Boulevard Hustle script

The clothing has a strangely uniform quality to it—plain, white t-shirts, worn by men energetically hustling the sidewalks,  the parking lots and the lanes of traffic of a busy four-lane northeast atlanta road known simply as boulevard.

“well a lot of people call ‘em thugs.  but I just call ‘em drug dealers”
4650 #2 pam carson, resident

“hey I got weed here—whassup?”
1205 #4 u/c

“weed now.  weed now.  got that weed”
1844 #4 u/c

“they’re out here to sell you marijuana, cocaine, crack, probably some heroin—whatever it is you want to
buy, you can probably find”
324 #1 debi starnes

“whatever you need, I got it for ya.  hello?”
1734 #4 u/c

“everybody knows that boulevard is a high traffic neighborhood for drugs”
2730 #2 rev dennis meredith

“I got weed and – whattaya want, rock? / what’s wrong?”
1210 #4 u/c

And it’s a trade that’s plied pretty aggressively, especially when the camera is a hidden one…

“tell me what ya got / I got whatever you need! what I’m trying to tell ya.”
1750 #4 u/c

even when the potential customer is a middle-aged stranger with a vaguely familiar face from TV…

“whatchoo want / what’s available / weed / hm?  / weed, coke”
5913 #5 u/c

the hustle is unabashed and unconcealed—and often done in the presence of the many small children living in this community.

“what’s that / you don’t know what this is?”
1816 #4 u/c

“is it rock? / yeah hell yeah it’s rock.  rock on!”
1832 #4 uc

even atlanta police admit that the drug trade on boulevard has peristed here for more than a decade.
for residents, it’s hard to understand—particularly since this neighborhood starts just four blocks
southwest of city hall east, the headquarters of the atlanta police department.
1616 standup

“that ought to say something if the headquarters is so close but yet—“
3550 #2 meredith

“they’re not intimidated to be out there”
3600 #2 meredith [ show drug guys ]

“I don’t understand why it has to be here”
3032 #2 meredith

“that’s a good question.”
1835 #2 maj hagin

major lane hagin admits he’s frustrated.  he has data that shows police have made 37 drug arrests on
boulevard since mid-february.

((nat pre-music midtown bust, file 1801-05))

and that includes a sweep before music midtown that netted some arrests and thinned the traffic on some
boulevard curbsides—at least temporarily.

“it’s kinda like turning an aircraft carrier.  it’s gonna take a little time.  we’re committed to boulevard”
1955 #2 maj lane hagin

“we’ve down fifteen percent in crime.  so it’s better than it was but we’ve still got some work to do”
2010 maj hagin #2

((more nat bust, file))

in addition to periodic sweeps, atlanta police and the fulton county district attorneys office have begun
six-month programs to dedicate personnel to this particular area.

“these are good people and they want to see their community improve and so do we.  and that’s why we’re
committed to it.  and we can do better and we will do better on boulevard”
2207 maj hagin #2

“you can see the police all day every day.  every day all day / what about the drug dealers / every day, all
day”
4747 #2 pam carson

“how bout it / cmon man.  it ain’t legal out here”
2332 #4 u/c

but there were no police nearby when a young man suggested we accompany him to a nearby breezeway…

“what is that / that’s two hundred dollars / you don’t want that?  too rich for my blood / what you want?”
2341 #4

and even encouraged us to sample his wares.

“is that rock / yeah look—put it in your mouth / no I’m not gonna—that’s two hundred? / yeah”
2352 #4

and then, offered to help make financial arrangements.

“cmon spend the money man / you ain’t gotta spend too much.  how much you want to spend? / I don’t even have any money so I gotta—I gotta come back / you got a bank card? / yeah I got a bank card. / you got one? / I do but I– / let’s go to the mall.  credit card—we gotcha.”
2417 #4

“let’s go to the mall”
2437 #4

“boulevard has been boulevard for as long as I can remember”
1822 maj hagin #2

“and it’s frustrating to people who are trying to live here and raise their kids here and trying to send
their kids to school up the street here”
533 #1 debi starnes

councilwoman debi starnes has represented this area for ten years.  which would be news to the fellas
pounding the asphalt on boulevard.

“y’all all right/ whatcha got? / what you want?”
4743 #5

we took another undercover walk up boulevard with councilwoman starnes.

“how much is the weed? / got some dimes / we got dimes”
5922 #5 u/c

and apparently we both had the look of people with a need.

“whatcha got / I got hundreds, quarters fifties. hundreds, quarters, fifties”
4755 #5

“well, the second guy said I got fifty, a hundred /yeah but I didn’t know what that meant / that’s the
size of the bags”
5401 #5 deb u/c talking to doug

“the size of the bags of crack, I believe”
5422 #5 deb u/c

“were you surprised the guys hit on you the way they did / no I wasn’t surprised”
913 #1

“it’s frustrating, it’s maddening, it’s unacceptable and it just takes a lot of effort to interrupt the cycle.  because the dealers will be here as long as we let them be here”
542 #1 starnes

“whassup officer friendly?”
5027 #5 u/c

and what about that uniform—the white t-shirts, which reverend dennis meredith says is more than a fashion statement.

“all white t-shirts because if…”
3503

“somebody decides to make a call, there’s drug trafficking going on, then when they call—well, what
do they have on?  well a white shirt.  well, ten of em got on white t-shirts.  so it makes it very difficult”
3510 rev dennis meredith #2

“don’t you want weed”
0007 #5

and the challenge persists, in a neighborhood whose police presence begins at the headquarters just blocks
away…

“you want crack or what?”
1216 #4 u/c

“I’m just walking / man you just walked thru the trap.  we’re gonna ask you. that’s our job”
1233 #4 u/c

…yet barely hinders the daily hustle on the busy four-lane road known as boulevard.

“so you want some / you’re gonna be here right?  I know where to find you”
031 #5 u/c

in NE atlanta dr fox5nz