‘There’s no boss here.’ Raleigh struggles to curtail drugs and shootings at this hotel
Lottie Shelton uses a hotel key card as a bookmark in her thin hardback.
She hasn’t read the book, “The Illustrated Book of Fairy Tales” by Neil Philip, to her 10 grandchildren. They’re old enough they could read it themselves.
“I collect things for my grandbabies,” she said.
Her daughter scolds her and tells Shelton not to say she’s homeless. She can come stay with them anytime. But Shelton doesn’t want drugs around her grandchildren.
Despite the late June heat, Shelton sits on the metal grate that covers the air conditioners in the alley behind the Wake Inn and the businesses at Friendship Plaza, off New Bern Avenue. Pools of sticky liquid, candy wrappers and tampons litter the ground. The smell of hot garbage seeps out of the nearby dumpster.
Two weeks earlier, a man was shot at the Wake Inn just before 4 a.m. Eleven people have been shot there since January 2020, including one person who died.
There have been 832 calls for police so far this year, down 205 calls from the same time period last year.
Nearly 150 overdoses have been reported at the hotel since 2019, including 34 this year.
Crime has been a problem at some low-cost hotels in the city for years. A News & Observer investigation, published in 2021, found eight hotels that had averaged more than one 911 call a day since 2015, including the Wake Inn.
Complaints about the Wake Inn
Raleigh Mayor Pro Tem Corey Branch, who represents Southeast Raleigh, gets complaints about the Wake Inn from neighbors and occasionally from people who’ve stayed there.
He asked for a report from the police department after a man was shot there in June. A city memo outlines some of the crime that’s occurred there and the steps law enforcement has taken.
“State law only allows us to go so far when dealing with private property,” Branch said. “So we are trying to do everything that we can to make sure people are safe, as far as patrols in the area.”
The state’s nuisance law makes it very challenging to enforce, he said, and the police department is trying to “curtail the violence.” The law requires the local district attorney, police chief or sheriff to request a nuisance investigation that involves interviews, affidavits and research of law enforcement records before making a final recommendation.
Police met with the manager of the hotel and suggested that it stop accepting cash and limit guests to three nights. Paying with cash allows people to rent a room anonymously.
“The manager initially agreed to this, but when another meeting occurred, it was discovered that long-term stays were the norm again,” according to the city memo sent to the Raleigh City Council in late June. Police say a three-night limit for guests “could aid in limiting occupants engaging in long-term criminal activity.”
All options on the table
The memo provides some details about a drug search warrant issued for one of the rooms, where a security system was discovered, including cameras facing doors and hallways to alert occupants of approaching law enforcement, according to the city memo.
“All options to reduce, prevent and deter crime are on the table, and we will work with our city partners to do so,” police spokesperson Lt. Jason Borneo said in a written statement Friday. “Our officers frequently patrol this area as this has been an identified area of concern for the RPD and the community.”
The police department said it would not be more specific about the patrols because the department doesn’t comment on its strategies and tactics. The police department also declined to make someone available for an interview for this story.
“Police department personnel will continue enforcing quality of life and criminal statutes round the hotel,” according to the memo. “Meetings with the property manager will continue in hopes of limiting the number of instances police resources are called to the hotel.”
Wake Inn is owned by SWEJAY, INC., which lists Subhash Patel as the owner. Patel said he spoke with police a few months ago but referred all questions to Raviraj Viradiya, who is managing the property. Viradiya referred questions to his attorney, who did not respond to an email and phone call Friday afternoon.
No one answered the phone at the hotel.
Low-cost hotels are often a last resort for people experiencing homelessness, before the street. There were 1,534 people reported homeless in Wake County last year, as of the federally required point-in-time count in January.
People who are experiencing homelessness need to know about resources that might be available to them, Branch said, adding that the city is “open to any nonprofits that are willing to step up and help us address this matter.”
‘There’s no boss here’
On the June morning a reporter and photographer from the N&O visited the hotel, two Wake County Sheriff’s Office cars pulled into the Wake Inn parking lot for less than five minutes, papers in hand. A man unraveling an extension cord for a taco truck barely looked up.
A woman standing outside said she worked at the hotel, had nothing bad to say about the place and that crime happens everywhere.
A man and woman pulled up in a car and asked her how much it cost for a night.
For them $80, she said and offered to put them in the front of the building instead of the back.
In a stairwell, a man slumped against the railing and hid a lighter in his pocket. Nearby Shelton stood outside an open first-floor room with a man. Of course there is crime; everyone here is on drugs, the man said.
A few minutes later the door was closed but Shelton agreed to come back out for an interview. Another woman left the room with blood-stained bandages wrapped around her elbows.
She stays in her friend’s room when his disability check comes in. People here try to look after one another and will share their food.
The man from the stairwell walks over and asks for $3.
“I try my best to look after people, and I try my best to look after everyone’s well being before my own,” Shelton said. “But you can give so much you ain’t got none left for yourself.”
A different man comes over several times saying Shelton needs to move from the alleyway. The owner of a nearby business wants him to pick up the trash.
“Everybody wants to be chief,” she said. “Everybody wants to be in charge. They want to be the boss. But there’s no boss here.”
The interview ends when a woman comes out of a second-floor room and begins to scream.
“Everyone here is good when they are good,” Shelton said. “And they are bad when they are not. Everyone here is mostly good.
“But sometimes they got to take care of themselves and guard what they have,” she continued. “Whether it’s dignity, respect, drugs, whatever it is because they are used to someone else taking it from them. And it can be hard to come by. And so they think someone is always going to come out and get them. They are always looking around.”
This story was originally published July 10, 2023 at 5:30 AM.
