Police, Duke Power discu

BY MARK SCHULTZ : The Herald-Sun
mschultz@heraldsun.com
Jan 21, 2005 : 8:59 pm ET

DURHAM -- Durham residents who want to see sneakers removed from overhead power lines should call Durham One Call, 560-1200, a city official said Friday.

Representatives from Duke Power and the Durham Police Department discussed the sneakers during a regularly scheduled meeting.

The shoes can sometimes signal gangs marking their territory, and the police, power company and the city already work together to remove them, officials said.

"How often I don't know," said Jay Reinstein, an assistant to the city manager. "With [gang] graffiti for the most part it's removed in 24 hours."

Scott Gardner, Duke Power's district manager, attended Friday's meeting. He didn't want to discuss how often Duke workers remove sneakers from lines but said the company and police work well together, and "we feel confident we are on top of this."

Gardner said he didn't think that sneakers looped over lines were always actual gang symbols.

"I see tennis shoes everywhere," he said. "I can tell you we remove them when we're called."

But resident Josh Parker, who contacted Duke Power about the issue earlier this month, thinks officials need to take the sneakers down more quickly. He said sneakers sometimes remain tangled in lines for weeks or longer.

"I can't tell you how many [community] meetings I go to where they're talking about gang graffiti and sneakers," said Parker, who ran unsuccessfully for county commissioner last year.

"If we're treating graffiti as marking gang territory and they're saying sneakers are marking gang territory -- whether they always do or not -- we should be treating them the same way," Parker said. "For God's sake, let's be proactive for once."