cannabisnews.com: Longwood Plaza Discussion Turns to Abuse Laws!





Longwood Plaza Discussion Turns to Abuse Laws!
Posted by FoM on February 10, 1999 at 11:39:56 PT

The drug dealers had vanished from the Longwood Plaza parking lot in Cleveland by last night, but more than 125 people gathered anyway to discuss the teenagers who were selling the drugs two weeks ago.
The night's most common theme was a complaint about child abuse laws that the speakers said too severely limit the physical punishment that parents can use to make their children behave. They suggested new laws to allow more severe corporal punishment.Most people agreed with a plan by Councilman Frank Jackson, whose ward includes the plaza, to gather members of the community, the courts, social service agencies and the police to come up with a plan for battling the conditions that give rise to teenage drug dealing.In recent months, drug dealers had converted the plaza parking lot into what Jackson described as an open-air marketplace. Bands of drug dealers sold crack cocaine and marijuana to hundreds of customers per day. Competition became so fierce in December that the dealers started shooting each other. One youth was killed."They put on bulletproof vests and try to shoot each other in front of an elementary school," said activist Khalid Samad, the night's first speaker.The dealers disappeared a week ago, when police intensified patrols at the plaza and Jackson called for last night's community meeting at the nearby Triedstone Baptist Church."Only a fool would be at Longwood Plaza," Jackson said last night. "But don't you think the illness has gone away. It will resurface somewhere else." Police Chief Martin Flask said he was "appalled" when he learned of the drug dealers' brazenness. He said clearing them away was simple."We can put a policeman in that plaza every hour of every day," he said. He added police alone cannot clear drugs from the near East Side. Flask joined Jackson in calling on the community to help formulate a plan to improve life near the plaza.Several parents complained about child abuse laws."The police can beat your children, but you can't whup your children," said Lillie Brent, chairwoman of the Longwood Tenants Association at the Longwood Estates housing project. "These kids these days can tell you what the Juvenile Court says you can't do to them."Eric Johnson, who tutors children at the Friendly Inn Settlement, suggested that courts sentence delinquent teenagers to attend Jackson's ward meetings with residents."A lot of those meetings end up talking about them [the children- anyway," Johnson said.Boris Morrison, interim principal at East Technical High School, pleaded with parents to control the children. He said he was shocked a month ago to hear the rat-a-tat of a teenager's paramilitary gun outside the school building."This spills over into the school system," he said. "I don't know much about how to handle folks with guns. I wasn't trained for that."
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