188 calls to police since '01

Barred by police: Lodi woman can't phone in requests for minor services

The letter arrived in Judy Grey's mailbox last week, signed by Lodi Police Chief Jerry Adams.

Based on her calls to police, the letter read, "it is no longer appropriate to respond to your requests for police services in areas such as noise disturbances, traffic complaints and other minor misconduct situations."

Since Jan. 1, 2001, she had called police at least 188 times, or an average of about three calls per month, the letter said.

It was the only such letter Adams has written in the seven years he's been police chief, and other veteran officers could only remember one other similar letter in the last two decades. Adams said officers will still respond if Grey calls about any emergencies or crimes in progress.

Grey, 53, was incensed. Her front door is mere feet from South Central Avenue, a well-traveled road that runs through the heart of Lodi's Eastside. She doesn't like hearing loud music blaring from passing cars, people talking at the bus stop or youths playing volleyball in a school gym across the street.

Neighbors say she looks out for them and monitors any suspicious people, but they also wonder if she's taken things too far.

One such neighbor is Beverly Barron, who lives two doors down in their community of half a dozen tidy condos. When neighbors recently moved into the home between Grey and Barron, they received a nasty note in the door after an elderly resident made a noise while planting flowers outside, Barron said.

Other incidents have made Barron wonder, but the last straw, she said, was when her grandchildren came to visit just when Grey emerged from her door and began hurling expletives at passing cars.

Barron, 74, now tries to keep her grandchildren inside if Grey is home, rather than risk having them make noise while playing ball on the private shared driveway.

"I can't believe something wasn't done sooner," Barron said of Adams' letter. "In fact, I feel sorry for the police."

Most officers and supervisors in the department have responded to the calls at one point over the years, and many reports were not substantiated, Adams said. One time Grey called and a supervisor happened to be parked nearby — and saw nothing, he said.

"Our resources are not unlimited," Adams said of the force, which often has less than half a dozen uniformed officers on the streets at any given time. "We've got the rest of the city to provide resources for. At some point we have to say we can't keep responding to these kinds of calls."

Jim Arce has lived just north of the complex since January and said he's simply gotten used to the traffic.

Just as he has no problems with noise, he has no problems with Grey, who he said keeps a close eye on everything that happens in the neighborhood.

When the new neighbors were moving in and had friends helping, she told Arce that a vehicle was in his parking area and asked if he minded. He didn't.

Like Grey, Arce sometimes hears some noise from Lodi Academy, across the street to the east, where a large yard separates the gym from the road. Arce knew the school was there when he moved in, so he knew he'd signed up for the goings-on associated with a school.

Grey said she's talked to school officials many times, and the latest incident involved a number of youths playing hide-and-seek at midnight. When a police sergeant went to the other side of the school and said he didn't hear anything, and then left, she filed a complaint against him.

She believes that complaint triggered the letter, though Adams denied it.

A self-employed house cleaner, Grey doesn't want to risk an arrest that could cause any problems for her clients.

"I don't care if somebody dies in front of my house. I'm not going to call police," she said.

Grey is no stranger to police procedures; she said her ex-husband retired from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and now works as a police officer in Jackson.

"I know they're not baby-sitters," she said of Lodi police. "But instead of chewing me out, why don't they go after the people creating the problem?"

She said the main problem is the attitude in the neighborhood, and that people simply don't care about quality of life.

"A few years ago we had this total outbreak of loud stereos. Now it's mufflers; it's an epidemic," Grey said.

Police assigned an officer to the area to monitor traffic — an officer whom Grey said was very compassionate — and high-ranking police employees have paid visits to the neighborhood.

Arce said a stop sign at the nearby Poplar Street intersection could help slow traffic. However, that might mean that it would take more time for loud vehicles to pass Grey's front door.

Another man whose home fronts Central Avenue is remodeling and hasn't moved in yet, but he knows what he's getting into.

"You would think that living on a street named Central Avenue, it's going to be a main thoroughfare," said Thom Powers, who currently lives near University of the Pacific in Stockton and knows all about parking and traffic woes.

Like traffic in Lodi, if people don't want to deal with parking issues, they shouldn't live next to a university, he said.

Grey said she'd like to move to the west side of Lodi but can't afford the housing.

Contact reporter Layla Bohm at layla@lodinews.com.