Camden cracking down on Bergen Square intersection

Camden's Bergen Square neighborhood has seen 71 drug overdoses in less than a month, officials say, due in large part to one triangular intersection flanked with empty buildings and trash-strewn lots overgrown with tall grass.

On Thursday, police officers and members of the city's Department of Public Works spent hours scouring the intersection of Broadway and Newton Avenue, cutting back knee-high weeds, hauling away trash, tearing down one crumbling house, and serving notices on other dilapidated properties.

Police and city officials hope the cleanup will drive away the criminal activity plaguing the area, leading to a better neighborhood for Bergen Square residents.

One long-abandoned former car wash at Newton and Mount Vernon Street has six empty stalls that are dark at night and serve as shelter for drug addicts or prostitutes, police said.

Rapes have been reported there, and frequent illegal dumping behind the structure has created piles of debris.

"This has become more than just an eyesore," Camden County Police Capt. Gabriel Camacho said Thursday, gesturing toward the car wash. "People hide in back with the expectation that they won't be seen. . . . And that's an expectation we need to change."

Over the last 12 months, Camden County Police Metro Division officers have responded to more than 300 calls to police from the area, Camacho said. Seven of the city's 31 fatal overdoses this year have taken place there, county spokesman Dan Keashen said.

The city has recorded 359 overdose cases all year.

Also Thursday, the city's Department of Code Enforcement served a notice on the owner of the former car wash, Camacho said, demanding that he address the building's many problems, such as the caved-in roof, or the city would move to demolish it within two weeks.

Officers also coordinated with a homeless shelter and an organization that does outreach work with the city's prostitutes, Camacho said.

Police Chief Scott Thomson, who stopped by to appraise the cleanup efforts, said the improvements to Bergen Square will make it a less desirable location for addicts and criminals. Even if some are merely displaced to other parts of the city, he said, the police will end up with one fewer hot spot to worry about.

"It's about suppressing the flagrancy of what goes on here," he said. "This is key to changing the narrative of the city."