The Observation Deck

So Lakewood is "the new inner city?" Everywhere you go, you're going to have issues.

Police arrest two Westlake High School students, raid their homes

WESTLAKE -- Police said they have broken up what they believe to be a high school heroin ring at two homes here.
Police armed with search warrants raided homes Wednesday afternoon on Hummingbird Circle and Center Ridge Road.

While the raids were going on, police arrested two boys, both 17, at Westlake High School.

Police said they were tipped off last week when WHS school officials and staff received calls regarding the possible use of heroin among Westlake High students.

On Jan. 30, administrators and Westlake police officers interviewed an 18-year-old female student. She told them she had used heroin that day and still had some on her person.

She was booked into the Westlake City Jail and released that afternoon, pending action by the Grand Jury.

Westlake police emphasized that no drug transactions are known to have taken place on school property.

Valerie,

While I agree with you point that no place is perfect. I would like to know who is saying that Lakewood is the “new inner cityâ€Â￾. I would challenge that person to visit the “realâ€Â￾ inner city.

huh? these police blotter stories are trumpeting here as sources of praise for the Lakewood PD when idiots act up here. am I misreading this or is this supposed to make me think that somehow the two cities are equal because of one drug bust?

Jim read the threads from this past summer - I'm sure you'll find them to be extremely eye-opening. A real treat as it were.

I did offer to take whoever wanted to go, to see some "real" thugs and hoodlums but no one took me up on it.

Ah yes - a fun time was had by many.

affluent suburban kids tend to go for the heroin more often.

A few years ago a college student from westlake murdered his father.

in 85 or 86 the family who moved into the house my family used to rent suffered a murder suicide.

There was another story in the paper about a westlake couple who hosted parties for college professors and older entertainers being murdered in westlake.

but there's more peace and quiet in between the crimes.

Today after work there was this effed up white teenager crying on the side of the downtown cleveland public library. He was standing in the rain with his pants hanging down his backside. A crew of 4 police or safety ambassadors were standing around him asking him if he had ID. It was just too sad and stupid to watch.

Re: the new inner city...someone in the forclosure post said a friend of theirs had dubbed Lakewood that name, which is what I was referring to.

My point in posting this was not to revel in the unfortunate circumstance of kids getting caught up in drugs, but to say, crime happens everywhere. Those people out in the burbs who think everything is peachy keen and wonderful have stuff like this going on too. It isnt just relegated to the 'inner city.' People fool themselves into a false sense of security...'wouldnt happen here', 'my kid would never do that" etc....

LOL.. I lived in the "inner city" of Cleveland for 3 years. This is not the inner city..

Valerie,
I knew just what you meant when you posted (Of course I am the one who posted about someone in a western burb calling Lakewood an inner city while she and her husband bankrupted themselves with all the finer things in life). But I get what you meant. Lakewood has its problems, but it does not have a bigger drug or crime problem than the suburbs that some are running to these days. I asked my son about heroin and he said NEVER has he heard of heroin in Lakewood schools, or meth. That is not to say they don't exist, but if they do, it is rare or maybe it just isn't there. While it is not something to praise, nor do I think anyone did, a meth lab was just found in the basement of a Strongsville home and now a heroin ring in Westlake. And who believes there was no heroin sold on school property!!!! sure.

For those of us who feel we have to defend Lakewood to "the others" it just makes you feel justified in everything good you believe in Lakewood. Personally, if someone jeopardized my kids' lives by having a meth lab in their basement on my street, or who was selling heroin to the children through her child, I would have a hard time restraining myself from those adults. Kids doing drugs is tragic. Parents doing/selling drugs to the children, unforgivable.

I got what you were saying Valerie. I wonder if the ones who run to those burbs to escape all problems get that.