Pubdate: Tue, 29 Jan 2002
Source: Denver Rocky Mountain News (CO)
Copyright: 2002, Denver Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.rockymountainnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/371
Author: Bill Scanlon

PIG'S HEAD LEFT AT DOOR OF ACTIVIST

Anti-Drug Crusader Says She Won't Stop Efforts

Five days after Wynne Dimock canvassed her neighborhood with anti-drug 
leaflets, she found a bloody pig's head next to her porch.

"It was very intimidating. I am taking it personally," said Dimock, who 
lives on the 900 block of South Utica Street.

Still, she said Monday she won't stop trying to make her neighborhood safer 
from drug dealers.

Last month, police raided a suspected methamphetamine operation across the 
street from her house that they said was grossing $2 million to $5 million 
a month.

That prompted Dimock to distribute the leaflets, imploring neighbors to 
"Take back our block." The fliers publicized a neighborhood meeting at 
which neighbors would be asked to put pressure on the landlord of the 
purported drug house to screen prospective tenants more carefully.

Monday, Denver police officer Raul Silvas examined the pig's head and rang 
doorbells of neighbors to see if it was trash, a prank or something more 
sinister. "I really don't have a clue" whether the pig's head was connected 
to Dimock's activism, Silvas said.

Last Dec. 18, members of the federal and local Front Range Task Force 
arrested Luis Lorenzo Corona-Nunez, 27, Antonio Arias-Hernandez, 31, and 
Carlos Camacho-Mendoza, 19, accusing them of pumping more than 100 pounds 
of methamphetamine onto Denver-area streets each month.

Dimock's husband, Warren Baker, said a core group of neighbors try to 
improve their homes and neighborhood, but too many absentee landlords are 
careless about screening renters.

"I was concerned when she was passing around the pamphlets," Baker said. 
"Most people would be in favor of it, but you never know. ..."

Dimock first saw the pig's head Saturday morning, but didn't get a good 
look. "I thought it was the chest cavity of a deer or something." But 
later, when she got a better look, "It was kind of shocking. Maybe 
somebody's trying to give me the 'evil eye.' "

She put it on a scale: 28 pounds.

Dimock called police Monday.

Jan Marie Belle, who heads the neighborhood South West Improvement Council, 
said the pig's head was "an attempt to intimidate leaders on the block."

Dimock said she'll keep on pushing. "I feel totally impotent in the 
political process," she said. "But in community activism, you can do a lot. 
I'm going to start going to neighborhood action meetings. It makes you 
believe in the democratic process."
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D