LAS VEGAS POLICE STRUGGLE TO CONTAIN GANG-AREA CRIME

LAS VEGAS -- If the gunshots come, 15-year-old Arthur Tolliver will be
ready. He plans to run fast through the park, hoping he can dodge the
bullets or that the trees will shield him from the violence that has
overtaken his neighborhood.

"I got enough room to run somewhere," Arthur says.

But for eight people in this west Las Vegas neighborhood far removed from
the glitter of the Las Vegas Strip, there was no escape. They were killed
- -- all in a 30-day period -- because two gangs are rivaling over drug
territory, police say. Two victims -- a church deacon and a teen-age girl
- -- were unintended targets.

The Las Vegas New Black Panther Party is threatening to organize a march
down the Las Vegas Strip if authorities don't calm the violence and improve
living conditions in the neighborhood, on the Las Vegas-North Las Vegas
line. A task force has been formed and mediators summoned, and the county
plans focus groups with neighbors.

Shootings Unsolved

None of the shootings has been solved -- mostly, police say, because
neighbors are refusing to talk.

"They fear telling the police more than they fear random shootings in their
neighborhoods. They need to trust the police," North Las Vegas Lt. Art
Redcay says.

Police have added officers to the area and are patrolling more, looking for
gang activity and witnesses willing to talk.

But residents say if they snitch, the police can't protect them.

"You can't even pass by without fear of being shot," says west Las Vegas
resident Jessica Martinez, 31.

The neighborhood, about six miles north of the Strip, has long been
infested by gang activity and forgotten amid the explosive growth that
defines the gambling city.

Poverty is high, and unemployment ranges from 18 percent to 22 percent
compared with a state rate of around 4 percent, according to Nevada
Partners, a nonprofit group in the area that provides job training and
placement.

"A future drug-free neighborhood," reads the marquis outside Ebenezer
Church of God in Christ. Just a half-block down the street a young man
pulls out a bag of marijuana to share with two friends. They attended a
funeral this day for one of the shooting victims.

Caught In Cross-Fire

Inside the True Love Missionary Baptist Church, a white cloth with a black
lace cross has been placed where 61-year-old deacon Floyd Wilson used to
sit every Sunday. His father founded the congregation 27 years ago. On Feb.
15, Wilson was caught in the cross-fire of stray bullets and became the
first of the eight recent victims.

"Nobody knows how bad it hurts," Wilson's 84-year-old father, the Rev.
Ivory Wilson, says from his home on Rev. Wilson Avenue. "Why is this
happening to us?"

Police say another victim, 18-year-old Latasha Washington, also was an
unintended target. She was standing with friends on a corner near her home
when a car drove by March 6 and bullets sprayed the group. Washington was
shot in the head and died before paramedics arrived.

Police believe the other victims, who ranged in age from 17 to 39, were
gang members or associates.

Ron Current, chairman of the Las Vegas New Black Panther Party, says other
black groups and the cities of North Las Vegas and Las Vegas haven't done
enough to help the neighborhood.

The party is demanding the cities create 1,500 jobs in the area, repave the
streets and rebuild a community center. If they don't respond soon, the
party says, it will march down the Strip.

Hesitant To Talk

Current says he understands neighbors' hesitance to talk to police.

"We don't encourage people to snitch on their neighbors," he says. "Police
can't protect anybody. We're talking about organized gangs."

Erik Pappa, spokesman for the city of Las Vegas, says the city already
plans a new community center and is speeding up the timetable of street paving.

"Marching down the Strip isn't going to solve the problem," says Clark
County Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates, whose district includes the
neighborhood.

She plans focus groups with children and teen-agers to get some insight
into the violence. "I feel that this is not only a police problem, but it
is a societal problem," she says.

But the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People isn't sure meeting and talking about the problem will do any
good.

"We've had meetings, many meetings," says Sheila Davis-Collins, executive
director of the chapter. "We say what we're going to do, but no one has
actually gone in the streets to a disturbed youth and asked: 'Why do you
have so much hatred?' "