The Wrice marchers’ anti-drug chants have echoed in the city’s meanest streets for a year, but the crime problem remains. It’s as clear as the tennis shoes dangling from the powerlines on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
“That means the drug dealers are ready for business,” Sgt. Scott Dean said, pointing to two pairs of shoes hanging from a powerline in front of a house near Martin Luther King and Seacrest boulevards. “They use it as a calling card.”
Next week, city officials will celebrate the first anniversary of the Wrice marches, a grass-roots effort to rid neighborhoods of drug dealers, buyers, loiterers and other criminals by confronting them on their own turf with marches and protests.
The Wrice Process is the brainchild of Herman Wrice, who began organizing antidrug marches in Philadelphia in 1987.
The program now operates in 350 cities across the country. The U.S. Department of Justice pays Wrice $200 a day to travel across the country to teach residents and city officials how to organize the grass-roots program.
Wrice members in Boynton say they may not have eliminated crime problems on their streets, but their efforts have increased pride among neighbors and created stronger ties between police and residents. Now, police are more likely to get crime tips from residents who before might never have bothered to call 911.
But even as the group readies itself for next week’s bash, city officials are considering ways to transform the marchers into a more effective crime-fighting group.
“If we do have an anniversary party next year, it’s going to be a farewell party,” Police Chief Marshall Gage said. “I would hope that we negate the need for the Wrice Process. My goal is to get a handle on that problem. It’s a tall order, but that’s our goal.”
The city has spent about $35,000 on the biweekly marches. Although the program kicked off last July with about 200 people marching in the first event, the group has dwindled to about 20 hard-core members. On some days, as few as seven people showed up to confront the drug dealers.
Boynton Beach’s veteran Wrice members say the marches empower them to get drug pushers to ply their trade in other areas.
“As I move around the community, I see the pride of the people has escalated,” said Myra Jones, a Boynton Beach native, who became a marcher to combat drugs and crime in her Ridgewood Hills neighborhood. “Look at the progress we’ve made on the streets.”
Although more concrete statistics are not available, police and marchers agree that at least a dozen arrests resulted from the marches as police escorts spotted drug deals and other criminal acts in the area.
Police also credit the group with helping to shut down at least one crack house and one convenience store known for drug sales.
The largest drug crackdown came in May, when police got a tip from the marchers that cocaine and other drugs were being sold at Bell’s Quick Stop on Martin Luther King Boulevard. Acting on the tip, undercover agents made some drug deals, then raided the store, netting 80 grams of cocaine and drug paraphernalia. Clifford Bell, the store’s owner, was charged with trafficking cocaine. He is free on $100,000 bail.
But police say the arrests have not put a dent into the drug trade.
“The problem is the criminal element knows, ‘All right, the marchers are here for a couple of hours, and then we’ll come back,'” Gage told the City Commission during a recent briefing on the marches.
Gage’s answers prompted commissioners to ask if the program is worth financing for another year.
“I would say it would be fair to evaluate it every three or four months,” Gage said. “I would really like to have it concluded by the end of the calendar year.”
Wilfred Hawkins, assistant to the city manager, told commissioners he’d like to retrain the group so it would become a Citizens Observer Patrol. It would roam high-crime neighborhoods and alert police of criminal activity through cellular phones and police radio.
Commissioners seem to like the suggestion.
“If we could get 40 to 50 people to volunteer in that area, I think it would make a difference,” Commissioner Shirley Jaskiewicz said.
James Culver, a police spokesman and Wrice coordinator, also thinks it may be time to change the direction of the group.
“My vision is to take the Wrice Process to another level,” he said. “Maybe they could help set up community workshops to get people in touch with why they feel the way they feel. Trying to get the community to take a chance. I think if the Wrice Process continues, we can do it.”
