NO EASY SOLUTIONS IN FIGHTING THE WAR ON DRUGS

Declaring war on drug dealers isn't a new concept. In fact, state Rep.
Thaddeus Kirkland, D-159, who, on Thursday staged a press conference at a
graveyard to drive the point home, has himself previously decried the drug
violence that is responsible for the deaths of many of Chester's young people.

But it is a drum worth banging again and again as attested to by the
unrelenting rate of death due to drug-related activity in the small city.

It is only March and already two murders have occurred in Chester, the most
recent on Feb. 25 when Darren Majeed was shot to death gangland style.

Last year there were 18 homicides in Chester, six more than in 1999.

On Thursday at Haven Memorial Park in Chester Township, Kirkland along with
Chester City Mayor Dominic Pileggi, Chester NAACP President John Shelton
and members of the Ministerial Fellowship of Chester and Vicinity, pledged
to put an end to the violence.

We certainly applaud that sentiment -- who wouldn't? ---but we'd like to
hear realistic strategies offered to combat the killing.

At Thursday's graveyard press conference, Kirkland resurrected an old idea
from his 1998 campaign -- that is, to bring in the National Guard.

Three years ago he proposed actually having the National Guard go on foot
patrol with police in the city of Chester to act as a deterrent to drug
dealers.

"Boy, that's illegal," said National Guard Lt. Col. Stephen Gingrich in
1998. "We are not a law enforcement authority, nor are we permitted to do
that."

Gingrich said such a scenario could happen only if the governor declared
martial law.

This time Kirkland said he wants the National Guard "to assist police and
drug rehabilitation programs." Exactly what he would have the National
Guard do, is unclear.

He also called for the immediate removal of guns from city streets through
gun buy-back or give-back programs and called on the community to report
people who possess illegal firearms.

First of all, people threatened by guns aren't going to be so anxious to
give up firearms that they feel are their only protection.

And, any police detective who has investigated shootings in Chester or any
assistant district attorney who has tried to prosecute suspects in such
crimes can tell Kirkland that one of their biggest obstacles is lack of
cooperation from witnesses.

They don't want to give up any information on suspects, much less name
neighbors who have guns. And how are they to determine whose guns are legal
or illegal?

Theories on why there is this conspiracy of silence connected with Chester
crime range from some strange allegiance to gang members to outright fear
of retaliation.

One religious woman who works among the people of Chester said she
witnessed a similar syndrome of silence while working at a parish in New
York City's crime-infested Harlem section. There, she said, people were
convinced that even police couldn't be trusted, that they were on the take
from drug dealers.

Chester Police Commissioner Wendell Butler Jr. is on the right track in
re-instituting the drug hotline, which will enable citizens to report drug
or gun activity anonymously.

It is true that if the violence in Chester, drug-inspired or otherwise, is
ever to be eliminated, the city residents will have to be determined to
take back their own streets.

But, for them to come forward, they must feel confident that they are not
signing their own death warrants.