A crime scene waiting to happen

Maintenance workers were scattered about the Arborwood condominium complex in Lindenwold, Camden County, yesterday, picking up scraps of trash from the streets.

But Arborwood, and the maze of tightly packed apartment and condominium complexes that line Gibbsboro Road need more than a few trash bags to deal with the drug-related violence that has plagued the area for more than a decade, officials said.

"It's worse than Camden," Mayor Frank DeLucca said of the challenges of policing the labyrinth of dead-ends, vacant units and interconnected trails that weave through cutout fences there. "We had over 60 police cars in here Sunday night."

That night, five Camden County men who authorities say knew each other were shot and wounded while standing out front of Arborwood's 2200 building on Mary Lane. The Camden County Prosecutor's Office is seeking multiple shooters, but no arrests have been made and sources familiar with the investigation say the victims aren't cooperating.

The shooting scene was a few buildings away from where 14-year-old Barry "Reese" Robertson, a Camden resident who was staying with his aunt, was struck and killed by gunfire on Oct. 29, 2005, while sleeping on a pullout coach.

Lindenwold Detective Christopher Sherrer said the department uses bike and foot patrols in the apartments and condos because patrol cars are often at a disadvantage.

"Every time you clean it out of one area, they pop up in another area. It's so compact and they are all connected," he said.

In 2004, borough council designated portions of Gibbsboro Road, including Arborwood, as a redevelopment zone, but property managers fought the inclusion in Superior Court and won, meaning that the problematic complex would remain.

Arborwood's property managers say the 620-unit complex suffers from "very uninvolved" landlords and renters who don't care about conditions there.

"The scenario here is not good," said Lesa Passarella, owner of Mattison Raymond Group, which manages Arborwood. "About 80 percent of the renters are not paying their association fees. The other 20 percent suffer."

Those fees, Passarella said, pay for maintenance and for cleaning the complex's common areas. Yesterday, garbage flowed out of Dumpsters there and many windows in the units were smashed.

Resident Carol Matson said she is regretting the one-year lease she signed last month after moving from California with her teenage daughter.

"I used to live in New Jersey 20 years ago," she said yesterday. "I didn't realize things had gotten this bad."

On Thursday, a man was shot and wounded just down the road at the Coachman Manor apartments, the same complex where former Buffalo Bills linebacker Damien Covington was killed on Nov. 29, 2002.

Tipsters can contact the Camden County Prosecutor's Office at 856-225-8400 or Lindenwold police at 856-784-7566.