Enforcement of drug crimes in Kensington could begin as soon as April, police commissioner says

Stricter enforcement of drug crimes in Kensington could begin as soon as April and will be a “phased approach” in which community groups will first be given time to warn people using and selling drugs of new expectations in the neighborhood before police begin enforcing laws and making arrests, Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel said.

In a wide-ranging interview this week, Bethel said the department will begin attempting to shut down the neighborhood’s open-air drug market — one of the largest on the East Coast that has resulted in sprawling homelessness, public drug use, high rates of violence, and widespread human suffering. The drug crisis is largely centered on the use of heroin, fentanyl, and most recently xylazine, or “tranq,” which leaves users with large open sores and wounds.

Although Bethel declined to share specific details on the plan, he said police will not “occupy” the area but instead will work alongside community stakeholders to begin enforcing laws in a neighborhood where open drug use — and the quality of life issues that come with it — has largely gone ignored.

“It would be a natural progression of getting back to just enforcing the laws that have not been,” he said.

First, he said, community groups will spread awareness of the new enforcement plan, and essentially warn people who use or sell drugs on the street that they need to leave and seek treatment, or could soon face arrest.

“They will now be able to say ... ‘There is going to be a heightened level of enforcement, and things that you have previously been able to do on the streets — openly using drugs, defecating on properties, threatening, stealing, those things that have historically been not addressed — will be addressed,’” he said. “I’m hopeful.”

Although he did not say exactly where people would go or what services would be offered, he said the administration is committed to ensuring that the hundreds of people living on the streets don’t just disperse to other neighborhoods.

“We’re not going to move this to another area. We’re not going to allow, you know, open-air drug market two, three, four, or five. That is not happening,” he said.

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Bethel would not commit to a specific timeline for when enforcement will begin, but said the first phase will start shortly after Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s 100th day in office, which is in early April. The communication phase, he said, “will not be a long-term process.”

“All I can say is that we will give it enough time for people to make an informed decision as to what they want to do,” he said.

Still, he said that city leaders and law enforcement are committed to enforcing laws in “humane and dignified way,” and that people in addiction will be offered an opportunity to seek treatment before facing any charges.

He said officials are still in the process of developing a detailed plan that must take into account both public safety and the complexities facing people in addiction, including the dangers of withdrawal, open flesh wounds, mental health issues, and disabilities.

“We have to do this in a very thoughtful and strategic way,” he said. “Part of that is, what do I do when I make an arrest of somebody ... knowing that once I take them into custody, they’re going to be going into withdrawal? … What happens when we make that arrest and we have somebody who has significant wound-care issues, or have some other health issues that have to be addressed? What are we going to do? We have to answer all those questions … or it will not be a successful operation.”

But action, he said, is required.

“Seeing the impact it has had on the children and community, it is necessary to take action there,” he said.

Bethel’s statements underscore Parker’s commitment to shut down Kensington’s open-air drug market. Her first executive order directed police to employ “any lawful means necessary to abate the public safety emergency” citywide, and “permanently shut down all pervasive open-air drug markets.”

The administration has appointed Deputy Commissioner Pedro Rosario to lead the effort to improve conditions in the neighborhood, and some City Council members are pushing for a “triage” center where police could send people who use drugs.

While campaigning for mayor last year, Parker employed more law enforcement-driven rhetoric than her predecessor, Jim Kenney, whose administration emphasized an approach in the neighborhood focused on “harm reduction.” But Parker repeatedly rejected progressive strategies that Kenney backed, such as supervised drug injection sites, which have since been prohibited in most of the city under legislation passed by City Council.

Last year, Parker also floated bringing in the National Guard to assist with clearing the neighborhood. But Gov. Josh Shapiro, who would have to approve any such deployment, said he wasn’t considering that move.

Parker has lamented critics who suggest her rhetoric about Kensington lacks compassion.

“If somebody tells you that ‘we think she lacks compassion because she wants to be too aggressive in cleaning up the open-air drug market,’” she said, “you tell them to think about whether or not they would want their mother, father, sister, brother, or loved one on the streets openly using intravenous drugs.”

Although Bethel stopped short of saying law enforcement would “sweep” the neighborhood, the plan he outlined closely resembles a strategy used along Kensington and Lehigh Avenues in 2018 and 2019.

During those years, city officials worked to clear four large encampments of people living along Lehigh Avenue. For weeks before each clearing, outreach workers compiled a list of camp residents and offered each a guaranteed spot in a shelter bed.

A team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania analyzed the results of two clearings and found that, of 189 people who lived in the encampments or engaged with outreach workers, 19% had found permanent housing and 10% were still staying in some form of temporary shelter within six months of the clearing.

Nearly 41% of people were accessing some kind of city services, but weren’t housed, while about a quarter were never seen by outreach workers again.

The study authors also found that once camps were cleared, many people who had refused offers of housing or drug treatment ended up sleeping on the streets somewhere else — sometimes in even more visible locations. And even after the Kensington Avenue and Tulip Street camps were cleared in May 2018, hundreds more people began sleeping on the streets of the neighborhood — unrelated to the encampment clearings, study authors said, but a sign of how entrenched the opioid crisis was in the neighborhood.