Neighbors want action

California transplant Tom Corners walks the street in front of his West Montgomery Avenue home pulling weeds and picking up cigarette butts from the gutter.

Earlier this year, Corners, 68, watered the lawn of a vacant home hoping it would help attract a buyer who wanted to make more of his North Central neighborhood. It worked.

But he and several of his neighbors remain frustrated that numerous complaints about suspicious activity at a nearby house have gone unheeded by Spokane police. And now they think they know why: The five-unit apartment house at 112 W. Montgomery is owned by a Spokane police officer.

“I’m not going to keep quiet like a little mouse running for cover,” said Corners, who hasn’t seen an actual transaction but suspects one of the rental units in the building is being used to sell drugs. “I don’t know what to say. I don’t like it. The neighborhood doesn’t need more difficulty. People are trying to upgrade.”

Spearheading the effort is developer Marshall Clark, who spent more than $1 million refurbishing an old brick building at 2320 N. Atlantic into studio apartments and business space. It’s located directly across the street from the Montgomery apartment house and Clark’s building gives him a commanding view of the traffic – sometimes as many as 20 to 30 cars a night – to the basement apartment.

For more than two years Clark said, he has called 911, written down license plates, filed reports with Crime Check, talked with police officials and even videotaped the activity, which he is convinced is drug dealing.

“If I was (allowing this to occur on my property), they would be right down my throat threatening to take my house away from me,” Clark said.

Instead, he said, police tell him their hands are tied, that they need hard evidence before any action can be taken and that their resources are limited.

If police are unable to root out potentially illegal activity at property owned by a law enforcement officer, Clark wonders what can be expected of neighborhoods without residents willing to get involved.

“Are we an anomaly? I don’t know what more I can do,” Clark said. “I’ve lost a lot of confidence in the Police Department through this process.”

Detective Jeff Barrington, who investigates drug cases, said he’s spoken to Clark about his complaints.

“We get hundreds of complaints a month just like the ones from Marshall Clark,” Barrington said. “If there are no leads or anything else to go on, it’s a dead issue.”

According to property records, the converted apartment house is owned by Spokane Police Officer James Jay Olsen. It is a block away from Garfield Elementary School.

Olsen, who has an unpublished telephone number, could not be reached for comment.

Police Chief Roger Bragdon declined repeated interview requests and referred all questions to department spokesman Dick Cottam, who refused to contact Olsen for interviews.Clark said Bragdon has refused to talk with him as well. But after Clark wrote letters to the Spokane City Council, Bragdon responded last week by sending Clark a letter acknowledging having received his previous e-mails and letters.

“Your complaint has been investigated and continues to be. Unfortunately, that is not the only drug house in the city, and resources are limited,” Bragdon wrote in the letter that was copied to the City Council and Officer Olsen. “The landlord has been contacted and is doing all that the law allows a landlord to do in this situation.”

Clark isn’t so sure. He wants to know why Olsen doesn’t evict the tenant where all the suspicious activity is taking place.

“Basically, he is saying they are busy. Give me a break,” Clark said of Bragdon’s letter. “Having a police chief speaking for someone who allows drugs to be sold from his apartment, I think that’s lame.”

State law says tenants can be evicted for engaging in proven drug activity. A tenant with a month-to-month lease can be evicted for any reason, as long as the landlord gives 20 days’ notice.

The tenant at the center of the controversy claims it’s all a big misunderstanding, even though neighbors say her explanations defy logic.

Ginger Ferris, 60, rents the unit from which much of the suspicious activity originates. She has no felony record and adamantly denied in an interview that she or anyone else was dealing drugs from her home.

Ferris said she is not well, sleeps during the day and she relies on caregivers. She explained that she recently lost one caregiver and then started relying on many more.

“I don’t have that many people coming here. The ones who come here, they were all disabled. They don’t have a job. That’s why they were available,” she said.

The neighbors say most of the activity over the past six months coincides with visits from Dennis “D.J.” Jones, 50, whom Ferris says is an acquaintance.

“He’s a friend that took care of my house when I was gone,” she said.

Ferris said she didn’t know that Jones has three drug convictions and twice went to prison. In one of those cases, Jones was convicted of selling cocaine in 1997 to an undercover Spokane police officer.

“Maybe I should choose my friends better. I didn’t know that,” Ferris said.

Jones said in a telephone interview that he did his time for those cases, and that he now talks to police whenever they question him about drugs. He suggested the neighborhood complaints are racially motivated because he drives a nice car and he is black.

He explained that all the cars coming to visit the apartment were his and Ferris’ friends.

“I don’t need to sell drugs to make a living. I’ve got my own money,” said Jones, who doesn’t work and collects Social Security disability payments. “Just because I am one black man who has something, they think I’m selling drugs. It’s racially motivated.”

Clark said he confronted Jones months ago about the traffic coming in and out of the apartment. Clark said Jones told him the same thing, that Clark’s problem was racially motivated. “I said, ‘No. I’m doing this because you are dealing drugs,’ ” Clark said. “I don’t care if he’s purple.”

At least two neighbors said they have seen as many as 20 to 30 cars a night coming to the apartment. The action heats up during the first of the month, Clark said.

“A little old lady has that many visitors? I don’t have that many visitors at a business,” Clark said. “It’s not realistic.”

Tom Corners said he doesn’t believe Ferris’ explanation of people coming by to provide her care.

“Caregivers don’t stay there for five minutes and walk out,” he said. “That’s somebody who has something else going on. They are not just coming in to just chat.”

Todd Bowyer and his wife recently purchased the home next door to the basement apartment where Ferris lives.

“I know what’s going on. I was a young punk at one time in my life,” the 48-year-old Bowyer said as he took a rest from a home-improvement project in his yard. “That’s why this fence is going up,” he said, gesturing to a 6-foot-tall privacy fence.Bowyer, who has been in the house about a month, said he’s already met Officer Olsen.

“He was a pretty nice guy. He said, ‘If you see any problems to give me a call,’ ” Bowyer said. “I’m just trying to be a good neighbor.”

That’s all Clark, Tom Corners, his wife Sharon, and another neighbor said they want.

Sharon Corners said she would feel just as strongly if Ferris had a bunch of junk cars in her yard.

“We keep an eye on it and are watching it all the time,” she said. “We hope that if they think they are being watched, maybe they will move on. Right now, the only house we have on this street we have an issue with is that house on the corner.”

In his letter to Clark, Bragdon said the drug unit sometimes can quickly get what it needs for a search warrant. But other investigations take more time.

“In this case, it is taking longer, and not for a lack of effort,” he wrote.

Detective Barrington said he understands Clark’s frustration. He said he, too, lived near a house where he suspected drugs were being sold.

“If a lay person suspects drug activity, to me that’s about good enough to get a warrant. But unfortunately, I would suspect about every judge in town wouldn’t agree with that,” Barrington said.

“Like I always tell people in these situations, especially being there myself, they need to be somewhat of a nuisance to us and continually report the activity going on there,” he said. “It could take weeks or months. Sometimes that’s the way it works.”