POLICE SHOOTING OF MOTHER AND INFANT EXPOSES A CITY'S RACIAL TENSION

LIMA, Ohio -- The air of Southside is foul-smelling and thick, filled
with fumes from an oil refinery and diesel smoke from a train yard,
with talk of riot and recrimination, and with angry questions: Why is
Tarika Wilson dead? Why did the police shoot her baby?

"This thing just stinks to high heaven, and the police know it," said
Jason Upthegrove, president of the Lima chapter of the N.A.A.C.P.
"We're not asking for answers anymore. We're demanding them."

Some facts are known. A SWAT team arrived at Ms. Wilson's rented
house in the Southside neighborhood early in the evening of Jan. 4 to
arrest her companion, Anthony Terry, on suspicion of drug dealing,
said Greg Garlock, Lima's police chief. Officers bashed in the front
door and entered with guns drawn, said neighbors who saw the raid.

Moments later, the police opened fire, killing Ms. Wilson, 26, and
wounding her 14-month-old son, Sincere, Chief Garlock said. One
officer involved in the raid, Sgt. Joseph Chavalia, a 31-year
veteran, has been placed on paid administrative leave.

Beyond these scant certainties, there is mostly rumor and rage. The
police refuse to give any account of the raid, pending an
investigation by the Ohio attorney general.

Black people in Lima, from the poorest citizens to religious and
business leaders, complain that rogue police officers regularly stop
them without cause, point guns in their faces, curse them and
physically abuse them. They say the shooting of Ms. Wilson is only
the latest example of a long-running pattern of a few white police
officers treating African-Americans as people to be feared.

"There is an evil in this town," said C. M. Manley, 68, pastor of New
Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church. "The police harass me. They
harass my family. But they know that if something happens to me,
people will burn down this town."

Internal investigations have uncovered no evidence of police
misconduct, Chief Garlock said. Still, local officials recognize that
the perception of systemic racism has opened a wide chasm.

"The situation is very tense," Mayor David J. Berger said. "Serious
threats have been made. People are starting to carry weapons to
protect themselves."

Surrounded by farm country known for its German Catholic roots and
conservative politics, Lima is the only city in the immediate area
with a significant African-American population. Black families,
including Mr. Manley's, came to Lima in the 1940s and '50s for jobs
at what is now the Husky Energy Lima Refinery and other factories
along the city's southern border. Blacks make up 27 percent of the
city's 38,000 people, Mr. Berger said.

Many blacks still live downwind from the refinery. Many whites on the
police force commute from nearby farm towns, where a black face is
about as common as a twisty road. Of Lima's 77 police officers, two
are African-American.

"If I have any frustration when I retire, it'll be that I wasn't able
to bring more racial balance to the police force," said Chief
Garlock, who joined the force in 1971 and has been chief for 11 years.

Tarika Wilson had six children, ages 8 to 1. They were fathered by
five men, all of whom dealt drugs, said Darla Jennings, Ms. Wilson's
mother. But Ms. Wilson never took drugs nor allowed them to be sold
from her house, said Tania Wilson, her sister.

"She took great care of those kids, without much help from the
fathers, and the community respected her for that," said Ms. Wilson's
uncle, John Austin.

Tarika Wilson's companion, Mr. Terry, was the subject of a long-term
drug investigation, Chief Garlock said, but Ms. Wilson was never a suspect.

During the raid, Ms. Wilson's youngest son, Sincere, was shot in the
left shoulder and hand. Three weeks after the shooting, he remains in
fair condition, said a spokeswoman at Nationwide Children's Hospital
in Columbus.

Within minutes of the shooting, at around 8 p.m., 50 people gathered
outside Ms. Wilson's home and shouted obscenities at the police,
neighbors said. The next day, 300 people gathered at the house and
marched two miles to City Hall.

Many protesters believe they saw snipers atop police headquarters.
The men on the roof were actually photographers, Chief Garlock said.

"The police can say whatever they want," Tania Wilson said. "Even
before they shot my sister, I didn't trust them."

Smaller marches have continued every week since the shooting. The
N.A.A.C.P. will hold a public meeting on Saturday to air complaints
about police brutality. The group will soon request that the
Department of Justice investigate the police department and the Allen
County prosecutor's office, Mr. Upthegrove said.

Junior Cook was a neighbor of Tarika Wilson. He says that he watched
from his front porch as the SWAT team raced across his front yard,
and that seconds later he watched a police officer run from Ms.
Wilson's house carrying a bleeding baby in a blanket.

"The cops in Lima, they is racist like no tomorrow," said Mr. Cook,
56. "Why else would you shoot a mother with a baby in her arms?"