GANGS, DRUGS RECEDE IN CITY NEIGHBORHOOD

Police, residents work to improve life in Pen Lucy

There are many ways to measure what has made Pen Lucy a safer
neighborhood. Statistics show crime is down. Residents note the
streets are virtually clear of gun-toting drug dealers and glassy-eyed
addicts. No one has been shot since October.

But there is another way people here keep track of the violence that
for years held this pocket of North Baltimore captive as two gangs
battled for control of the lucrative cocaine trade.

Graffiti marking the Old York and Cator Avenue Boys' turf have faded.
Down the street, the signature markings of the rival Alhambra-McCabe
Boys -- boots draped by their laces from power lines -- have remained
steady at 18.

No new footwear. No new gang scrawls on the sides of vacant stores. No
new names added to the makeshift wall memorial that pays tribute to
the fallen victims of drug addiction and violence.

For beleaguered Pen Lucy residents, just weeks since police began a
major citywide crackdown on crime, life has improved
significantly.

"It looks 100 percent better," said James White, 75, who lives on
Rosehill Terrace, steps away from Old York Road.

Pen Lucy, with 700 homes, is one of the communities picked by Mayor
Martin O'Malley's new police team as they embark on an ambitious
effort to fulfill a campaign promise to clear 10 drug areas in six
months.

The deadline is this summer.

White lives in what has long been regarded as an anomaly -- an enclave
of violence surrounded by some of Balti-

more's most stable neighborhoods: middle-class Waverly to the south
and upscale Guilford to the west, just over York Road.

The Old York and Cator Avenue Boys took over Pen Lucy -- bounded by
39th and 43rd streets and Greenmount Avenue and The Alameda -- decades
ago, and fought with the Alhambra-McCabe Boys from neighboring
Winston-Govans.

Clashes made headlines. Gunmen were so brazen they continued to shoot
at people running for the safety of a marked police car. Dealers were
so arrogant that their gang names were emblazoned on the sides of
their boom boxes.

Angry dealers riddled Robert Nowlin's Cator Avenue house with bullets
one night in 1996, after the blind community activist began speaking
out against them and calling police. Repeated police actions stemmed
the violence for a time, but long-term solutions have remained elusive.

In May 1999, a series of shootings in one week left three people dead
- -- violence police attributed to skirmishes after the arrests of 14
top Old York and Cator Avenue Boys members. One of those arrested
opened fire on a police officer days after posting bail; the bullets
missed their target.

But the new strategy seems to be working.

"It's an unbelievable change," Nowlin said, standing in front of his
house with a cross erected in the front yard. "It's one that we've
been waiting for."

Frustrated residents have had an up-and-down relationship with city
police. Officers moved in, arrested people and then left, only to
repeat their efforts in what seemed like a futile, endless war.

"That didn't make any sense," acknowledges Maj. Robert Biemiller, the
Northern District commander. "Now we have new marching orders."

Nowlin, whose letter-writing campaign a few years ago helped prompt
the transfer of district commander, said police often concentrated on
the small commercial strip of Old York Road and ignored the streets
where people lived.

Police said they have changed their tactics. The big show of squad
cars converging on neighborhoods with mass arrests and the media in
tow is a thing of the past. Dealers are now quietly plucked off the
streets, and officers are ordered to maintain a constant vigil to
ensure corners remain clear.

Biemiller knows that most people his officers arrest do not stay
behind bars for long. It is his job to make sure that when the
suspects get out, there is no drug life to return to.

The key, the major said, is to answer community complaints quickly.
This week, a resident overheard a young man warn: "We're going to make
this area hot again."

Word got back to Nowlin, who called police, who quickly confronted the
potential troublemaker. Another call for a man shooting a weapon this
week led to an arrest within minutes.

"The message is real clear," Biemiller said.

A neighborhood in which several people were shot each month during the
past decade hasn't seen one person injured by a bullet since October.
Robberies, which used to occur as often as eight times a week, are
down to about one a week. Informants used by police to buy drugs to
obtain evidence against dealers sometimes return empty-handed, unable
to find drugs to buy.

But it is a tenuous hold.

The old life bubbles just below the surface. The graffiti may be
faded, but they remains a vivid reminder of disorder. Litter blows
down streets lined with shuttered stores.

The Friendly Food Market with its bright yellow siding, where a grocer
was shot and killed in 1997 by three neighborhood teen-agers, remains
closed.

A makeshift park at Old York Road and Cator Avenue has a plaque
listing the names of 12 residents shot to death in the past decade.
"Every one of those names means death," White said.

Across the street, drug dealers have answered with their own tribute.
Scrawled in large letters on the wall overlooking a vacant lot are the
nicknames of their slain comrades -- Sweetman, Pookie, Tapoe and Goti.

On Wednesday afternoon, the city's needle-exchange van was parked on
Old York Road. A steady stream of addicts handed workers used syringes
and got clean ones, along with a free blood test for HIV.

Biemiller readily admits that drug addiction has not ended here. But
the open dealing that spawned the shootings, filled the streets with
addicts and crowded the corners with armed dealers has subsided.

Every day, the commander and his supervisors ride through this
neighborhood. They chat with residents, inspect alleys and question
suspicious people. But more important, they look for new graffiti. And
they count the boots.

Cruising by trouble spots on Wednesday, Biemiller was pleased to find
no fresh paint added to the faded graffiti.

He counted the confluence of boots dangling from the wires over
Alhambra Avenue. Eighteen. The same as the night before, the night
before that and the week before that. "No new gang action," he said,
smiling at the apparent success.