PHILADELPHIA – David Oh is frustrated by widespread outdoor drug use and high crime in the Kensington neighborhood.
That is why the mayoral candidate has drawn up a plan aimed at cleaning up the streets and saving and protecting its residents, unable to stop addicts from walking the streets in a stupor.
“If we get rid of Kensington Avenue as a place that exists in this region, people will be better off,” said Oh, a Republican.
The Republican candidate, if elected, plans to use drones to detect illegal behavior and empower police to aggressively make arrests and demolish the drug haven.
Oh, and a local community advocate, Britt Carpenter, criticized the city’s policies, but Carpenter wasn’t convinced that the Republican’s or his Democratic rival’s plans would help Kensington.
Residents “have seen this failure,” Oh said. “They dislike it and consider it absolutely against common sense. People are dying for a different approach.”
In the statement to Fox News, a spokesman for Mayor Jim Kenney said the Democrat shares the health and safety concerns of Kensington residents and businesses.
“We are committed to identifying solutions [sic] camps and address public nuisances on an ongoing basis to address public health and safety concerns in the Kensington neighborhood as they arise,” the spokesperson said. “We encourage residents and businesses to call 311 or use the online submission form to report public health and safety concerns and the presence of encampments.”
Drug addicts at a bank in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia. Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
But Oh told Fox News the city hasn’t done enough, arguing that Kensington’s open-air drug market needs to be shut down entirely, a move he said would require some aggressive tactics.
One strategy would involve drones descending on the neighborhood to detect illegal activity.
“We will record them. We will videotape them,” Oh said. “Then we will go up and let them know first that it is a new day. You’re not going to do this anymore.”
“After that, we will start enforcing the law,” he continued. “All criminal laws, all public safety laws and all quality of life laws will be enforced, and I will count on police officers to do it.”
Philadelphia mayoral candidate David Oh wants to use drones to clean up the outdoor drug market in Kensington. Philadelphia City Hall
Critics have said that a law-and-order strategy in open-air drug markets could lead to more overdose deaths.
Addicts’ drug tolerance would decline during incarceration, making them more susceptible to accidentally overindulging upon release, Stanford addiction researcher Keith Humphreys told a CBS News affiliate in San Francisco, a city with its own outdoor drug problem.
Even so, Oh criticized Philadelphia’s policy of focusing on medical treatment without arresting criminals.
“The most important thing is to communicate to them that these things will not be tolerated,” he said. “No more drug dealing in the open. No more public injections of heroin or other drugs.”
“No more crowd nodding off and out of control,” he continued. “No more wandering the streets. No more living in tents and defecating on people’s property.”
Kensington has gained international attention for its rampant drug use in public, which has shown the worsening effects of increasingly deadly substances infiltrating the drug supply.
The community also had one of the worst drug and violent crime rates in the entire city over the past month, according to data compiled by The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Carpenter, whose nonprofit provides resources to the homeless, said organizations like hers have had to step in due to the city’s inaction. But she disagreed with Oh’s approach to helping Kensington.
A man suffering a skin wound from the use of xylazine is treated in Kensington. AP Photo/Matt Rourke
“The organizations that are here, the nonprofits, the groups, the harm reduction advocates that are here doing what we do every day, I think we’re filling a huge void that’s been left in the city,” Philly Unknown Said the project manager. “The city is not filling those gaps as it should.”
“We’re making a difference,” Carpenter said. “We are the ones who care and have empathy, and we are spreading awareness.”
The head of the non-profit organization maintains a garden on Ruth Street to provide a safe space for drug users to sit amongst flowers and art as an escape from the needles and rubbish strewn all over Kensington.
Oh said residents are “dying for a different approach” to the troubled neighborhood. Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
He also carries a cart full of snacks, clothing, and hygiene items each week to hand out to drug users.
Carpenter told Fox News that he has no faith in Kenney, the limited-term mayor, or anyone who is running to replace him in the November election to reverse Kensington’s downward trajectory.
He said that politicians only come to Kensington during the election season.
“City officials are staying as far away from Kensington as possible unless there is a photo shoot,” he said. “City officials, especially Mayor Kenney, have forgotten that…every life that’s been taken here by an overdose, no matter what, is somebody, somebody.”
Oh said the drones would record addicts and then be used to help police “enforce the law.” Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Pennsylvania has consistently been in the top 10 states for overdose deaths over the past decade, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In 2021, drug overdose mortality reached a record 5,449 deaths statewide, up nearly 25% from 2019.
Philadelphia, in particular, had nearly 1,300 unintentional overdose deaths in 2021. More than 80% of the deaths involved opioids like fentanyl, according to city data.
Oh said he was confident in his plan to crack down on drug dealing and outdoor drug use.
He hopes his strategy will alleviate the pain and suffering of drug users and the residents of Kensington Avenue.
“You have to stop drug addiction,” Oh said. “You have to stop the abuse they go through.”
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Source: vtt.edu.vn