SMALL-TOWN SCOURGE

Hard Times Help Fuel Violent Drug Warfare In Towns That Aren't Used To It

ARION, Ohio -- Even from across the street, the tiny black hole is
visible beneath the big bay window. Through it passed the bullet that
changed a family forever.

Now, 4-year-old Ricardo Glover Jr., Little Ricky, lies in a bed in
Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus and fights to recover from
the gunshot wound to his head.

Police say he nearly died because two groups are shooting up the city
as they battle over drugs, fight over territory and retaliate for
previous clashes. Little Ricky, sitting on his family's couch watching
television in the middle of the night, got caught in the crossfire.

When the child was wounded just before 1 a.m. on Jan. 10, it was the
fourth shootout in this city of 36,000 in two weeks. Police say the
same players likely were involved in all of them. Although they've
charged no one in the boy's shooting, they arrested seven men the day
after in hopes of flushing out information. One was Little Ricky's
26-year-old uncle, who had been shot in the arm four days earlier.

Detectives won't say for certain whether they have the suspect in the
boy's shooting in custody, but they say they are confident they will
charge someone soon.

After the rash of shootings, authorities appeared on television and
called it gang violence. For many, such a description raises an image
of thugs wearing certain colors, flashing hand signs and
spray-painting mysterious symbols around town.

In a big city, that description might hold true. In semirural Marion
County, though, a gang problem is in the eye of the beholder.

Marion's story isn't much different from that of a lot of struggling,
blue-collar communities across Ohio. The days of high-paying factory
jobs -- here they were at plants such as the storied Marion Power
Shovel, which closed in 1997-- are long gone. The Whirlpool Corp.'s
clothes-dryer factory is the area's largest employer, and that company
remains committed and strong. For that, officials are grateful.

Nonetheless, the county's unemployment rate was 6.4 percent in
December, higher than the state average, though not as bad as Ohio's
most economically depressed areas.

It can be hard for honest people to make a living in such a place,
said Marion Police Lt. B.J. Gruber, who heads the local five-person
drug task force. He takes his job personally because he's a native of
Marion and is raising his four children there.

The neighborhood where Little Ricky was shot illustrates the city's
struggles. Of six police precincts, that area is responsible for the
most calls, nearly 22 percent of the 41,517 total in 2006. The
precinct, which takes in parts of the city's northwest and
north-central sides, also accounts for the most felony arrests.

Authorities blame the troubles on a thriving drug trade, fueled by
supply and demand.

Nationally, law-enforcement officers almost always put the street
value of a gram of crack cocaine at about $100. But outside big
cities, where supply is lower, someone with a bag of drugs can get a
much higher price.

"It's pure economics," Gruber said. "There's big money to be made, and
people get violent over it."

Is it the work of gangs?

Not the Crips or the Bloods or the others made household names by news
reports and movies and television shows. But what Marion has are two
fairly organized factions competing for business, Gruber said. Some of
the players have come from Cleveland and Detroit. Locals, who already
had established their territory, are fighting back.

"Does that make it a gang for me? Sure," Gruber said. "I call 'em
gangs, and I'll treat 'em like gangs, especially when I've got to find
the person who shot a 4-year-old boy."

The legal definition is more specific.

Ohio law classifies a gang as three or more people engaged in criminal
activity who have a common name or use an identifying sign, symbol or
color. Participating in a gang is a second-degree felony.

While that description might be necessary on the books, reality can be
much different, said Capt. Bruce Pijanowski of the Delaware Police
Department.

"We're not South Central L.A. here, I know, but to think that this
organized drug trade hasn't evolved into gang activity and criminal
enterprises in small towns would be foolish."

In Delaware, gang graffiti occasionally pops up, and officials try to
find out who is behind it. Pijanowski said officers have been pretty
successful, but Rt. 23 and I-71 help bring in a criminal element and
make the fight to keep the city clean a tough one.

Experts agree that the freeways make a difference.

"You know that slogan, 'Ohio is the heart of it all?' Well, it's
really true," said Vinko Kucinic, who has worked on gang issues for
two state agencies during the past 14 years. "People running drugs
along those major routes search out places to set up shop along the
way."

Ohio, he points out, is blessed -- or cursed -- with I-80/90, which
runs coast to coast, and I-75, which spans the country north to south.

Kucinic, who is considered an expert in gang issues, left the Ohio
attorney general's office in October and took over the state prison
system's anti-gang unit.

In studies by the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency
Prevention, Ohio always ranks among the top 10 states for new gang
activity. What happens in small towns no doubt helps to earn that
distinction, Kucinic said.

"We've had gang color painted on barns in the middle of nowhere," he
said. "And the trouble is, the small towns have no gang unit,
sometimes not even a detective. So it is easier than you think for
these things to take hold out there."

Still, numbers from the National Youth Gang Center bear out that the
organized gangs still are largely a big-city issue. Since 1996, about
75 percent of all gang-related homicides occurred in cities with more
than 50,000 people, the center said. It estimates that about 25,000
gangs, with 750,000 members, operate in the United States.

A 2000 survey by the state attorney general's office found 731
criminal gangs with about 13,000 members in Ohio.

Kucinic is among those who say that smaller communities must stay
vigilant to keep what are largely drug-based turf wars from
escalating: "Gang violence is like a disease: If you don't treat it,
it could kill you."

There is no question that the shooting of a 4-year-old is a wake-up
call, said the Rev. Ronald Turner.

"When people have lost their fear of God and have lost so much respect
for people's lives that they have the courage to pick up a gun and
shoot at anyone's house ... our society is in trouble," Turner said.
"I have seen firsthand the trouble brought on by the violent drug
trade here, and I am worried."

Turner leads the Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church, not far from
Little Ricky's home. The boy's mother attends faithfully, he said, and
serves on the worship team and helps with several ministries.

Innuendo that the child's parents are involved in a gang is unfair,
Turner said.

"The child's mother and father are not drug dealers. They do not use
drugs, and they do not buy drugs."

He visits Little Ricky every other day in Nationwide Children's
Hospital. Doctors removed the bullet a week ago, and the child has
been moved from the intensive-care unit to a regular hospital room,
Turner said. The boy is able to walk on his own now, and his appetite
is returning. Daily therapy has helped, Turner said, as has a whole
lot of prayer.

Local ministers gathered for a vigil at Mount Zion four days after the
shooting, and the congregation later held an all-night prayer service.
It prayed for Little Ricky and for the community, too.

"Something must change," Turner said. "How can we stop the violence?
It's going to take everyone, I'm afraid, and that's a mighty big task."