DRUG SALES THRIVE ON NEIGHBORS' SILENCE

Fear, Tolerance Blamed In Metcalfe Park Reticence

Milwaukee's defunct drug abatement hotline, once touted as a useful tool in
curbing drug trafficking, now stands as a symbol of what's wrong with
drug-fighting efforts in troubled neighborhoods such as Metcalfe Park.

The hotline went out of business two years ago.

The problem? Residents seldom used it to report drug activity anonymously,
police say.

While the hotline's demise may seem innocuous, police and concerned
residents say it underscores a larger problem in Metcalfe Park: Too many
residents in the neighborhood, for whatever reason, are accepting drug
activity as a fact of life and only a few are reporting drug activity to
police.

"You have to ask yourself, 'Why are there drugs in some neighborhoods and
not in others?' " Police Chief Arthur Jones said. "Part of it is because
it's tolerated."

The same complaint is heard in the offices of the Metcalfe Park Residents'
Association on the second floor above the Lighthouse Christian Bookstore at
3624 W. North Ave.

Larry Moore, the association's executive director, readily makes himself
available to receive complaints of drug dealing in the neighborhood. But
outside of the association's roster of more than 100 members, few other
people complain, Moore says candidly.

"I don't know if 'tolerate' is the right word, but for the lack of a better
one," says Moore, "I'd say that's what it is.

"Folks seem to tolerate that type of activity. The people who call us are
the people who are just fed up and those we have relationships with - long
relationships.

"They call us and they call us frequently. They share their frustrations.

"But the average citizen doesn't call us often enough, and from what we're
hearing from the Police Department they aren't calling them in large volume
either."

In interviews with police and five residents in Metcalfe Park, the same
complaint resonated.

Many in the neighborhood - perhaps out of frustration but sometimes just
from a sheer lack of concern - aren't reporting drug activity often enough
to police. It may have something to do with the makeup of the neighborhood
itself. The city Department of Neighborhood Services says there are 274
owners of single family homes and duplexes in the neighborhood and 314
renters. But some think it may also have something to do with fear.

"I don't know if it's tolerance," said Paul McDonald, a retired postal
worker and property owner who lives in Metcalfe Park.

"We have a lot of seniors who are afraid and a lot of others who don't want
to get involved in things. I call whenever I find out anyone is dealing
drugs. But there's only so much you can do.

"I try and tell them you've got to call and you've got to keep calling. You
can't get anything by calling once. If you just call once, you can hang it up."

The lack of persistent pressure from residents has resulted in what police
say is a proliferation of drug activity in Metcalfe Park along with related
crimes.

The City of Milwaukee's drug abatement program was created about 10 years
ago. It combined the efforts of police, building inspectors and
neighborhood groups in curbing drug trafficking. It allowed the city to
enlist the help of landlords to evict or pressure tenants when a formal
case could not be made against a drug dealer.

And it also created a hotline to coordinate citizen complaints of drug
activity and four community liaison workers to familiarize residents with
the process of filing complaints against problem properties.

While most of the program remains intact, all but one of the community
liaison workers are gone and so is the hotline, to the dismay of some
residents. It's left some of them feeling that the drug abatement effort
has been scaled back.

"This is a neighborhood where the poverty rate is very high," said one
resident, who has lived in the neighborhood for more than four years.

"I'm not so sure we're always a priority. And that may have something to do
with how fast police respond. The other thing is these drug dealers are
armed, so there's a lot of fear and reluctance to report drug dealing.
There's that fear of retaliation."

Chief insists effort being made

Jones, however, insists police have intensified drug-fighting efforts in
Metcalfe Park as well as with the drug abatement team, which now has four
officers working from each of the city's seven police districts.

Earlier this month, his department's efforts in Metcalfe were called into
question by several longtime residents who reported, to little avail, an
open-air cocaine market. The complaints indicated the market was serving
more than 100 customers daily in vehicles driving through an alley in the
neighborhood in broad daylight. The dealing went on for months.

Police officials have offered a variety of excuses for that situation,
including lack of manpower.

While Jones said citizens can make drug complaints anonymously at any of
the city's seven police districts or even by e-mail, the bottom line on
many complaints of suspected drug activity in Metcalfe Park is that
investigators receive few details. Most times they are unable to find
witnesses willing to step forth and testify in drug cases if police are
successful in making an arrest.

Drug arrests in Milwaukee, while still frequent, have declined in three of
Jones' first four years on the job - 1997 through 2000.

That reversed a steady upward trend in the 1990s, arrest data reported to
the state shows.

Last year's 4,064 arrests were the fewest in the city since 1993, the data
shows. The declining number of arrests held true for both juvenile and
adult offenders.

The drug arrest trend is mirrored in overall arrests for serious crimes. In
Milwaukee, about 80,000 adults were arrested in 1998, compared with about
55,000 in 2000, according to arrest figures reported to the state Office of
Justice Assistance.

Drug arrests up this year

Jones said drug arrests this year are up again. From January to May, police
statistics show, drug arrests rose by 52% over last year's total for the
same period.

They declined, he said, as a result of internal problems in the vice
control division that led to the arrest of vice officer Edwin Bonilla.

Bonilla was one of four members the vice unit caught in an FBI sting
operation and the only one so far to have been charged and convicted in the
sting. Bonilla was arrested for stealing money planted in a hotel by the
FBI. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to steal public money after saying he
took cash from crime scenes.

"There were problems in vice control - and not necessarily with every
officer - that made it necessary to reconfigure the unit," Jones said.
"Obviously when you bring in brand new people they have to be brought up to
speed, they have to be trained and they have to become familiar with the
operation."

But even with the changes in vice control efforts, Jones insists the record
shows an increase in drug investigations in Metcalfe Park. So far this
year, police officers have spent a total of 307 hours in squads in the area
and seized $7,925 worth of drugs.