SILER CITY — The Siler City Police Department faces an uphill battle as it fights to suppress ongoing crime. According to Chief Mike Wagner, it’s the result of systemic failures beyond the department’s control.
As Wagner sees it, the fundamental problem is three-fold.
“There’s been a very significant increase in single-family homes...” he said. “The dynamic of the family has changed significantly. You take that and also the fact that we’ve seen — I don’t know how to say this correctly — but God taken out of the home, or worship taken out of the home. And then you have a society that doesn’t want our teachers and our school administrators to discipline children.”
Take those “three dynamics,” he said, “and where do our generational youth end up? Sometimes, on the street.”
Misguided youths contribute to frequent petty crime, the chief said, but sometimes it escalates to more serious infractions including drug trade and prostitution. Behind much of town’s criminal activity is a discrete gang presence.
“Store owners are good about covering up and getting things cleaned up pretty quickly because we don’t want our city to be plagued by that,” Wagner said, “but we do have gang activity in Siler City. I’m not afraid to say that. I’m not proud to say it, but I want the community to understand some of the challenge that the sheriff and I are facing in Chatham County and particularly in our city.”
The growing issue hearkens back to the family unit’s breakdown.
“The number one reason for gang activity is lack of family structure,” Wagner said.
After growing up with a “lack of financial stability, and drug trade and solicitation … it becomes a mindset,” Wagner said. Crime perpetuates more crime. The police cannot solve the root cause, he said, they can only address its consequences. The idea is encompassed in something called the broken window theory.
“The broken window theory started back in the 1990s,” Wagner said. “Basically, it was a theory that if you park one car broken down and leave it there, and then the wheels get stripped off and then the windows broken in, this behavior will continue to happen because people have no sense of ownership. And so basically, that’s what’s happened here in Siler City.”
Before the pandemic started, Wagner’s department teamed up with agents from N.C.’s Alcohol Law Enforcement to facilitate a series of sting operations at the town’s most notorious crime sites — its convenience stores.
“Studies show that within one square mile of all convenience stores you’re going to see an elevated level of crime,” Wagner said.
One store in particular, the Rite Stop on E. 11th St., is the frequent launch point for a litany of crimes. It was the primary target of a raid Wagner and ALE conducted before the pandemic stifled their plans for future operations.
“In my experience, what I see up there,” Wagner said, “is loitering, people selling drugs, prostitution and other criminal offenses taking place.”
The sting operation, which took place in November 2019, led to the arrests or citations of 39 people on 58 charges. Operation Wolfpack, as it was dubbed, lasted eight hours and yielded several counts of underage alcohol possession, underage tobacco purchase, alcohol sales to an underage person, possession of and intent to sell marijuana and possession of cocaine, according to the police department’s report.
It was just a snapshot of what happens every day, Wagner said. But in keeping with the broken window theory, Siler City residents have become desensitized to the misconduct around them; rarely do they call the police when they witness crime.
“The reason we don’t get a lot of calls for it is because it’s become acceptable behavior,” Wagner said. “And as long as we continue to accept it as OK, it’s what we’ll continue to see here.”
At least one Siler City resident, whose name has been withheld to protect his privacy, does not condone what he sees, though. At a recent meeting of the Siler City Board of Commissioners, he described in detail the vulgar scenes that have become commonplace in his neighborhood.
“I’ve seen some ungodly stuff,” he said. “…I used to hear fighting, a whole lot of commotion going on. How can you invite anybody to your house with all of that kind of stuff going on? And you talk about the girls, I’ve seen them — walking back and forth.”
The “girls” are prostitutes who use the streets by his house as their staging ground to solicit business.
“I’ve seen them smoking crack,” he said, “and don’t tell me I don’t know the difference between crack smoke and cigarette smoke. I’ve seen them having sex down there, out there in the woods, looking dead into my house.”
But it is not just having grown accustomed to crime that prevents Siler City residents from calling the police. Many of the town’s residents fear repercussion for involving law enforcement.
“A lot of citizens live in fear,” Wagner said, “they don’t want to call. And that’s unacceptable. When you quit hearing from the public, that’s when you know that your mission as a police department is not reaching its full potential because you have to have those lines of communication open. They can’t live in fear of crime, and they can’t live in fear of consequences for reporting crime.”
Wagner’s department is short-staffed and the pandemic has made its challenging mission more difficult than ever to achieve. But he is confident, with Siler City residents behind him, that he can expunge the town’s unsavory reputation.
“It’s a lot of work,” he said. “With limited staff it’s even harder work. But the philosophy here in the police department is changing. Our citizens want us, they deserve better police services, and I’m determined to give those to them.”