Pinnacle Apartments
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Gazette Article 2
From: -Anonymous-Date posted: 5/25/2005
Years at this apartment: 2006 - 2006
Awards
December 09, 2004
If nobody cares, why bother, police wonder
CLOSE QUARTERS: Colorado Springs Police Officer Jackson Andrews searches a man suspected of dealing drugs at Cedar Creek Apartments. Andrews, a police Medal of Honor winner, has dealt with troubles at landlord Terry Ragans apartment complexes for four years.
Even those arrested are critical of conditions at complexes; some properties pretty scary, Springs
By DEEDEE CORRELL THE GAZETTE
Third of four parts
Police are tired of 105 S. Academy Blvd.
Theyre sick of 1806 Monterey and 1030 S. Chelton and 720 Chapman Drive.
Theyre frustrated with constantly returning to apartment complexes plagued by crime, of jousting with a landlord they say has resisted their efforts to improve his properties.
Its like banging your head against the wall, said Colorado Springs Police Officer Mike Singels, who has dealt with Terry Ragans properties for nine years.
For several years, the job of dealing with Ragans complexes has fallen largely to Singels and several other officers assigned as liaisons with apartment communities.
With no cooperation from the landlord in years and weak laws, its been a losing battle.
Its like pulling teeth, Officer Scott Carnes said. Were using a lot of officers trying to clean up his properties.
Lately, hes wondered why.
If nobody cares, Carnes asked, then what are we supposed to do for the 10th time'
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Police usually start with the broken window theory when they talk about Ragans properties.
The theory goes like this: Dont repair a broken window and people soon break more windows. Why shouldnt they, they think. A house where no one bothers to fix the windows is a place where no one cares.
That makes it attractive to criminals.
As far as police are concerned, Ragans properties illustrate the theory.
They see abandoned cars on blocks, broken glass thats never swept up, bullet holes in windows. They see people selling drugs in parking lots, smoking crack on balconies, carrying guns along hallways.
Theres no lights on the buildings, said Billy Thrash, who once worked for Ragan and now works at a nearby apartment complex. Its pitch black in that parking lot. This is a place to do some dirt.
Todd Ragan whose father, Terry, refused an interview disputed any suggestion the properties are poorly maintained.
Ragan said the company spent $1.02 million in 2002 on maintenance and even more this year.
Some criminals, however, have agreed with the police assessment and their views are recorded in the files officers maintain on Ragan properties.
The area is very dark in some spots, good for selling drugs, one man wrote to police after his arrest at El Vecino Apartments in 2000.
In order to stop the drug traffic at El Vecino, management should become more involved in what is going on, said Theresa Ackerman, also arrested at El Vecino. . . . Maybe putting locked outside doors, more lighting outside.
The conditions that make the complexes so alluring to criminals make them nerve-racking for others.
Cedar Creek, Shannon Glen, Mountain Country Estates are pretty scary, Officer Bob Eberhart said. A lot of shady people can move in there and conduct their activities. When we go in there, were taking away their livelihood. Some of these guys are willing to fight for it.
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Police are just as willing to fight back.
Were trying to make life better for everybody, said Sgt. John Taylor, who heads the Sand Creek neighborhood policing unit.
Formed about 10 years ago, the unit tracks crime and figures out ways to fight it. Five officers work the apartment complexes where many Sand Creek residents live.
Police said cooperation helps, but they didnt see that cooperation or commitment from Ragan.
Todd Ragan said hes recently started to cooperate more closely with police.
He also said police have made unreachable demands in the past.
For example, he said police asked them to build a large wall through the El Vecino property to stop traffic.
Ragan also said one officer and his supervisor targeted them because of a personal vendetta.
Police see it differently.
They foster the crime there, Carnes said. If you want to do crime, you go to his properties, because theres such a tolerance for it. As long as the police dont get you, youre OK.
Police say theyve tried different tactics at Ragans properties.
In 1996 and again in 2001, they parked a police van in the apartment complexes parking lots, and officers constantly walked and rode their bicycles around.
The properties quieted some, but not permanently.
It was like putting the cat out there, Taylor said. The mice will run back into their holes, and now you have to dig them out.
Police also noticed when they cleaned up one complex the same people showed up at other Ragan properties. One former employee said when police focused on a particular property, Ragan moved problem tenants to other apartments.
Todd Ragan denied that, but acknowledged some people evicted from certain properties end up living at other complexes. Although the company maintains a list of people who are no longer eligible to live there, he said some slip through the cracks.
Police, however, have been told the Ragans dont evict tenants who cause problems.
Two former employees told police that when they tried to evict tenants for using drugs, their supervisors refused to let them because they were concerned about vacancy rates.
Police said they tried establishing neighborhood watch groups. That didnt work.
A successful program requires a stable leader typically the apartment manager, Taylor said. Thats not the case at Ragans properties, where managers tend not to stay long, he said.
The programs havent worked for other reasons.
Former manager Kathy McIlwain said a supervisor canceled the meeting when she tried to start a group at Pine Creek in 2002.
Terry Ragan told her he did not want police on his property, she said.
Todd Ragan said the company does not discourage employees from calling police. He said the company did have a building buddy program in which residents would take their complaints to a designated person. That buddy would then report to managers. He said it fell apart because police pressured the buddies too much.
Tenants arent the only ones to cause problems. Police said theyve had concerns about some Ragan employees with criminal backgrounds and have arrested several.
Ragan said the company intends to start conducting background checks on employees before the end of the year.
Asked why, he said, Its something the police wanted us to do. We like to have trust in our employees, but its something they want done, so were going to do it.
Police have poured resources into special projects to combat problems at Ragan properties since 1997.
Twenty-seven of the 245 police initiatives conducted in Sand Creek since 1997 have targeted problems at Ragan properties, while 17 were conducted at complexes owned by other landlords.
Some projects worked briefly, Singels said.
In 1999, he focused on reducing Shannon Glenn service calls. He said he worked closely with the manager, who told him about tenants she suspected of crimes. Within three months, he said calls for service dropped.
Singels said Ragan transferred the manager to another property and the situation deteriorated.
It was back into disarray, Singels said. Terry Ragan does this every time. Every time we start working with a manager, that manager gets moved.
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Before he knew much about life inside the apartments, Singels wondered why some residents were so foolish.
Walking into apartments, hed see their burners going without food cooking and their ovens open while small children ran around.
He asked why one day. They told him thats how they kept warm.
Andrews saw the same things. They cant afford any place else, and theyre waking up to cockroaches, ceilings falling on them, he said.
They couldnt do anything about the code or fire violations they saw, but they could try to bring together people who could. In 2000, police started planning a team of representatives of various city and county agencies. As a group, members visited Ragan properties and recorded violations.
That same year, the Colorado Springs City Council passed a public nuisance law allowing the city to seize properties where repeated crimes are committed and the owner ignores them.
Police began building a case against El Vecino.
When they took it to the city attorney, Taylor said they were told they had to give Ragan fair warning and a chance to improve.
Under the ordinance, if a property owner takes a step to fix the problem, thats an affirmative defense that blocks the city from successfully prosecuting the landlord, said Kurt Pillard, head of the Metro Vice, Narcotics and Intelligence unit, which is involved in nuisance cases.
Ragan does that, Pillard said. He takes steps to correct certain problems, but leaves others untouched to the point that its a chronic problem, he said.
Although Ragan moves to correct problems, the basic problems remain, Taylor said.
He makes gestures, but do the majority of the things get fixed' Taylor said. No.
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The Ragans approached Colorado Springs Police Cmdr. Ron Gibson, who oversees Sand Creek, in June with an offer to cooperate.
Todd Ragan said they wanted to start off on a new foot. They also wanted the harassment to end, he said.
Gibson would not speculate about the motive. Regardless of why, they did take the initiative to contact the police department and indicate they wanted to cooperate, he said. I take it as a positive sign.
Ragan feels police are no longer targeting them because of their new relationship. We were (targeted) for awhile, but were not anymore. Because were working with Commander Gibson, weve got everything settled.
Its difficult to assess whether the cooperation has produced changes.
On one hand, Ragan said hes complying with police requests, such as starting apartment watch programs and conducting employee background checks. He and three employees attended a training session on crime prevention in apartments in mid-November.
On the other hand, Ragan acknowledged the cooperation hasnt improved the physical conditions. Have my properties improved' No. But the relationship with the Police Department has, he said.
One former employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said as recently as October Todd Ragan chastised her when she talked to police about problems at a complex.
Reports about whether criminals can live there are inconsistent. One woman with a recent felony record said she had no problem getting an apartment last spring.
Another woman said when she recently tried to rent an apartment, a leasing agent told her no because her husband is a convicted felon. The woman said that is unfair because a relative with a felony record lives there.
As for code enforcement issues, administrator Karon Di-Pentino said she feels Ragan is more responsive to code inspectors. Hes much more willing to come to the table, she said.
Police calls for service have decreased at most of Ragans properties recently. Theyve also decreased at all other complexes in the polices Top 12 list. Its not clear whether a high vacancy rate contributes to the drop.
Ragan declined to give information about his vacancy rates. A survey in the fall, however, found vacancy rates were 11.3 percent in the Colorado Springs area.
Police are no longer in a position to gauge whether life has improved at Ragans complexes. Since the summer, Taylors officers have spent little time on his properties, but have focused on other assignments.
The only officer who now spends much time on the properties is Lori Carnes, assigned to be the Ragans police liaison.
Under the new agreement, when Carnes sees something amiss, she contacts the Ragans so they can address it.
Carnes brought one of those issues to Ragans attention last summer when a woman at El Vecino had a door that wouldnt open. The woman said she repeatedly asked managers to fix the problem, a claim verified by a former manager. No one came, she said.
So for a week, the woman, who has stomach cancer, climbed over the 4-foot wall of her balcony to escape her ground level apartment.
When Carnes heard about the situation and called the Ragans, the door was quickly repaired.
Thats only because officer Carnes was here, the tenant said. My door still wouldnt be done without her.
The new approach puts police into an unusual role property managers. Now, were sort of a manager for them, Taylor said. We tell them, and they go fix it.
CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0285 or dcorrell@gazette.com
SOURCES
The Gazette reviewed thousands of documents, including police reports, code and fire inspections and court records for this report.
Interviews were conducted with more than 70 people including police, code inspectors, former employees, tenants and city leaders.
Many tenants who still live in Terry Ragan's properties did not want to be named for fear of retribution and agreed to talk only on condition of anonymity.
http://www.gazette.com/display.php'id=1306155&sec=2
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