DELAWARE

Long Neck Strong to reconvene with state officials over violent crime problem

Doug Ferrar

The Daily Times

The Long Neck Strong citizens' organization will try again to discuss their escalating crime problem with state officials at Long Neck Elementary School at 7 p.m. on May 15.

Residents claim that incidents of violent crime have increased 73 percent since the start of the year. Many businesses along John J. Williams Highway, the main thoroughfare in the region, have been burglarized repeatedly, and several have been robbed, most at gunpoint, some more than once.

Individuals have also been robbed in the streets.

Residents will meet with Sens. Gerald Hocker and Brian Pettyjohn and Rep. Ruth Briggs-King to discuss solutions.

The meeting will occur two weeks after a May 1 town hall meeting at the Indian River firehouse with the same officials. That meeting fell apart due to an unforeseen scheduling conflict and the officials' lack of preparedness to satisfactorily address the citizens' concerns.

Long Neck Strong, a group of concerned residents and business owners from the unincorporated Long Neck and Oak Orchard communities in Sussex County, formed April 24 after local business owner Charlie Pollard called it quits when his business, Kick n' Chicken, was burglarized twice in the same week.

Pollard cited a history of break-ins, vandalism and theft stemming back six years to when he first opened the take-out restaurant. He said he could not guarantee the safety of his employees, which was his paramount concern.

In addition to Kick n' Chicken, Dollar General, Walgreens, Dunkin' Donuts, Wawa, Shore Stop and Dash In have been repeatedly victimized.

Drug activity has also been reported in the parking lots of these businesses.

"You see a business close, because the guy's afraid that the people working for him are going to get killed, we're at a different point than someone breaking in the back door and trying to steal something," said Glenn Schuster a community leader who helped organize the group.

Nearly half the residents of the greater Millsboro area live in the Long Neck and Oak Orchard communities, but the Millsboro Police Department is restricted by law to operate only within the confines of the Millsboro corporate limits. They can only respond to crime in the unincorporated areas when invited to do so by the Delaware State Police, said spokesman Cpl. David Moyer.

It's the Delaware troopers who have jurisdiction there, but detectives said at the May 1 meeting that they are spread too thinly across the county. They asked residents to form neighborhood watch committees, which didn't sit well with the attendees.

"State troopers aren't hanging out in Long Neck," Schuster said. "They've got bigger fish to fry."

Among other solutions are the possibility of opening a state police substation in Long Neck, or funding more troopers to maintain regular patrols in the area.

The May 1 meeting was standing room only, until dissatisfied residents began walking out. Schuster called the meeting "disappointing."

"We've got to get some police down here," Schuster said. "We don't know whose, we don't know who's going to pay. We can't incorporate, we don't have the money for that in Long Neck, it costs millions of dollars. We've got to figure out who can step up and provide police here."