

Area: Aen_News

Date : Oct 21 '94, 12:36                                              Scn
From : Al Thompson                                           1:231/110.0
To   : All                                 
Subj : Crime Bill police funding                                             


AP 21 Oct 94

   MOFFETT, Okla. (AP) -- There hasn't been this much excitement in
Moffett since a poultry company tried to dump chicken sludge on the
edge of town last year.

   Last week, the federal government awarded this tumbledown town a
three-year grant of $106,000 from the crime bill to make the dirt
streets of Moffett safer, and the 340 locals have been in a dither
ever since.

   For one thing, they don't have a police department -- or much of
a crime problem either, some say.

   Besides, to get the money in hand, they have to come up with a 25
percent match -- $26,500, or 2 1/2 times the town's annual budget.
For a community that had to hold a barbecue to raise $2,000 to clean
up after the Arkansas River flooded the town in 1990, that's real
money.

   "I wish in a way it never came through," says Ruby Lindsey, who
raised her children in this town that's seven blocks long and four
blocks wide. "It's caused a lot of friction between a lot of people."
 
   The grant was applied for by Jimmy Jones, who was fired last year
after 18 months as the town's lone police officer. Folks say they
ran out of money and patience with Jones, who patrolled in his own
1977 Pontiac Firebird with a red light propped on the dashboard
after the town's Ford LTD "wore plumb out." Jones had had squabbles
with town leaders over whether he was doing his job.

   Now David Lindsey, Ruby Lindsey's ex-husband and one of two town
councilors, is accusing Jones -- who was paid $120 a week -- of
applying for the grant simply to get his job back.

   For his part, Jones says that he does want his job back but that
he also believes the town needs police protection.

   The rest of the townsfolk are taking sides, and city leaders are
looking into what to do next with the offer from the Justice Department.

   Mayor David Carolina says there's not much need for law
enforcement in this sleepy town. The 78-year-old, who collects
aluminum cans for extra money, says the biggest problem is speeding.

   "Kids are speeding up and down this highway," Carolina says of
the potholed, country lane that runs through town. "All we need is
one policeman -- part time."

   He lets out a belly laugh when told that the county undersheriff
is recommending a police chief and three officers to keep watch on
the town.

   "We don't need one, let alone three," he says, stuffing a wad of
chewing tobacco under his lip. "I told them to give me the best
pistol they can get and I'll do it."

   To be sure, this town of rundown shacks, an auto salvage yard, a
pool hall and septic tanks has had its share of trouble.

   A few years back, vandals broke into the elementary school and
stole a TV and VCR. Then there was that time when someone was
dumping trash in everyone else's garbage cans. And it has had its
town bullies and fistfights.

   "There are fights between people, but most of the people are
kin," Ruby Lindsey said. Two of those fights have led to murder in
recent years, and one of those slayings stemmed from a dispute over
drug money.

   Moffett, hidden from the interstate by a grove of maple trees, is
perched on the river across the bridge from Fort Smith, Ark. Soybean
fields pick up where the salvage yards of bent fenders and
weed-filled cars leave off.

   In the 1940s and '50s, Moffett was a party town for soldiers on
leave. But when too many servicemen turned up drunk or dead after a
night of gambling and womanizing in Moffett, the military posted a
sign at the edge of town: "Off Limits to All Military Personnel."
 
   The sign remained up for decades until a car plowed it down
several years ago. Now there's not much left here but widows and
stray dogs and abandoned tractors and tricycles rusting in the rain.

   Before the grant, one of the biggest things to happen here was a
successful fight against a plan by a poultry processor to dump
chicken guts, blood and parts on the outskirts of town.

   Sallisaw County Undersheriff Danny Hoover, who occasionally
patrols the town, says Moffett better get serious about law
enforcement.

   "Common sense will tell you when they know there's no law, the
crime's going to come here," he says after giving a kid a lecture
about how to walk away from a fight.

   But Ruby Lindsey isn't so sure. "Lawmen come in here and stir up
trouble," she says. "We have no bad people here."

--- GEcho 1.00
 * Origin: Gun Control=Criminals & Gestapo vs. the Unarmed. (1:231/110)


