Harold Fox:  

It was in late 1969 that I moved to Phoenix and into my parent’s home. While here, I attended a local refrigeration school and began my lifelong career as an air-conditioning technician. Along the way, I somehow squeezed in some plumbing skills and acquired a plumbing license. A few years after moving to Phoenix, I bought a fire damaged house, a couple of doors to the east of my parent’s home. I fixed it up and moved there. Somewhere in 1980, I married my present wife, Alice. As the years went by, one of our neighbors would move out and we would buy their house. Along with 2 properties in other parts of town, our accumulation, in the neighborhood, once grew to 6 houses. Together, until the sale of the properties, I had lived in the neighborhood for nearly 47 years. My neighborhood in downtown Phx, was laid out in 1887 and most of the houses were completed by mid the mid 1920s. In the late 1940s, the city began to grow and other parts of town began to be more popular with the newer and larger homes. This inner city area began to decline. My neighborhood had 70 percent of its housing, turned into rentals. The income level of most of the residents, were well below the poverty line. By the mid 1980s, crack cocaine started showing up and strangers began hanging around some of our street corners. The quiet neighborhood began to turn for the worse and crime was on upswing. Although I did not realize it at the time, the seeds of me becoming a community activist were implanted. Along with the drug sales, came drug users and their bad behavior. Houses were being broken into and the prostitutes began moving closer to my home. Street corner drug dealers were setting up shop on my street. The police were taking my calls and listening to my complaints but there seemed no letup in the illegal activities. One drug house, situated across the street from my residence, was known to have as many as 130 customers in a three hour period. The police were constantly trailing the customers after they left, making numerous arrests. However, the activity continued for 6 months before I finally sent the Police Chief a letter and got the news media involved. The Police Chief responded by having a Sgt call me. He explained it in this manner……..we close down a drug operation here then it moves over there, we close it down there and it moves elsewhere, in an never ending cycle. One of the areas he mentioned was a nearby homeless shelter, run by ISABELL MCMAEL. Increasingly frustrated with the actions of the police dept, I began to look for non-conventional ways to address the drugs and criminal issues. It was then that I contacted the Phx Chptr of the Guardian Angels, headquartered at that same shelter. This is my story (well sort of), a span of roughly 12 years with a Mobile Block Watch group that I founded, and nearly 25 years as President of our neighborhood organization. (The Oakland/University Park Neighborhood Association) Labeling this as my story is not truly accurate. It is story of the many unselfish and wonderful individuals, their backgrounds, their efforts, and some of their stories that it took to make this story possible. TOMMY SIMILAR – Guardian Angel member Homeless shelter resident, homicide victim - perhaps the central impetus for my story and my community activism. Because of Tommy's death, many senses, beyond the normal 5, were awakened in me. I was seemingly guided by unseen forces, directed to various locations, meeting and associating with very special people. PATRICK WALSH (having crippling cerebral palsy); Guardian Angels Chapter leader, neighborhood patrol member, drug informant and avid letter writer to govt officials. RORY VERDIGAN Guardian Angel Member – while on scene of a police involved shooting incident, he helped capture 3 murderers of a Phoenix Police Officer (story is searchable with Google) ISABEL MCMAEL – homeless shelter operator; President H W Bush paid her a visit in 1996 ROGER BUNGE – A answer to a prayer; a homeless shelter resident and a neighborhood patrol member JESS GILLESPIE – neighbor near the shelter, crime fighter; awarded for helping in over 3000 arrests LOUISA STARK – neighborhood association member; initially opposed our neighborhood patrol program DONNA NEILL – Community Activist – headed up weekend drug marches thru Phoenix’s streets; worked tirelessly with the State Legislature, city government and county prosecutor for neighborhood issues; my close friend and partner on a broad range of neighborhood concerns. HAROLD FOX – credited for having an effective mobile block watch group; Neighborhood Association President SHERIFF JOE ARPAIO – heavily influenced by Pat Walsh’s letter writing ON DEC 28 of 1992, I STOOD AT THE FRONT GATE OF THE HOMELESS SHELTER AND SAID A LITTLE PRAYER, ASKING GOD FOR TOMMY’S REPLACEMENT, ASKING FOR THAT REPLACEMENT TO SHOW UP RIGHT THERE ON THE SPOT WHERE TOMMY HAD BEEN SHOT AND KILLED THE DAY BEFORE. THIS STORY, AS YOU MAY BE WONDERING, IS A STORY THAT SURROUNDS MY EFFORTS TO PROTECT MY HOME AND MY NEIGHBORHOOD, A STORY THAT UNFOLDS WITH THE MYSTERIES SURROUNDING THE DEATH OF TOMMY SIMILAR, AND THOSE WHO KNEW TOMMY. HAS TOMMY REALLY LEFT US, OR IS HE NOW A REAL GUARDIAN ANGEL? My story came into focus, just after Christmas of 1992, Tommy mysteriously said goodbye to his friends on the morning of Dec 27. When asked if he was going somewhere, Tommy's only reply was that he felt he was not going to be there any more after that day. The years following, many more stories will emerge, all having the similar theme of that 'SAME SORT OF FEELING', something is going to happen and I am to participate, The gates where Tommy was killed, seemed to have some sort of mysterious attraction to those wishing to do good. Perhaps it was Tommy essence remaining there, wanting to protect the community from the ravages of the crimes associated with the illegal drug trade and its use. Tommy was dedicated to make his corner of the world safer for everyone. He had valued the people around him more than himself. On that fateful day in December, Tommy stepped between two people that were having a conflict. One of the participants had a gun and Tommy had convinced him to walk away. While he was walking away, the aggressor suddenly turned and fired two shots into Tommy. Minutes later, the shooter would walk in front of me. I was guided to that location on that day and time, perhaps by a guardian angel, one of which I, and others, would be guided by for years to come. At the time Tommy was shot, I was at my home, listening to the police scanner. The police radio was broadcasting that someone had been shot at the nearby homeless shelter. They were detailing the description of the suspect and his direction of travel. With an unusual feeling that I was being summoned to participate in some manner, I hopped into my pickup and went out to head off the suspect. With a mental clarity, the one of which is hard to describe, I drove my vehicle in an indirect path and finally came upon the suspect as he crossed the street in front of me. To my amazement, a police car was following, just a few feet behind him. Suddenly, THAT POLICECAR TURNED AROUND and began to drive away. As the officer was driving away, I had the sense that my presence there had more meaning, my presence there was for a purpose. I could not understand it at that moment but it would take many years for me to comprehend. Reflecting back thru the many years of my dangerous community volunteer work, I realized that incidents, like Tommy's, are always in the making and we all have a responsibility in helping care for our surroundings. If we should rely solely on others to provide that care, our expectations may not be fully met. We all have a guardian angel that talks to us, helping to guide our way, all we need to do is listen. AS AN EXAMPLE, Please read the following story. THE FOLLOWING STORY IS A REPRINT FROM A TIME PUBLICATION. IT INVOLVES ONE OF THE GUARDIAN ANGELS CHAPTER MEMBERS - RORY VERDIGAN. As a special note to the story, Rory said he had a FEELING that he needed to deviate from his normal path home that day. It was a feeling that he gave into, one that would reveal itself, two city blocks after he turned off from his normal path home. His shift about to begin, Phoenix police officer Marc Atkinson asks his wife if she knows something he doesn't, the way she keeps telling him to be careful. Yes, maybe she does. Maybe they both know something, but it has no shape. It is the same thing officer Scott Masino's wife feels when she tells him at about the same time that she doesn't want him to go to work. Something unknowable haunts the day. It is March 26, 1999, the day Atkinson's seven-month-old son Jeremy will learn to drink from a cup, and Marc's wife Karen will page him with the news. It is the day Atkinson, 28, will call old friends out of the blue, uncharacteristically skip lunch and return a long-ago borrowed book to a Maryvale Precinct squad mate--a book on street survival, with a section on ambushes. And then he will ask his sergeant if he can be freed from radio calls to keep an eye on a west Phoenix dive that is a magnet for drug dealers. At about 5 p.m., Atkinson pulls into the parking lot of the bar along with two other squad cars, and three young men run from the vicinity of a white 1988 Lincoln Town Car. The cops tail them into the bar and ask questions, but the answers lead nowhere. The other two officers peel off, and Atkinson waits alone, watching the dive from a distance, in a neighborhood gone to hell. This is exactly where he wanted to be. Atkinson is a former marine, and the well-groomed north side of Phoenix was too quiet for him. Three years ago, he asked for a transfer to Maryvale, where the action is. No white-haired Sansabelts in golf carts here. Drugs rule, gan...Expand for more