashboard, front seat, back seat, back window, and trying to determine what is there, what kind of stereo is there, what is it worth, is there a car alarm, the thief can just walk by with his phone and video everything in one pass.  He can look at the video later to see what is inside each vehicle.

It appears, that if the people who are doing this are spotted and followed, especially if they are followed all the way back to where they live, and they realize that they have been followed, they temporarily give up their theft plans for that route where they were caught.

A Definitive Answer On Why There Is So Much Crime In Dickinson, North Dakota

Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I am sick of writing about the crime in Dickinson, North Dakota, and you are probably tired of reading about it.  I began to find the definitive answer on why there is so much crime in Dickinson, but I hesitated to write about it, because I thought that it would be too difficult to explain, though the answer is simple.

I am going to refer readers to a series of recent articles, presented by the Dickinson Press newspaper, sponsored by the North Dakota Newspaper Association, where one of their journalists, Sam Easter, did a very thorough investigation on why there is so much crime in North Dakota.  This journalist presented all of the facts and figures, but he didn’t shout the answer or conclusion loud enough, maybe he wasn’t permitted to do so because of the political implications.  (refer to this link https://www.thedickinsonpress.com/news/crime-and-courts/4046635-Too-big-too-fast-North-Dakota’s-other-housing-problem, at the bottom of this article there is a link to all of the articles in this series.)

Here is the answer:  In the late 1990s, the state of North Dakota made a deliberate transition from consistent stiff incarceration penalties for drug crimes and theft, to less incarceration penalties and more probation for offenders.  The fact is, it costs the state of North Dakota about $43,000 per year to incarcerate an offender, versus about $1,700 per year to put an offender on probation.

These very high-up people in North Dakota government, like the Governors, Attorney Generals, and State Legislators, they tried to present to North Dakotans, that there needed to be more money spent on prisons.  The North Dakotans were, unsurprisingly, too cheap and pinch-penny to want to spend more money on prisons.

In order to remain popular, and to get re-elected, the Governors, Attorney Generals, and State Legislators, they never came out and said, “Listen you dumb sons-of-bitches, if you don’t spend this money to build new prisons, you are going to be overrun with crime and criminals in your communities.”

Instead, the Governors, Attorney Generals, State Legislators, Judges, and Prosecuting Attorneys have implemented this “Probation for Everyone” policy, knowing full well that the communities would become overrun with criminals.  Their belief was probably that once the ordinary citizens became tired of dealing with so much crime and so many criminals every day, that it would come to the point where North Dakotans would ask for more prisons to be built.

The Governors, Attorney Generals, State Legislators, Judges, Prosecuting Attorneys, Probation Officers, and Police Officers know why there is so much crime in Dickinson, North Dakota, but the problem is that the ordinary citizens don’t know.

The prisons in North Dakota are currently completely full, because new prisons have not been built.  Because the prisons in North Dakota are full, with no room for additional prisoners,  people who are convicted of drug crime and theft in North Dakota are given very little jail time, and probation.

Many of the Probation Officers in North Dakota have as many as 130 offenders to supervise on probation, because probation is given rather than incarceration.  The Police in Dickinson have seen for years, that they can successfully arrest someone for possession of methamphetamine and possession of stolen property, the offender is released from jail on bail, the Police arrest this same offender again for another possession of meth and stolen property while they are out on bail awaiting trial, and in the end, this offender only ever spends a month total in jail, and gets probation.

When I looked up the person who stole my truck in 2017 on the North Dakota Court Repository, he should have still been in prison for an arson charge, while he was out committing multiple felony thefts, and he should have been in prison for these multiple felony thefts, while he was out stealing my truck.  He was out of prison on probation, while he was caught in possession of stolen property, and he was out on bail for this possession of stolen property, when he stole my truck.

I e-mailed a judge who had adjudicated many of this thief’s criminal cases over the years to ask him why he kept suspending most of this person’s prison sentences, when this person kept repeating and repeating felony thefts again and again over the past twenty years, and this judge was outraged, and he told me to go ask the prosecutor.

If you read the Dickinson Press newspaper “Police Blotter” or “Crime and Courts” articles, and go look up the people named who have been charged with theft and possession of illegal drugs using the North Dakota Court Repository on the internet, you will almost always find that they are currently on probation for a previous charge of theft and possession of drugs, and in many cases they are currently out on bail awaiting trial for a previous arrest for theft and possession of drugs.

The Police in Dickinson arrest the same several hundred people for theft, possession of drugs, and drug dealing, over and over again, multiple times each year, because these offenders are not being incarcerated, they are being let out of jail almost immediately right back into Dickinson.  Also, these repeat offenders have no fear of committing crime in Dickinson because their punishment is so lenient.

The Sad And Tragic Story Of Who This Drug Addict Girl Is, In Dickinson, North Dakota

Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , ,

In my previous blog post I described how I came to meet a drug addict girl, who I will call “Teresa”, following the theft of my property in downtown Dickinson where I live.  In late June, Teresa came walking down the street from the Drug House where she lived, to where I was, working on my vehicle parked on the street beside the apartment building where I live.

At first, I was interested in talking to Teresa, in order to try to find out who had stolen my bicycle in the beginning of June.  The longer that I talked to her, I began to notice that she was good looking, in a way that most women in Dickinson are not.  She was very thin and muscular, with no body fat at all.  But her appearance wasn’t from diet and exercise, it was from drug use and not eating.

Because of the way that Teresa looked, and because she was so forward with me, I was attracted to her, and I wanted to have sex with her.  Her whole reason for walking up from the Drug House and talking to me, was probably to see if I had any interest in her, because she needed help.

I knew from talking to the landlord of the Drug House a day or two earlier, that Teresa was likely one of the three people who were being evicted from the Drug House.  Teresa told me that she was being evicted, but that she was going to court to fight her eviction.

It appeared that Teresa had no job, no income, no vehicle, and no money.  I thought about how I could help her, but I also thought about how much trouble she could cause me.  If I allowed her to stay in my apartment, sooner or later she or her friends would probably steal whatever they could from me.  Or, she could make an abuse allegation against me, and the Police would likely arrest me and remove me from my own apartment.

I realized that if I wanted to know who Teresa really was, I could look up her landlord’s name on the North Dakota Court Repository website under Civil/Traffic court cases, where he would be the Plaintiff, and she would be the Defendant in a pending eviction court case.

I found Teresa’s real first and last name, plus a second first and last name that she sometimes uses, which comes from her middle name and a previous marriage last name.  Using court records, LinkedIn, a wedding registry, company records, and Facebook, I was able to see a very sad and tragic story of who Teresa actually was:

Teresa grew up in, and graduated from high school, in a small town in Indiana.  From 2000 to 2004 she attended and graduated from a good state university, receiving a Bachelor of Arts in political science.

While attending university she was employed in business administration, and she continued to have steady employment in business administration after she graduated from university.  In her late twenties, with the amount of work experience and long-term steady employment that she had had, she probably earned $35,000 to $40,000 per year.

In 2010 Teresa moved to Virginia in order to attend a business college, to actually get a degree in Business Administration.  With her previous extensive work experience in business administration, taking the additional classes in accounting, finance, marketing, human resources, and management, would probably allow her to begin earning $50,000 to $80,000 per year.

Her first semester at this business college in Virginia, Teresa met a fellow student in one of her classes, who had just gotten out of the military.  Soon she became best friends with him, later she became engaged to him, and a couple of years later she had two children with him.

Her fiancee that she met at business college in Virginia, I will call him “Jeremy”.  Jeremy had a good personality, he was funny, handsome, athletic, and in good physical condition.  The photographs of Teresa and Jeremy from this time period at business college in Virginia, both of them about 30 years old, they looked very happy, and very healthy.

When Teresa and Jeremy graduated from business college in Virginia in 2013, soon after that, they moved to Dickinson, North Dakota, which was experiencing an oil boom.  Teresa got a job in business administration in Dickinson, with a very large company, her job title was assistant manager.  After about a year of working for this very large company in Dickinson, Teresa was promoted to manager.

As manager of this company, Teresa was responsible for the intake of about $200,000 to $300,000 per month, the deposits, the bookkeeping, some human resources, employee management, sales, marketing, public relations, dealing with customers, and more.  She earned probably $60,000 to $70,000 per year.

From the civil and criminal court records that I saw, and from her Facebook timeline of photos and comments, it looks like everything began falling apart in approximately 2015.  Teresa was no longer with Jeremy, the father of her two children, and it looked like she was no longer employed.

What I saw on Teresa’s Facebook page, was that she was “in-love” with her “soul-mate”, a convicted felon thief, drug addict, and drug dealer from Bowman, North Dakota.  In her Facebook photos and comments, and in court records, from 2016 onward, it looked like she became completely immersed in a drug addict lifestyle.

Jeremy was awarded custody of their two children.  Teresa was arrested for failure to appear in court, following an arrest for driving without a driver’s license.  She was arrested for possession of marijuana.  She was evicted by three different property management companies in Dickinson for failure to pay rent.  She had four separate court judgments against her for $4,500, $2,000, $1,000, and $1,000.

What was shocking to me, was the contrast between the Teresa that had just graduated from business college, was the manager of a large company earning $60,000 to $80,000 per year, with a new Dodge Charger, with a home, a husband, and two young children, and the Teresa who was homeless, with no children, no job, and walking the streets of Dickinson looking for things to take out of garbage dumpsters.

It is said that a drug addiction is a mental illness.  I don’t disagree that drug addiction is a mental illness, but I think that Teresa must have had some kind of mental illness completely separate from trying, using, and becoming addicted to methamphetamine.  The reason why I say this, is how in two or three years of using meth, could she not see that she had lost her job, her career, her home, her husband, her children, her friends, and was living on the street, and not want to change?  The women’s shelter and rehabilitation is just one mile away.

I couldn’t believe how far Teresa had fallen.  But I had to tell myself, how in the world could I help her or deal with her, don’t I realize that her husband, her family, her employer, and her friends must have all tried to help her?

Probably one of the biggest obstacles to Teresa leaving this drug addict lifestyle, is her “soul-mate” boyfriend, who despite being arrested for felony theft and felony drug possession with intent to deliver during this past year, he is not in jail, but on probation.  I don’t know when the judges in Dickinson will understand that allowing convicted felon drug dealers to walk around free in Dickinson, is not a good idea, and not helpful to anyone.

The Drug House In Dickinson, North Dakota

Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , ,

Each of my previous four blog posts have been primarily about the attempted theft and successful theft of my property in downtown Dickinson, North Dakota where I live.  I would like to get off of this subject, but I can’t, because this shit keeps on happening, faster than I can even write about it.

Beginning on May 27, 2019 when I found my white color Mongoose Mountain Bicycle hanging from its bicycle cable-lock off the back of my truck parked where I live, my neighbors in the apartment building where I live, and my neighbors living in the houses in this area, they all told me that they believed that it was the people in the “Drug House” at the end of the street that were responsible for all of the crime in our neighborhood.

It was pointed out to me again and again by my neighbors, that the Dickinson Police are at the “Drug House” nearly every day.  If you watch what goes on down there, the Police are at this house looking for suspects, looking for stolen property, serving arrest warrants and arresting people, serving search warrants and arresting people for possession of illegal drugs and stolen property, serving eviction notices, evicting people, and responding to disputes.

Having observed all of the Police activity at the “Drug House” that goes on daily, people in our neighborhood have taken note of the individuals that come and go from the Drug House all day long by vehicle, by bicycle, and on foot, and the people who sit or loiter outside of the Drug House.

Everyone in our neighborhood is suspicious and concerned when they see the residents and visitors of the Drug House parked in their vehicle, bicycling, or walking in the neighborhood, because they are worried that they are planning on stealing something or breaking into a vehicle or home.  The parking, bicycling, and walking often appear to have no other purpose than spotting and planning things to steal.

Besides the successful theft of my white color Mongoose Mountain Bicycle, and the cutting through of the bicycle cable-lock on my red color Mongoose Mountain Bicycle, some of my neighbors have had a luggage rack stolen, a trailer hitch stolen, an expensive bicycle stolen, a baby stroller stolen, a car broken into, a house broken into, and most recently this past week a Honda Civic stolen.

Myself and all of my neighbors would like for this Drug House to be gone.  Burning it down, bulldozing it down, getting a community grant to buy it and destroy it, or having the Building Inspector or Fire Marshall declare it uninhabitable are options that have been considered.

I talked to the property manager of the apartment building where I live about the thefts that I have had, which appear to be caused by people walking up the street from the Drug House.  He looked up the owner of the Drug House, put the office phone on speaker, and called the owner of the Drug House while I was sitting there.  When the phone picked up, he said, “Hey John, I think that you have got a drug problem going on at the house that you own.”  John said without hesitation, “Oh I know that I do.”

John, the owner of the Drug House, was an elderly man in his late 60s or 70s.  He sounded tired and nearly worn out, almost exasperated.  He explained that he had three evictions currently going on at this house, and that none of these people would leave.  It appeared that it was never the elderly owner John’s intention to have rented to drug addicts and criminals.

Apparently, this Drug House was subdivided into small rental units, which are not very appealing, and they are very low rent, as low as $250 per month.  People with a criminal record, drug addiction, no high school diploma, no job skills, who can’t get a job or can’t keep a job, with very little income, they rent a unit in the Drug House because this is one of the cheapest places in Dickinson.

After the theft of my white color Mongoose Mountain Bicycle on June 6, I drove around Dickinson looking for this bicycle.  I stopped and talked to my neighbors, and I showed them photos of this stolen bicycle.  And, I stopped at the Drug House several times to show the tenants and loiterers photos of my stolen bicycle.

The female residents of the Drug House were very receptive in hearing about my stolen bicycle and looking at photos.  They would say how that was bad, they were sorry, and that they would keep an eye out for it.  The male residents of the Drug House would say get the fuck out of here with that shit, we didn’t steal your bicycle.

On the night of June 25, when every Dickinson Patrol Officer on duty at the time had to respond to a dispute involving residents of the Drug House, after this things changed for a couple of weeks.  The Police had to chase, taser, arrest, and take to jail an individual who was combative with them and non-compliant.  Removing this individual from the Drug House seemed to help quiet things down for a while.

Several residents of the Drug House, and several visitors to the Drug House were detained and questioned by the Police.  The visitors to the Drug House did not like being detained, identified, and questioned, and they quit going to the Drug House.  The women residents of the Drug House didn’t like this either and they were upset about it.

In the days following this incident, when the women residents of the Drug House were still upset about this, I talked to them about everything that had been going on recently.  Some of the residents of the Drug House were not renters, they were people who had no place to go, and they would not leave, this was the case for the person who got tased and arrested, his name was Steven.

Everything was quiet until the Honda Civic got stolen on Sunday morning July 14.  Possibly or probably the worst thing to come from all of this, was that I started talking to the drug addict women, which I will explain in my next blog post.

June 15, 2019 Attempted Bicycle Theft In Downtown Dickinson, North Dakota

Uncategorized, , , , , , , ,

My previous three blog posts have been about the successful theft and attempted theft of my property in downtown Dickinson, North Dakota on May 27, June 6, June 15, and June 25 of 2019.

In this blog post, I just want to explain and show the surveillance video from June 15 at 2:31 a.m. where an adult male walks up to my red color Mongoose Mountain Bicycle parked in the bicycle rack where I live.  The 3/8″ steel bicycle cable-lock was found cut through on the morning of June 15, that is why I looked at the surveillance video from the previous night.

If you read my previous blog post, it describes the theft of my white color Mongoose Mountain Bicycle from the back of my vehicle parked where I live on June 6, where two adults cut through the 3/8″ steel bicycle cable-lock with a Dremel type tool.  The white color Mongoose Mountain Bicycle I cared about, the red color Mongoose Mountain Bicycle I bought at a City of Dickinson Municipal Surplus Auction two years ago for about $30.

The Police Officer who came to talk to me after I reported this attempted theft on June 15, was Officer Bates.  I later gave a copy of three surveillance videos showing the June 6 and June 15 incidents to Dickinson Police Officer Kinto, Officer Bates, and Sergeant Moser.

In this video, at the 02:31:00 time stamp, you will see an individual walk from the right side to the left side of the video screen.  If you look closely at the white Chrysler 300, you will see this individual turn to walk in front of this car, to get to the bicycle rack, and then crouch down.  Before viewing this surveillance video, click on the settings icon to select the highest video resolution 480p, and also expand this video to watch it on full-screen.

Why this individual didn’t take this red color Mongoose Mountain Bicycle at this time, I don’t know.  Maybe because the tires did not have enough air in them to ride it.  Maybe he got scared away by a barking dog at the house next door.

When I discussed the May 27, June 6, June 15, and June 25 theft or attempted thefts of my property in downtown Dickinson with neighbors in my apartment building, other people living in this neighborhood, and Dickinson Police Officers, everyone believed that the thieves were coming from the “Drug House” down the street.  When an arrest was made of an individual who had been photographing the property in my truck on June 25, following a 911 call about a dispute involving several people, this individual and several other persons involved were residents of the “Drug House”.

It is not that the Dickinson Police Patrol Officers do not care about crime in this neighborhood, they have to go to this “Drug House” on average about once per day.  There are drug investigations at this “Drug House” at least once per month, probably more often than that.  The suspects are taken to jail, and within a few days they are out of jail, right back to the “Drug House”.

June 6, 2019 Bicycle Theft Video Dickinson, North Dakota

Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , , ,

My previous two blog posts described the attempted theft and successful theft of my property in downtown Dickinson, North Dakota on May 27, June 6, June 15, and June 25 of 2019.

In this blog post, I just want to focus on the successful theft of my white color Mongoose Mountain Bicycle from my vehicle that occurred on June 6, 2019, and show the surveillance video of this theft.

There was an attempted theft of this white color Mongoose Mountain Bicycle on May 27, where this bicycle was left hanging from the back of my vehicle by its bicycle cable-lock.  Dickinson Police Officer Langler who responded to my reporting this attempted theft to the Dickinson Police Dispatch, he suggested that I buy a trail camera or a security camera, so I bought a security camera and installed it that same day.

On June 6, 2019 at approximately 2:19:00 a.m., the security camera recorded two adults riding up to my vehicle on black BMX bicycles.  On this video, look at the white truck parked on the far side of the street.  At approximately 2:21:00 a.m., the security video shows one of the thieves riding away on my white color Mongoose Mountain Bicycle, while he holds onto the handle bars of the small black BMX bicycle that he rode up on.

When watching this video, click on the settings icon to select the highest video resolution which will probably be 480p, then click on the full screen view icon.  Look at the surveillance video time stamp, and start viewing at 02:19:00 a.m.

I want to explain several things that I have not already covered in my previous two blog posts.  This white color Mongoose Mountain Bicycle, I bought it for $225 in Uvalde, Texas while I was working in the oil field of southwest Texas, near Carrizo Springs in 2012.  On the weekends I rode this bicycle through the sparsely populated, rural areas along the Nueces River.  I kept this bicycle in very good condition for the past seven years, it has more sentimental value and memories associated with it, than cash value.

You have got to realize, that two grown adults made one attempt to steal this bicycle on May 27, then they made plans to come back with a Dremel tool on June 6 at 2:20 a.m. in the morning, to crouch down and take two minutes to cut through a 3/8″ steel bicycle cable-lock out on the street, and then ride down the street holding onto another bicycle, to obtain something that they could sell for only $80 to $100.  Do any grown adults do anything as stupid as this, to split $80 to $100 between them, and risk going to jail, if they are not Methamphetamine addicts?

I was upset at having this bicycle stolen, because it means something to me, not because it is worth a lot of money.  But more importantly, if two adults are going to come out at night in my neighborhood with a Dremel tool, looking to steal things worth as little as $80, is anything inside or outside my vehicle, or anyone else’s vehicle safe?

It was pointed out to me by several different Dickinson Police Officers, neighbors living in my apartment building, and neighbors living in homes in this neighborhood, that there is a “Drug House” down the street from me.  On average, the Dickinson Police have to go to this “Drug House” about once a day.

Neighbors pointed out to me the vehicles that have been broken into, the other property that has been stolen like bicycles, luggage racks, trailer hitches, and a baby stroller, and following tracks in the snow back to the “Drug House” down the street.  Some of this was explained in my previous blog post.

Something else that needs to be realized, is that these stolen items like an $80 bicycle or an $80 luggage rack, it is unlikely that someone would drive one or two of these items at a time immediately to Bismarck or Rapid City to try to sell them, because it wouldn’t be worth the trip time-wise or the cost of fuel.  There has got to be some shed or garage in downtown Dickinson, that is full of stolen bicycles, car luggage racks, trailer hitches and everything else that has been stolen downtown in the past month or two.

Lastly, besides evidence that seems to point to the people in the “Drug House” down the street being involved in the attempted theft and successful theft of my property downtown where I live, in the original HD high resolution video where I can zoom-in, the person riding away on my Mongoose Mountain Bicycle reminded me of someone who works at a business in downtown Dickinson.

The person who was riding away on my Mongoose Bicycle, who reminded me of a person who works at a business downtown, I looked him up on the internet to learn his last name, let’s say that his last name is “Harter”, an unusual name that I have never really come across anyone having this last name before.  (“Harter” is not his actual last name, I don’t want to ruin the Police investigation, however I want people to be able to figure this out.)

When I went to the Dickinson Police Station on June 26 following the arrest of the person from the “Drug House” who was using his phone to photograph the property in my truck downtown where I live, there was another individual from the “Drug House” at the Police Station, and just then the “Harter” guy who looks like the person who stole my bicycle shows up at the Police Station too.

Then, I find out that the “Drug House” resident who is always walking up and down the streets during the day spotting things to steal when it gets dark, her last name is “Harter”.

Also, for about eight years of my life as a kid and as a teenager, I rode my bicycle for an average of about four hours every day.  It is very hard to ride a bicycle, and hold onto a second bicycle by the handle bars, pulling it along with you, because the second bicycle always wants to steer into you or away from you, it is very hard to do.  It is hard to ride down from a curb on a bicycle with only one hand on the handle bars, even much more so while holding onto a second bicycle.  There are only a few people in Dickinson who have this much experience riding bicycles, to ride away holding a second BMX bicycle by the handle bars, and drop down from a curb one-handed, like shown in the surveillance video.

Why I Haven’t Written About Dickinson, North Dakota For A Month

Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , , ,

I have not written about Dickinson, North Dakota for a month.  This is the longest that I have gone in the past five years without writing anything.  This has been one of the worst months of my life.  Most of my problems involved being sick, my Siamese cat, going back to Idaho to work on my house, and thefts where I live in downtown Dickinson.

Everything that went wrong for me, was not nearly as important or consequential as the thefts of my property in downtown Dickinson, North Dakota.  The last blog post that I wrote on May 27 titled “Early Morning Thefts In Downtown Dickinson, North Dakota”, turned out to be just the beginning.

On the morning of May 27, I found my white color Mongoose mountain bicycle hanging from it’s bicycle cable lock, with the front wheel undone, hanging off the back of my truck.  I took Dickinson Police Officer Langler’s advice when he came to take a report, to purchase a security camera.

On the morning of June 6, I found that my white color Mongoose mountain bicycle was gone.  The surveillance video showed two adults ride up on black BMX bicylces, cut through the bicycle cable lock, and ride off on my bicycle at 2:21 a.m.  Dickinson Police Officer Kinto took a report on this theft.

On the morning of June 15, a neighbor found the bicycle cable lock cut through on my older red color Mongoose mountain bicycle parked in the bicycle rack.  The surveillance video showed an adult walk up to this bicycle and crouch down beside it at 2:31 a.m.  Dickinson Police Officer Bates took a report on this attempted theft where the bicycle cable lock was cut through.

On the evening of June 25 at 7:20 p.m., my neighbors observed an adult male taking pictures of what was in the back of my truck using his phone, apparently the set of four truck tires.  The Dickinson Police were not very helpful at first when I was trying to explain this to them, they were especially not helpful when they later tasered this individual 100 feet from my truck when he was being combative and non-compliant with them, in regards to a dispute.

I tried to explain about the attempted theft and successful theft of my property on May 27, June 6, June 15, and at 7:20 p.m. this evening by this individual now in their custody in the back of their patrol vehicle to several Dickinson Police Officers standing there, but they didn’t want to hear about it, except for Officer Langler, who unfortunately had to leave on another call.  I couldn’t believe it, I thought that I would have a very difficult time catching this person, and now that the Police had him in custody in their patrol vehicle, they didn’t want to hear about it.

The following morning, June 26, I was able to give a written statement and three surveillance videos to Dickinson Police Sergeant Moser who was in charge of the day shift, in the hope that the Dickinson Police Department could use all of this information with the dates, times, and videos to make some progress in theft investigations in Dickinson.

Dickinson Police Officers Langler, Kinto, Bates, and Moser were professional and they appeared to have a genuine interest in stopping the thefts in downtown Dickinson.  But something is wrong beyond these specific instances of theft and attempted theft where I live in downtown Dickinson, something is wrong with the Mayor Scott Decker, the Police Chief Dusty Dassinger, the Judges, the City of Dickinson Commissioners, the long-time local residents, and the out of state workers in Dickinson.

I have lived in small towns, college towns, oil field towns, medium-sized towns, and big cities like Tampa, Phoenix, and Fort Worth.  Dickinson has by far the worst theft and drug crime, and it only has a population of 25,000 people.

What I believe is the deliberate under-reporting of crime in Dickinson, is doing way more harm than good.  If crime is really bad and out of control, let the people know, let the Mayor know, let the City Commissioners know, so that additional officers or detectives can be hired, or even ask for assistance from the State Police.

There seems to be some kind of unwritten understanding between Police Chief Dusty Dassinger, the Judges, and the thieves and drug addicts in Dickinson, that the theft of property is not that bad, drug activity is not that bad, as long as you don’t do anything violent, you’re O.K.

The behind the scenes attitude of Mayor Scott Decker, Police Chief Dusty Dassinger, the City of Dickinson Commissioners, and the Judges, that the city is just going to have to live with theft and drug crime, there isn’t much that you can do about it, let’s try to minimize the reporting of crime in Dickinson, we aren’t going to hire more Police Officers, let’s just try to make it through these post oil boom years, and all of this will die off, ……..this attitude of allowing it, permitting it, and ignoring it is making Dickinson have the worst crime of anywhere I have ever lived in my life.

Early Morning Thefts In Downtown Dickinson, North Dakota

Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I spent a good part of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday during daylight hours, working on vehicles, getting things done, making progress.  Each night I looked on the internet for parts, vehicle problems that were similar to what I had, and repairs that other people had done.

This morning, Memorial Day, when I went outside my apartment building to go to my truck, I saw that someone had tried to steal my mountain bike from the bed of my truck.  I had a cable lock going through the bicycle frame and front wheel, because the front wheel has a quick-release lever.  The front wheel was removed and hanging there, and the bike was pulled out and hanging there.

This really made me angry, for a whole bunch of reasons.  I keep a lot of tools and equipment in my vehicles.  I use these tools and equipment regularly, and they need to stay in my vehicle.  Things like a battery jump start box, battery charger, digital multi-meter, compressed air tank, socket set, cordless tool set, dremel tools, other tools, spare tires, shop jack, and so forth.  This truck got stolen in Dickinson in 2016, and $2,000 worth of tools and equipment were removed from it.

When this truck got stolen in Dickinson in 2016, the tools and equipment that were taken from it, plus the four new tires that were taken off of it, plus the time and money that I spent driving around from Richardton to New England to Belfield looking for my truck and handing out flyers, this all cost me a loss of about $3,000.

The person who stole my truck and later abandoned it, he is a long-time, well-known car thief in the Dickinson area, and a drug addict.  He spends most of his time in jail and in prison.  Getting arrested, being placed in jail, and going to prison are not a deterrent to him, nor will he ever, ever be able to pay any restitution for what he stole.

So now, I have a cable lock going through my truck steering wheel, a cable lock going through my spare tires, and a cable lock going through my mountain bike.  I have to double check that my tool box is locked, and I have to double check that anything of value is locked inside of a locked chest, which is cable locked to the seat frame.

But all of this locking everything up, all of this worry about locking up everything that I own, trying to keep the tools and equipment that I use and need, it’s like a losing battle here in Dickinson.  Living in Dickinson, it’s always, always one step forward, and two steps back.

Low-life, scum-of-the-earth thieves still roam the streets of downtown Dickinson at night trying to steal things out of people’s vehicles.  They aren’t afraid of the Police, they aren’t afraid of going to jail, and they aren’t afraid of going to prison.  The Police, the Judges, the jail, and prison aren’t bad enough or severe enough for them to be afraid, these things aren’t a deterrent to them.

I have to be careful about what I say, but I would like to kill the next person that I catch trying to steal something from me or vandalize something that I own.  I know that I would probably get caught, that I would go to prison for years, maybe life, maybe get the death penalty.  The thieves in Dickinson have no fear of getting caught, they will keep on stealing because their punishment is never severe enough, so I would just like to kill them right on the spot.

I called the Dickinson Police this morning, and an officer came and he looked at what I had going on.  The Police Officer suggested to me that I get a trail camera.  I went to Menards and I bought a high-definition security camera system for $190.  I mounted the outdoor weatherproof high-definition security camera on my apartment balcony, aimed at where I park my vehicles.

The power and video cable from the outdoor camera go to a DVR inside my apartment that has a 1 terabyte hard drive.  The default operation of the outdoor camera and DVR is to record video whenever motion is detected.  However, I changed the settings so that the outdoor camera video is recorded continuously.  There is enough memory for the camera video to be recorded continuously for eighty hours before the DVR automatically begins overwriting the older video.

Now, I sit here in my living room glancing at my television screen, which shows what is going on in the apartment building parking lot and out on the street.  This afternoon, I went over to one of my neighbor’s house to tell him what had happened, and he and his wife told me that a luggage carrier had been stolen off of a truck one block away earlier this week.

The second neighbor that I spoke to this afternoon, he told me what else had been stolen this past week in this neighborhood.  The third neighbor that I spoke to, he showed me the Nissan car that had been broken into last week.  The first two neighbors that I spoke to this afternoon, they had an idea where the thieves are coming from, and this area is where I thought they were coming from too.

There is a very wretched and distressed apartment building, and several very distressed houses that have been subdivided into little cubby holes for the drug addicts to live in, that pretty much guarantee that we will always have crime in this neighborhood downtown.  The drug addicts come out after midnight and wander around the neighborhood looking for things to steal.

Though these drug addicts wandering the streets at night in Dickinson attract the attention of the Police, what are the Police going to do besides asking them a few questions about what they are doing and where they are going?  The way that Dickinson is now, probably 25% of the people living downtown have had a drug conviction in the past.  With all these drug addicts walking the streets after midnight, each claiming that they are going somewhere, what are the Police going to do?

Drug Dealing And Crime At My Apartment Building In Downtown Dickinson Almost Causing Me To Move

Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , ,

About one year ago, I moved into an older apartment building in downtown Dickinson, North Dakota.  For 3-1/2 years prior to this, while I was working in Dickinson, I paid rent to a homeowner on the north side of Dickinson to stay in his 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom home.  For the past eight years, I have owned a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom home in Idaho, where I have spent very little time due to working in North Dakota, Utah, and Texas.

The 3br/2ba home on the north side of Dickinson where I lived for 3-1/2 years, was very similar to living in my 3br/2ba home in Idaho.  All of the neighbors in the rural area on the north side of Dickinson believed, and behaved the same way.

All of the neighbors in the rural area on the north side of Dickinson had extra trucks, trailers, equipment, motorcycles, four wheelers, boats, and garages where they worked on all of the things that they owned.  They took care of their property, were quiet, didn’t play loud music, didn’t drive recklessly or carelessly, and stayed on their own property.

All of the neighbors in the rural area quickly spotted any vehicle that was unfamiliar to them, and watched the vehicle to see where it was going and what they were going to do.  Most of the neighbors had a couple of outdoor dogs, that would start barking whenever someone unfamiliar was anywhere near their yard or the neighbor’s yard, which caused people to look outside or come outside to see what the dogs were barking at.

In the 3-1/2 years of living in the rural area on the north side of Dickinson, no one had any theft or trespassers.  We had a medium sized bird dog that was very alert, and every neighbor surrounding us had medium sized to large outdoor hunting dogs that guarded the houses.  One of the neighbors had huskies and malamutes that never came inside.

Due to the home owner where I was staying being older and having health problems, which caused among other things, him to come into the living room and turn on the television and make a lot of noise during the late night and early a.m. hours, which woke me up and prevented me from falling back to sleep, I wanted to go and live some place else.  The oil boom was over in North Dakota by the end of 2015, and rents all throughout Dickinson had decreased through 2016 and 2017.

I did not want to spend very much money for rent in Dickinson.  I was just here to work, to try to make as much money as possible, to try to save as much money as possible, to try to spend as little as possible, so that one day I could return to my home in Idaho, and resume a normal life.

Just as an aside, to answer the question, What do I mean by resuming a normal life?  For instance, in the area of Idaho where I had lived, there was an equal number of men and women.  Perhaps even a slightly higher number of women.  It was common for women in Idaho to want to make a good impression, to try to have a nice appearance, to be polite, and to try to be friendly and helpful.  Why?  Because they wanted to make friends, make acquaintances, have the chance for more opportunities, to advance professionally, to be asked out on dates, or to be invited to go places.

But let me get back to Dickinson.  In the Spring of 2017, I sought to find an inexpensive apartment in Dickinson.  The older apartment buildings downtown, had significantly lower rent than the newly constructed apartment buildings on the outer perimeter of Dickinson.  At one of the older apartment buildings downtown, which was probably at 50% occupancy, the apartment manager gave me a very good deal on a two bedroom apartment, because I had very good credit, two jobs, had already been working in Dickinson for four years, and I did not have any criminal record.

I liked the 2 bedroom apartment very much, it had a nice view, and it did not cost very much.  I was glad to have privacy, and quiet at night when I was sleeping, which I had not had while I was living with a homeowner on the north side of Dickinson.  I also liked the convenience of living downtown, it was a shorter drive to places like the grocery store.

Within a couple of months of moving into an apartment in downtown Dickinson, several bad things began happening at about the same time.  In order to not be a jerk, or start any problems with my apartment neighbors, I did not want to take any person’s parking space.  So I parked my vehicles on the street.  I had to look all over town, but I found a business owner who was willing to rent to me a spot to park one of my trucks, about four blocks away from where I lived downtown.

When I had traveled all over the United States for work, to Colorado, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Texas, and North Dakota, I kept a large locked trunk, chained and locked to the back seat frame, inside of my truck.  In this trunk, I kept my birth certificate, social security card, $500 emergency money, and a large 11″x17″ portfolio binder showing years and years of my engineering work.  After 15 years of travelling like this, working in places like Pueblo, Phoenix, Laredo, and Fort Worth, I thought that this locked and chained down trunk inside of my locked truck was safe enough in Dickinson.

I was wrong.  My entire truck was stolen in downtown Dickinson.  I handed out flyers all over southwest North Dakota, and after a week, different people telephoned me to tell me who had my stolen truck.  I was able to contact associates and relatives of the person who stole my truck, who was already wanted by the Police in Dickinson for his seventh and eighth felonies.  Due to pressure from friends, relatives, and the Police, my truck was left abandoned beside Hwy 85.

Missing from my stolen truck was about $1,500 to $2,000 in tools and equipment.  The electric trailer brake controller, radar detector, two spare truck tires, spare trailer tire, truck bed tool box, floor jack, air tank, tool sets, carrier rack, and the four good tires that were on it, had all been removed and sold.  The $500 cash went in his pocket, and my birth certificate, social security card, portfolio of work, business cards, owners manual with service history and receipts, all went in the garbage somewhere, probably.

At about the same time that my truck was stolen in downtown Dickinson, I was having problems at my apartment building in downtown Dickinson.  The source of many of these problems, were two apartments in my building where drugs were being used and sold.

Shortly after moving into this building, several residents and myself, witnessed the Police trying to escort a resident from one of the drug apartments to their Police car.  This young lady repeatedly tried to injure herself by intentionally banging her head against the brick walls, doors, Police car, and inside the Police car.  She was obviously out of her mind on drugs.

At all hours of the day and night, people would come and go from these two drug apartments in the downtown apartment building where I lived.  Or, sometimes people would stay and get high, then sit or wander in the apartment building common areas in a zombie like stupor.

After I had lived in this downtown apartment building for about six weeks, I telephoned the apartment building management, and I told them that they had a drug problem in this building.  People coming and going from two apartments throughout the day and night, people sitting in a stupor on balconies, walking the hallway stoned in the early a.m. hours.  The building management asked me to specify which two apartments.  When I was reluctant to do so, the building management asked if it was apartment xx and xx, and I said yes, exactly.  Since other residents of the building had already complained and had identified the two apartments, I gave some additional information.

It turned out, that the main drug dealing apartment was not even supposed to be occupied by the people who were living there.  A mother of an adult son, she had rented the apartment, then she went off to live someplace else, and she left her adult son in the apartment.  This adult son who did not have a job, he invited other people who did not have jobs, to come and stay with him at the apartment where he wasn’t even on the lease.  This group of unemployed people, none of them were on the apartment lease, bought and sold drugs all day, and used drugs all day.

The apartment building managers and the Police, made an attempt to clear the apartment building of all drug activity, which helped some, but there was a recurrence of problems.  This sector of downtown Dickinson, had more than several drug houses and drug apartments.  People would continue to come to this apartment building, or wander around this immediate area, seeking drugs.  People who were not in their right minds, would either come straight to this building or eventually wander over to this building, and they would try to hang out here, hoping or thinking that a drug dealer or someone with drugs would turn up any minute, because they had got drugs here in the past.

This led to things like me finding someone who was not a resident of the building, almost completely passed out and unable to move, laying in the stairwell of this building at 3:00 a.m.  Finding someone who was not a resident of the building, sitting in their car hiding behind the garages, acting out of their mind on drugs.  Finding someone who was not a resident of the building, shuffling around and acting crazy in the parking lot around the vehicles at 2:00 a.m.  And the combination of people who do not live here loitering or wandering through the property 24 hours per day, while at the same time residents find that someone has removed property from their car or tampered with their car.

In this past month, I found a couple of 20-23 year olds that didn’t belong in my neighbor’s backyard where he keeps his equipment, motorcycles, and four wheelers; a non-resident with a station wagon filled with garbage bags trying to fill up our one apartment building garbage container; a couple of drug impaired non-residents searching through our apartment building garbage container with flashlights for about 20 minutes, who were probably looking for bank statements and credit card bills.  And finally, the drug dealer, drug user adult son who does not have a job, is back at his mother’s apartment dealing drugs.

The apartment building management, and the Police, had tried to rid this apartment building of the drug dealing about eight months ago, by confronting the drug dealers, seeing if any drugs could be detected or found, and threatening the lease holders of the two suspected apartments with eviction.  Months and months later, people were still coming onto this apartment building property 24 hours per day hoping to find drugs, because they had gotten drugs here in the past.

Within one day of the drug dealer with no job being back on the apartment building property, I watched black guys from out of state with inner city ghetto vehicles driving right up to this apartment like it’s a drive through or convenience store for drugs.

(If you want to see what an out of state, inner city ghetto vehicle used by drug dealers looks like, go peak through the fence of the impound lot at East End Towing in Dickinson to see the Range Rover which has been lowered with custom wheels, California license plates, with the windows broken out of it, and beat all to hell from misuse and abuse.)

I thought about calling the apartment building management, or going and talking to them in person, and saying to them that they have got to get rid of the people in this apartment, evict the lease holder once and for all.  I think that it would have probably turned into an argument, with me threatening to leave, or the apartment management suggesting that I leave, because they are tired of hearing about it.

I think that there is so much crime in downtown Dickinson now, there are so many low income and inner city ghetto people that have moved to Dickinson recently, that the property managers and the Police are overwhelmed, they don’t know what to do, or how to handle it.

I asked the homeowner where I used to live in Dickinson, if I could come back and live with him in an emergency, because I can foresee getting into an argument with the property management, where they will ask me to leave.  He is partly sympathetic, because he knows that my truck and all of the property in my truck would never had gotten stolen if he would have allowed me to keep my truck parked at his house.

When I think about renting an apartment elsewhere in Dickinson, what I am certain of, is that I sure as hell am not going to pay more money to live in a newer apartment building in Dickinson, and still be around apartments where people sell and use drugs.  The new apartment buildings are at 50% occupancy, they will rent to anyone, and there are so many lower income and inner city ghetto people that have recently moved to Dickinson, that I don’t see how I can ever escape the crime and drug dealing in Dickinson by renting any apartment in Dickinson.

 

Note:  I want to explain why I associate all of this crime in Dickinson with low income people and inner city ghetto people who have recently moved to Dickinson.

People who spent a lot of time and money to obtain a college degree, or worked their way up to management level, or professional level, or have enough demonstratable skill and experience to have a good paying job, these people all know better than to jeopardize all of their hard work by attempting to steal things out of people’s vehicles, garages, and homes.  To get caught with a stolen vehicle, trailer, or equipment.  Also, they are usually capable of buying the things that they want, rather than taking the foolish and unnecessary risk of stealing things.

It is mostly low income and inner city ghetto people that look at the risk of being caught, convicted, and sentenced for trying to steal a phone or laptop out of a vehicle, or valuables out of someone’s home, as being worth the risk.  The risk of them spending 30 days in jail, or one year in prison, is worth the $200 to $400 they might receive from stealing something from someone’s vehicle or burglarizing a home.

What The Police in Watford City And Dickinson Are Trying To Do

Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , ,

A few days ago, a new resident in the apartments where I sometimes stay in Watford City asked me a question.  He asked, “What is it with this 25 mph speed limit?  Has the money that Watford City received from oil revenue decreased so much that the police are having to write everyone tickets to make money?”  I said no, that’s not it at all, the police want to have the opportunity to meet you.

I explained that the police like pulling people over, that way they get to meet you.  They look at your out of state driver’s license, everybody here is from out of state, and they run it to see if you  have any outstanding warrants, and whatever other criminal history information that might come up.  Then they are going to ask you, “What’s your local address?”  The police want your local address, so in case you are involved in anything now or at a later date, they know where you are staying here locally.

Just walking up to your vehicle, the police can tell if you are a construction worker, a skilled trades person, a professional, or a homeless person.  A construction worker will most likely have a beat up vehicle with construction tools laying about.  A skilled trades person will have a nicer vehicle with his tools put away.  A professional person will likely have a clean vehicle with no tools at all.  A homeless person will have all of their personal items stuffed inside their vehicle.

Just walking up to your vehicle, the police can tell if you are likely a drug addict.  Drug addicts sometimes have newer vehicles, but there is usually something messed up with it, like the sunvisor being mangled, the headliner being pulled down, or a back window being smashed.  Whether a newer vehicle, or an older vehicle, drug addicts usually have debris all over the floor, and I don’t mean tools, I mean debris.  Somewhere in that debris, the police will usually find drug paraphernalia.  The police can also spot items in drug addict’s vehicle that have likely been stolen or have been reported as stolen recently.

I am not complaining about the police meeting people, because I agree with it.  One of the things that the police in Watford City and Dickinson are trying to do is eliminate drug trafficking and illegal drug use, which I agree with.

Someone can go ahead and tell me again about how narcotics should be legal, and it is nobody’s business but the user, they aren’t hurting anyone, it’s nobody’s business.  This is a drug user who will say something like this.  I can go ahead and tell them about the women I know who lost custody of their children because they weren’t feeding their children because they were a drug user, using their money to buy drugs, not paying attention to feeding, clothing, and caring for their children.  Drug users steal money from the businesses where they work, from family members, from friends, from neighbors, from strangers, in order to pay for drugs.

Probably at least 60% of the small item theft in Dickinson is committed by people trying to get something to sell to buy drugs.  These are removing items from unlocked cars and homes, and breaking into locked cars and homes.

I am not giving away secrets that shouldn’t be known.  I want everyone in Watford City and Dickinson to know that the police are looking for the opportunity to stop you, meet you, and find out all about you.  If there is anything suspicious about you, they are going to tell the other police, so that they can all watch what you are doing.  They want to know who everybody is and what everybody is doing.  Watford City government, Dickinson city government, county government, highway patrol, the courts, probation, chamber of commerce, business associations, development associations, wealthy individuals, the Dickinson Mafia, all the churches, they are all behind the police having tight control over everybody and this is what they expect to be done.