'BUMPS' ON BRIDGE DETER DRUG DEALERS

KENNEDY HEIGHTS - Maybe the recipe for winning the war on drugs is a
mix of enforcement, education and eggs.

The combination is working in one Cincinnati neighborhood.

Some Kennedy Heights residents, armed with plastic Easter eggs,
recently won a turf war against drug dealers who had taken control of
a bridge on Kennedy Avenue, next to Kennedy Park.

The dealers used the bridge like an office.

They sat on the concrete ledge. As customers approached and inquired
about their products, the dealers walked beneath the bridge - which
they used as a storage room of sorts - and returned to the top of the
bridge with the goods.

Residents wanted their bridge back.

Ben Pipkin, 51, has walked the streets of Kennedy Heights for four
years as a member of the Citizens on Patrol. He's watched the drug
operation on the bridge between Woodford and Northdale and knew it
was a comfortable, convenient place for dealers.

Pipkin hatched a plan.

The dealers spent hours sitting on the concrete ledge.

"So I thought why don't we make some bumps," Pipkin said. "So we did."

Pipkin and others from the Kennedy Heights Community Problem-Oriented
Policing organization filled plastic Easter eggs with concrete last
June. They removed the dry, hard concrete eggs from the plastic
holders and attached them to the ledge. The hard lumps made sitting a
bumpy, uncomfortable experience.

The dealers initially retaliated by knocking off the first 300 eggs.
So Pipkin and his group made more - hundreds more - found a better
way to attach them to the bridge and even painted some of them.

"It's really a great deterrent," said Joshua Swain, 75, a retired
postal worker who also volunteers with Citizens on Patrol. "It has
really helped keep people off the bridge."

Ashley Robinson, who lives across from Kennedy Park and the bridge,
said the bumps improved the community. "It keeps the kids off the
bridge," she said.

Pipkin's idea and about 40 residents who helped make it a reality
were recently acknowledged by the Community Police Partnering Center
and Cincinnati Police Chief Thomas Streicher Jr.

"All of us in the police department are eternally grateful and we are
indebted to your service," Streicher during the ceremony at Xavier
University on Oct. 27.

Pipkin won an individual accolade for his contribution. The group
earned the Innovation Award.

"I think it dismantled that trade," said Amy Krings, a community
outreach worker for the Community Police Partnering Center. "You just
don't see people loitering there (on the bridge) anymore."

The city also helped crack down on the dealers here by fencing off
the area beneath the bridge, where the dealers were storing drugs.

"You see more and more people walking up and down Kennedy Avenue,"
said Joyce Hibbard, 74, a retired teacher and Citizens on Patrol volunteer.

The Kennedy Heights residents now plan another anti-drug push by
sending postcards to the neighborhood which will contain a phone
number offering drug treatment options.

Hibbard has seen some of her former students hanging out on the
bridge and knows they could be leading more productive lives. "We'd
rather help them than get rid of them," she said.