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Street smarts?

Kids have played there for years, but council members and police may change that

Staff writer

It was a crisp, cool Friday night, and roughly 15 Peabody middle schoolers milled around the Hub, the local youth center.

The Hub has been around since 2006. Open until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays, it looks to give 6th to 12th graders a safe place to hang out in the evenings. With a pool table, well-worn couches, free pizza, and hip-hop on the speakers, it understandably is popular with Peabody youths.

Tonight was a bit different, though. A varsity football game had drawn high schoolers away from the Hub, leaving a smaller crowd made up exclusively of younger kids.

Around half stayed inside, while others hung around on the sidewalk. A handful threw a football around in the middle of the empty street.

It’s this seemingly banal activity that has put Hub kids in hot water with the law. Multiple times in the past few weeks, Eric Watts of the Peabody police department has come down and warned the kids not to play in the street.

“I’ve seen him once drive by and holler at ’em, and then a couple weeks ago, he whipped in over here and gave ’em the big speech,” the Hub’s sole employee, Joe Hutchinson, said. “I questioned him about it, and he said it’s just what he’s being told to do.”

Watts began working for Peabody Sept. 26 after leaving his position as a deputy in Elk County.

He is being sued in federal court over alleged use of excessive force and violation of civil rights in his previous role.

According to both youth and parents, kids were threatened with $100 fines by Watts.

“I was told about it. They yelled. They were like, ‘We’re gonna give you a $100 fine if you don’t stop,’” Matthew Collins, a seventh-grader wearing a leather jacket, said.

Many in Peabody expressed incredulity at such a strict stance taken by the police.

Walnut St. has very little traffic in the evenings.

“The streets in this town literally roll up at 8 o’clock,” resident Heather Miles said.

Kids have played on Walnut St. for more than a decade.

“People have been playing in the streets since the Hub opened,” sixth-grader Wyatt Decker said. “Football, jackpot. Sometimes we’ll just ride our bikes around.”

Abe Eldridge, another resident, recalled playing football with 15 others in the street in 2006, when he was in seventh grade.

“We’d be playing football or sitting on the tailgates of trucks, sitting outside,” he said. “There could be a lot more kids out there.”

Hutchinson agreed.

“The kids have been playing on the street for years, decades,” he said. “I have no authority [outside], but we’ve always had a real good relationship with the police.”

The intervention with Watts changed that.

However, the newfound strictness toward kids is welcomed by some in Peabody, who argue that Hub kids are too rambunctious.

A recent Facebook post in a community group saw multiple residents complain about noise and danger presented by kids playing in the street at night.

Recent city council meetings also have debated whether kids youth should be allowed in the street.

On Friday, councilwoman Linda Martinez drove to Walnut St. at 9 p.m. to lock up her coin laundry.

“I just about hit one of them,” she said of the children in the street. “There’s a lot of danger down here. Hurting our windows, breaking our windows.”

Asked whether the kids had actually broken any windows, Martinez clarified that it was “the possibility” of broken windows that she was worried about.

“We have businesses down here now, and people who live down here,” she said.

Others in the community defended kids’ right to play on Walnut St.

“I’d rather them play in a street that’s lighted then a park that’s not lighted,” Bill Simpson said. “They’re not bothering nobody.”

Ryan Johnson was succinct.

“It’s a small town,” he said. “If you don’t like it, you can move.”

Heather Miles discounts the possibility of vandalism.

“There are cameras to catch their misdeeds,” she said. “I would much rather these kids be there in the light, on camera, all in one place… rather than take the Hub away because some old person’s bitter and have these kids in smaller groups, unsupervised.”

Miles thinks the current group of Hub kids are not troublemakers nor in danger of being hit by cars.

“I don’t think it’s a possibility,” she said. “The speed limit down there is like 20 mph, and they get out of the way when a car is coming.”

Hutchinson seconded this.

“Generally, the kids are pretty respectful of traffic,” he said. “I come out if I notice them hanging out in the street when there’s traffic coming. And they listen.”

The kids themselves say they have not caused any damage.

“What happens is the ball goes past cars or just hits the bottom of it, and people are complaining like we’re breaking stuff,” said Aiden Phillips, a seventh-grader.

Miles also objected to the manner in which Watts confronted the children.

“I feel like this is a very resolvable situation, and it can be solved through healthy conversations,” Miles said. “To even just introduce himself to those kids, they probably wouldn’t be so freaking offended by the way that he talks to them. But to roll up like, you know, the Gestapo is just disgusting to me.”

Eldridge agreed.

“If the cops do something about it, they should get out and not be a cop, but be an adult that supports them,” he said.

Some parents, including Miles, have spent time near the Hub on weekends to make sure their kids are behaving and not being threatened.

“I had probably five people from the community just sitting down here, waiting for the officer,” Hutchinson said. “They were encouraging the kids to, you know, go a little over the top. They encouraged them a little too much maybe. But the thing is, the officer never came down and said anything that following night. If you want to talk to the kids or the kids’ parents, the kids’ parents are here.”

The Peabody police department did not respond to repeated requests to comment.

An officer who requested anonymity said he had not heard of Watts reprimanding the kids and even defended their right to be in the street.

“When I was a kid,” he said, “it was always as long as we weren’t being loud and disruptive, weren’t tearing up any property, and, like all these kids do, moving out of the way when a vehicle’s coming, everything was okay.

“The way the law enforcement used to look at it when I was a kid was that there’s a lot worse things these kids can be out doing.”

It can be noisy on Walnut St. when Hub kids are running around. Emotions run high, as they tend to do with middle schoolers. There is plenty of laughing, singing, and arguing to be heard.

There is also a rebellious tinge in the air — at least, there was Friday.

One kid stood in front of Martinez’s car for a moment as she rolled down the street, seemingly taunting her.

But when speaking to the kids, one discovers how much they enjoy and appreciate the Hub.

“This is just our hangout spot where we get away from the world,” Collins said. “We try to get away from our parents. They let us have a little bit of freedom, but everyone knows everyone in this town.”

Sixth-grader Delilah Rodenberg added: “It helps me with my mental health, mental and physical.”

Phillips offered another reason.

“I come down here to get away from my dog,” he said. “He’s a 3-year-old pitbull.”

Hutchinson said a few kids didn’t have places to eat regularly, and the Hub is a place where they can come for food.

“There are nights I’ll go through eight pizzas down here,” he said.

The kids also produce far from the only noise on the street.

Music playing out of the coin laundry’s speakers — which, Martinez says, neighbors are OK with and she switches off at 10 p.m. — was about as loud.

The kids have a contingency plan if cops or the city council boot them off Walnut St. for good, Collins said.

“I have multiple other streets the cops don’t go on,” he said. “So we can just go in the middle of the street and just play there. We really wouldn’t listen, ’cause they have no reason to fine us, ’cause we’re not breaking the law.”

Last modified Oct. 30, 2024

 

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