This happened about 1.5 to 2 years ago.
It was weeknight during the winter, around 5pm. I was hanging out on the block with some dealers just shootin the shit and ducking whenever a lookout spotted a cop creepin up from a block or so away. I'm white, and from a dealer's perspective it's bad for business to have a white guy hanging on the corner, as I make them prime targets for cops.
Now, this all took place when I was dependant and addicted. I used to be given samples daily from the various street level and mid-level dealers I knew. I always preferred mid-level samples, since those involved me getting some right off of the package. This was dope before it ended up being cut at the mill and put on the street. I used to receive upwards of 4 bags worth at a time, all eyeballed. The shitty part was I had to do it all there, in front of everyone and tell them how it compares to previous the dope that they bought and to the current dope on the street. They were mostly concerned to whether it was significantly stronger than what was on the street in the area, since then they'd have enough room to add cut and still come out on top in purity.
Anyway, back to that day... A dealer I recently met, I'll call him Joe, who was about 30 YO and just got paroled, gave me some samples. They were just regular sealed glassine stamps that he got from a "case worker." He was a low level dealer, nothing special. He used to run his own crew before he got locked up, but when he got out he was back on the bottom of the heap. He knew me from the area and through the people around there and always gave me samples to get my opinion on the dope.
I had the two "Star Wars" bags he gave me, and I was holding off doing them since I was already high. I go to pull out and drive down the one way street to go pick up a friend and come back. As I make it to the corner, I see Joe and other dealers out there. Joe flags me down, he wants to know how the dope was. I told him I didn't do it yet, and I'll let him know as soon as I do. In the meantime a competing dealer comes up and tells him to leave me alone and that I'm his customer. Joe takes offense to this and pushes him. Next thing I know 10 or so people come running and they start fighting in the middle of the street behind my car. Needless to say, I got the fuck out of there.
I return about 45 minutes later to a block full of cops and police tape. Apparently after the fight someone thought it was a bright idea to start shooting. Joe's house was shot up and so were a couple cars. I parked right in back of the police tape, and walk up to some people and see Joe. He tells me that they fought and some of them came back to shoot him. Luckily he wasn't home or outside so they shot up his house and some cars. He also tells me that the cops don't know who was involved or what it was about. But, he tells me that someone told them that my car was involved. As soon as I heard this I went and moved my car to a different block. After that I walked back to the block and went inside a friend's house. I did the two bags and was pleasantly surprised at the rush and high. It was about 1-2am now and I'm about to leave. I thought about going to see Joe to tell him that the bags were good, but decided against it. The cops were gone and I wasn't about to be out in the open with him.
The next night I was back there looking for Joe. Cops were out there again and apparently this time someone caught a bullet. Joe was also in the middle of that and he ended up getting caught with a gun. He was on parole and ended up with a gun charge. He was out on parole less than a month. He's still in jail now.
Anyway, that's a typical story about the revolving door life that many parolees live down there. They get out with nothing better to do than sell dope and quickly catch a charge to get locked up again. At least 6 people that I know really well are doing time right now and there are many more "acquaintances" that I'm told get locked up every time I go down there. It's like a never ending cycle.
