Aug. 19--DURHAM -- Residents with paintball guns are taking aim at speeders in one Durham neighborhood. Police say it's illegal, but Zella Alston doesn't mind.
Speeders often fly past her West Markham Avenue home, including one driving an 18-wheeler that knocked down a telephone pole, she said.
"I'm standing here now, and they come through speeding and see me sitting here," Alston said while driving around the traffic circle at West Markham and Glendale avenues.
Three signs that read "WARNING, Speed Limit Enforced by Angry Neighbors with Paintball Guns" have caused a stir around the Bull City and beyond. The signs -- two at the traffic circle and a third at Roxboro and Knox streets -- went up this past weekend in the Old North Durham neighborhood, just north of downtown.
Those behind the signs, who refused to identify themselves in e-mail messages with a reporter, want better, more uniform enforcement of speed limits in residential neighborhoods. They want the Durham Police Department's Pace Car Program reinstated and are willing to raise money for it. They also want city-owned vehicles, including buses and garbage trucks, to follow posted speed limits.
Pace Car Program
Started in 2007, the Pace Car Program encouraged drivers to drive the speed limit, stop at all stop signs and red lights and be courteous to pedestrians, bicyclists and other motorists. Bright yellow stickers identified vehicles whose drivers promised to follow the rules. Hundreds participated in the program.
Bill Anderson, co-facilitator of the Partners Against Crime group in north Durham, also wants to see the program restarted.
Budget and staffing shortages have put Pace on hold, but shooting paintballs at vehicles is illegal and undermines the group's purpose, Durham Police Chief Jose L. Lopez Sr. said.
"To hide behind the Internet and do something like this takes away from your credibility," he said.
The Police Department has been working on plans for stronger citywide enforcement, he said.
Working with the police is the best way to reduce speeding, not taking matters into one's own hands, Lopez added.
"It's not the poster; it's what the poster represents," Lopez said of the signs. "It represents the need to look out for someone assaulting you, in a sense, with a paintball.
You're going to look around to see who's out there instead of looking at the road before you. It's pretty much indicating an act of imminent violence. Two wrongs don't make a right."
The group's efforts have quickly gained popularity beyond Durham. It has received sign requests from Raleigh to Wisconsin, according to its blog: www.theangryneighbors.blogspot.com/ . The group's Facebook page has about 80 members.
Slowing the drivers
Speeding has been an issue Old North Durham has fought for years, said Julia Giner, who has lived for 11 years near West Markham and Glendale.
Neighbors have asked for speed bumps, but West Markham has been designated as a thoroughfare -- the street connects Roxboro Street and Washington Avenue, Giner said. The traffic circle hasn't helped -- signs in the circle have been knocked down. A fire hydrant just past the circle has been taken out twice by vehicles.
Giner sees the paintball signs as a last resort.
"It's the frustration, the frustration that the people in the neighborhood are feeling about the fact that we've complained about this," she said. "We have seen cars over and over speed through here, and it's unfortunately going to take something really bad before they do something to really slow down the traffic around here."
Editors note: Reporter Stanley Chambers is a writing coach for the NCCU Campus Echo.
