About 50 residents, primarily from the South Harbor Island neighborhood in Wrightsville Beach, met with the town’s Police Chief Dan House on Thursday to express concerns about potential drug use and related activity in the neighborhood.
The meeting follows a series of incidents that neighbors attribute to drug use, including a photo taken of the South Channel Drive Mini Park that neighbors believe shows a woman injecting drugs outside in the daytime.
“There’s a general concern about drugs in the neighborhood,” said town manager Tim Owens.
House told the neighbors that police would step up patrols in the area, while neighbors were encouraged to be more vigilant in observing and reporting what happens in the area. House shared a list of essential police phone numbers to that neighbors would know how to report what they observe.
House said that too often, residents don’t report crimes quickly enough, and that the main purpose of the meeting was to review how residents could contact police. House gave a series of numbers, including his personal cell phone number.
“Our response time is pretty quick, we can be there in just a couple of minutes,” House said. “The whole focus of the meeting was informing them how to get a hold of us. Time is of the essence in these situations.”
One option discussed at the meeting was to form a neighborhood watch group for South Harbor Island.
“That has to be started at the grassroots level,” Owens said.
Mayor Pro Tem Darryl Mills also attended the meeting, noting that forming a neighborhood watch would require more organization and planning, including setting regular shift schedules and working with police.
“Residents are concerned and want something done,” Mills said, noting that police had little evidence on which to act. “But people also have due process and legal rights.”
The first incident occurred in May, when a Harbor Island woman captured a photo of what she said was two people using heroin outside at South Channel Drive Mini Park, with the man injecting the woman with a needle in the foot. One neighbor confirmed the story, saying police were called, but the couple left before police arrived. The photo was put on a neighborhood Facebook page, but later removed.
At the center of the concern is a tenant in the house of a longtime resident of South Channel Drive. Neighbors said the resident, a former elected official, told them he is receiving caretaking services from the tenant.
Wrightsville Beach police searched the South Channel house after a man who was known to have stayed with the tenant was revived from a heroin overdose by Wilmington police using the emergency drug Naloxone, House said.
House said the homeowner was completely “forthcoming” and that police found no evidence in the residence.
“There was not anything. Nothing was found to indicate drug use. Not a bent spoon. Nothing,” House said.
Additionally, while the photo raised some concerns, House emphasized that there was no proof that drug use was occurring in the picture. Also, there was no evidence tying the people pictured in the photo with the resident or the tenant, House said. Furthermore, House said had neighbors called police immediately, he believed police would have reached the park in time to confront the suspicious-acting people.
“Absolutely, without question, we would have gotten there on time if we had been called immediately,” House said.
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