Councilman wants Warren to act against shots' being fired in city

WARREN -- Councilman-at-large Robert L. Dean Jr. said he thinks the city will be very sorry if it doesn't do something soon about the number of episodes of shots being fired.
"We ought to do something. ... If we do nothing, sooner or later, we will wish we had," he told his colleagues and city officials at Wednesday's city council meeting.
"I ride with officers on the southwest and southeast sides of town who tell me they expect to be shot at," he reported, noting that he has ridden along with officers in cruisers 800 hours in the past 18 months.
So far this year, city police have logged 401 complaints of shots fired, including 88 resulting in people being treated for gunshot wounds, he noted. "The complaints about shots fired are higher than last year," he observed.
"One of these days, all of us here are going to be sitting at a funeral of a police officer," or of another shooting victim, Dean said.
Drug dealers
Dean also related a complaint from an elderly city resident about drug dealers operating openly at 3rd Street and Highland Avenue and 4th Street and Highland Avenue "without challenge as though they were selling Kool-Aid."
But he said the drug dealers left when Police Chief John Mandopoulos rode to the scene with a sergeant and walked around the area.