YOU SEE them in most American cities, large and small, and I suspect
everyone who encounters them wonders the same thing: Who tosses all those
old, tied-together pairs of sneakers onto power lines and telephone wires,
and why?
Popular beliefs
It is popularly believed that tennis shoes hanging from utility wires
designate "gang territory" or a location where one can buy street drugs, but
that version of events would not seem to apply to the hefty percentage of
shoes seen dangling over non-gang neighborhoods and quiet streets in rural
towns where there's little or no gang and drug activity to be found.
Police: 'This is another kind of urban myth'
More recently, an Associated Press story out of Tucson hoisted up the
conventional wisdom that dangling sneakers are an emblem of gang activity
and knocked it down with a quote from the police: "This is another kind of
urban myth," a spokesman said. Like law enforcement officials everywhere
else, Tucson police have found no correlation between dangling sneakers and
crime.
Tucson Electric Power officials added that in any given week, 5 to 10 pairs
of sneakers are removed from power lines all over the city of Tucson: "The
highest periods of activity seem to be after school lets out for the summer
break," as well as holidays.
