By Theo Francis
Daily Record
MORRISTOWN — Talk to heroin addicts, and
you’ll hear about dope for sale at Manahan Village.
Get a newspaper, and you’ll read about people
charged with selling heroin there and on nearby Hillairy
Avenue.
But talk to the people who live in the neighborhood,
and you’ll hear a different story.
"We’re not all bad down here," said a
woman in her mid-60s who has raised seven children in
Manahan Village. "People come in here and do their
dirt, and we all get blamed for it."
There is heroin dealing in northern Morristown, much
of it concentrated near public housing complexes. But
there is also a community in which parents work, children
learn in school, and many are stained with the broad
brush that marks it a "drug neighborhood."
The reality of that community makes the drug problem
there complex and vexing, residents and observers said.
Because the community is black, many are disturbed by the
interference of outsiders — most of whom are white
— even as they welcome the results. Because it is
poor, the siren song of easy drug money lures a steady
trickle of disciples, and the dealing is done outdoors.
Because it is tight-knit, residents are sometimes
reluctant to turn in their nephews, friends, classmates
and neighbors.
None of those who have died of overdoses of heroin
this year in Morris County was living in Morristown. None
was black. Rather, all were from predominantly white,
middle- or upper-middle-class towns. Few seem to have
gotten their heroin in Morristown.
‘A lot of good young men out here’
But the Village’s reputation persists throughout
the county.
"They don’t want to admit that the kids in
their own backyard are using a drug that, in their minds,
is for black people," said Sam Singleton, executive
director of Neighborhood House, a 100-year-old
organization based on Flagler Street. "There are
still a lot of good young men out here."
He likens the plight of the current black residents to
that of the Italians who lived in the neighborhood
earlier in the century. They were accused of
numbers-running, loitering, being bad parents. Now
Latinos are plastered with some of the same reputation.
"I truly believe Morristown has been a scapegoat
for many, many years," Singleton said.
He was echoed by residents in and around Manahan
Village, most of whom declined to give their names,
saying they did not want to draw attention to the
neighborhood or emphasize its problems.
"You can’t stand down here certain times at
night without someone labeling you a drug dealer,"
one woman, holding the hand of a child, said on Clyde
Potts Drive.
"You’ve got every cop on duty coming through
down here," one 29-year-old lifelong resident said,
declining to give his name. In the next breath, however,
he praised the work they have done, noting that the drug
sales were worse three, five, 10 years ago.
"They’re doing a damn good job," he
said. "It’s time they clean it up."
‘Police don’t see it as a black-white
issue’
The police department stresses that they are not
singling out the Manahan Village neighborhood.
"We’ve had a lot of complaints from the
residents themselves," Sgt. Mark Slockbower, the
department’s spokesman, said. And heroin has been a
police priority for the 23 years he’s been there.
"Police don’t see it as a black-white
issue."
Until this year, however, the department has been
understaffed, limiting the number of officers available
for foot patrols in heavily populated areas like the
downtown, Speedwell Avenue and Manahan Village. It also
hampered the department’s ability to watch and
document drug transactions and track individual dealers.
"When you’re understaffed, you’re busy
handling ordinary medical calls, motor-vehicle accidents
and a lot of other things," he said.
Increased patrols in recent months have helped slow
the drug trade, said Trevor Parchment, 50, who has lived
in Manahan Village for 15 years.
"When the police come around, everything is
good," he said. "No one wants their kids to see
the drug dealing."
J.J. Wilfong, standing nearby, said he likes the
patrols, too, though he’d like more.
But he also has little patience with the complaints of
harassment. Though he says white friends visiting him
have been stopped by police who thought they were coming
to buy drugs, the 26-year-old lifelong resident calls
much of the complaining just so much smoke.
In the early evening, the appearance of a police car
or foot patrol often sparks the call "Five-oh!"
— a warning that is picked up and carried along by
others, apparently to warn drug dealers, he points out.
"Then they cry, ‘Oh, they’re harassing
me because we’re black,’" he said.
"If (they) are standing out in the cold all day, you
know what they’re doing. It’s not because
they’re comfortable."
Those dozens of young men and women milling about on
Flagler Street at dusk in good weather may look ominous
to visitors, but they aren’t all drug users or
dealers, Singleton said, though it’s still a far cry
from his own youth when Manahan Village residents slept
with their doors open in the summer.
"It’s a mixture of people just hanging out,
people hanging out who are predators — and people
you may consider business-people, who are in the drug
business," Singleton said.
The money in the drug business draws those who do
deal. Sometimes the money is for the seller’s own
habit, sometimes it’s money for its own sake.
Deal drugs, or work at McDonald’s
Some want to "buy that car, pay that child
support," even raise money for tuition, college
textbooks or spending money, Wilfong and others said.
Some want to help families trying to get by on low-income
jobs. A few even succeed at "the game," the
legend goes, without getting addicted or caught. Then
they move away.
Not many are so lucky, authorities said. But either
way, the lure is there.
"Do I work for four or five dollars an hour or
sell drugs?" said David McCoy, 40, who grew up in
Morristown and now runs Beginnings, the town drug
rehabilitation program that counseled 1,800 people last
year. "Sure, it could be a cop out. But we’re
dealing with human beings."
One former cocaine addict, who spoke on condition that
his name not be used, said he sold the drug in the 1980s,
when residents say the drug trafficking was much worse.
Thirty-five years old and a lifelong resident of the
neighborhood, he said he understands why some residents
get into the drug trade, though he cannot condone it.
"I grew up with nothing," he said.
"It’s kind of hard to say, ‘Go get a job
at McDonald’s’ when you can be down here making
more than people making $17 an hour.’"
If money makes drug-dealing attractive and customers
make it possible, the neighborhood’s closeness makes
it a little safer, police and residents said.
In a part of town where many have grown up together,
the drug dealer on the corner was once the child you
— or your sister, friend or neighbor —
baby-sat. The addict down the street is someone’s
brother, girlfriend or son.
"Everyone knows everyone," Wilfong said.
Take Sammy Hickenbottom, tagged as the ringleader of
the group accused of selling heroin from two Hillairy
Avenue homes after an April raid. Hickenbottom could not
be reached for comment through his attorney.
It’s not clear if anyone in the neighborhood
actually protected him. But a lot of people have known
him a long time, McCoy said. He grew up in Morristown and
was well-known for his sense of humor and easygoing ways.
"He had always been a fun guy, never caused
problems," McCoy said. "I believe he was a guy
in the community who just got into selling drugs."
The community’s intimacy also puts the brakes on
some of the most dangerous elements of drug culture,
McCoy and others said.
"Guns are not tolerated in Morristown,"
McCoy said, echoing several others. Gangs, too, have not
flourished as they have in cities.
"Every now and then, you’ll have someone
with a weapon," he said, but it’s usually an
out-of-towner, a conclusion with which police agree.
Although a nuisance that is sometimes threatening, the
drug activity in the neighborhood is not often dangerous,
residents said. Parchment warned that those known to have
called the police must be careful where they go at night,
but he and Wilfong said few people are threatened
overtly. Mostly, the activity is just annoying.
"No one wants their kids to see that,"
Wilfong said.
But guns represent a serious, immediate threat. Like
other sudden threats to the neighborhood —
overdoses, a rapid increase in dealing — but much
more quickly, firearms trigger the frustration that
otherwise may take years to build.
"Residents become so frustrated with the activity
outside their windows and their doors," McCoy said,
describing the thought process: "John is out there.
I know John. I watched him grow up, but I’m sick of
the noise."
A small community discourages gangs
But if someone is hurt, overdoses or pulls a gun,
residents become much more willing to call the police, or
to call places like Beginnings and Neighborhood House,
McCoy and others said.
The smallness of the community, rather than its
closeness, has prevented gangs from flourishing, others
said. Without the large, impersonal populations of large
urban areas, the drug industry doesn’t need the kind
of rigid control that has let gangs take over parts of
the state’s cities.
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theo@theowire.com
