DRUG DEALERS TAKE BUSINESS INDOORS

The idea that drug dealers simply find a street corner and start
selling is antiquated, according to Prichard police. Today's drug
dealer, they say, wants to sell product from a location with all the
comforts of home, while incurring none of the risk associated with
selling out of their own residences.

These hangouts, known as "trap houses," work as storefronts for the
dealers, and police say they can be particularly hard to deal with
from a legal standpoint.

Police say it works like this: Drug dealers find people who are too
poor to pay their bills, often girlfriends or single mothers, and
offer them daily stipends to use their houses as drive-up drugstores.
Sometimes, the property owners are unpaid.

Prichard's Special Response Team raided an alleged trap house in
Alabama Village in May, arresting a 21-year-old mother of two. The
toddlers were playing on the porch as police took the door.

Another house, this one an apparent after-school gathering place for
area youths, was raided under similar circumstances in October. Once
again, the mother was arrested.

The benefits of the trap house business model go beyond the obvious
increased access to amenities such as toilets, kitchens and couches.
Police say selling drugs out of someone else's house offers dealers
some decreased legal liability.

Instead of simply standing on the corner with drugs in pocket, selling
out of a home allows the trap-house dealer to have a stash away from
his person. Should police raid the house, they can have difficulty
proving to whom the drugs belong.

Police Maj. Marvin Whitfield said police have raided the house of Roy
Lee King three times in the past four months, but in some cases,
police were unable to prosecute anybody successfully for possession of
guns and drugs that were found. There were simply too many people
coming and going to make a charge stick.

Police arrested King once and charged him in connection with drugs and
a stolen gun they say they found in his house, but those charges were
dropped because they couldn't prove the items belonged to him.

For his part, King said he had nothing to do with any illegal activity
alleged to have been going on at his house.

Drug dealers at trap houses are not entirely immune from prosecution,
but Whitfield said it takes more man-hours and work. Instead of
raiding the houses looking for drugs, he said, police must gather
video surveillance of the dealers making sales, and even make
undercover buys themselves.

Whitfield said this tactic has the added bonus of levying distribution
charges against the dealers, which carry stiffer penalties than the
simple possession charge a dealer would get if caught holding drugs.

At King's house, for example, Whitfield said police have made 16
arrests in the past year, many of which were based on distribution
caught on tape.

Whitfield said the department has been devoting extra resources to
King's North Joseph Avenue home since a September shooting that left
one man dead on the porch.

Police Chief Lawrence Battiste said neighbors have also been helping
to gather evidence. Encouraged by the department's Nosy Neighbor
campaign, a program that encourages citizens to report lawbreakers,
Prichard residents have been taping trap-house dealers across the city
as they ply their wares, he said.

"If you are selling drugs in Prichard," he said, "it's quite likely
that someone is videotaping you."

Owners of trap houses may also be subject to punishment; they may lose
their homes.

Battiste said King will have to go before a judge and explain why the
property shouldn't be declared a public nuisance and forfeited to the
city.