BALANCING THREAT AND SUPPORT IN LOCAL DRUG WAR

Asheville Police Plan To Emulate High Point Model

ASHEVILLE -- Undercover High Point police officers could buy drugs at
16 crack houses in the city's West End neighborhood before May 18,
2004. A day later -- using a strategy being considered by Asheville
police -- informants failed to find or buy drugs at any of the
houses. Police say it took a meeting of nine people well-known in the
West End drug scene to get things going in what has become known
nationwide as the High Point model.

Authorities spread out pictures showing the nine dealers selling
drugs. Police also gave them a look at documents that would be used
by prosecutors. With parents, relatives, preachers and other
community members looking on, the dealers were given a choice to
either stop selling drugs or go to prison. Asheville Police Chief
Bill Hogan wants to implement a plan using the High Point model's
combination of threat and support -- steps some activists say they
have been waiting for.

"Why talk about it when you got people out there standing on the
corner?" said Shad Waters Sr., who is helping his son overcome a
felony drug conviction and addiction while also joining efforts to
clean up his Shiloh neighborhood.

The plan started in High Point and combines community and police
efforts to give drug dealers support with education and jobs.

High Point has a population of about 90,000. Cities including
Winston-Salem; Raleigh; Providence, R.I.; Kansas City, Mo.; and
Tucson, Ariz., have adopted initiatives based on High Point's plan.

Fear and redemption A week before High Point police officers met to
talk about their plan, a man in the West End neighborhood was shot to
death in an attempted robbery. High Point police Maj. Marty Sumner
said a woman living nearby reluctantly called 911. Fearing
retribution, he said she only reported hearing shots fired and quickly hung up.

Eight months later, violent crime was down 36 percent within the West
End neighborhood, according to police statistics. Open-air drug sales
had disappeared, and residents had taken charge of their
neighborhood. Sumner said the same woman who dialed 911 that night
came forward to testify against the three men connected with the shooting.

"No dealers, no customers ... that translates into a reduction in
violent crime," Sumner said.

The biggest challenge for any city using the plan comes in getting
the community to buy into the idea, Sumner said.

Police had bought into the plan as well when they decided to work
with its creator, David Kennedy, head of the Center for Crime
Prevention and Control at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New
York. Asking residents to take immediate responsibility and put their
lives on the line to clean up their neighborhood is unfair, Sumner
said. Instead, police gather intelligence on suspected dealers by
buying drugs from them while undercover, taking pictures and
gathering evidence. "The police department does the heavy lifting,"
he said. "It's too much to ask people to take that risk." After
police first called in the group of suspected drug dealers and gave
them a choice of jail or help, residents in High Point's West End
neighborhood took charge.

The same initiative was applied successfully in two other city
neighborhoods, one of them a public housing development. An analysis
from UNC Greensboro showed that much of the drug market disappeared
altogether, rather than having been shoved to other neighborhoods.

Sumner said the market for drugs is undoubtedly still around but not
as visible and not causing street crime that had plagued each
neighborhood. The Rev. Jim Summey was at the first "call-in" meeting
where nine young men were brought in and given a choice to turn their
lives around or go to jail. He said the entrance to his Baptist
church in the center of the West End neighborhood used to be
constantly clogged with prostitutes and dealers. "It was a war zone,"
he said. "The traditional methods of policing had not worked." The
summer after the plan was implemented, Summey said his Bible camp
went from its average of six children to 36, many of whom were
walking over from the surrounding neighborhood.

"It was just like everything had changed," he said. Bringing it to
bear In Asheville, it could be months before one of the city's
troubled neighborhoods is turned around.

Hogan said crime statistics are being examined to pinpoint an area
where the plan will work best.

"It will be based on the magnitude of the problem," he said. "We
don't know where it will go initially." Already officers have been to
High Point to see the results of the initiative that has cleaned up
three neighborhoods in that city. Hogan said officers from Asheville
traveled to Raleigh to witness that city's first call-in meeting.
Police in the state capital started their own plan. It will probably
be two to three months or longer before police are ready to have
their first meeting in Asheville, Hogan said.

The proposed plan is running parallel to other efforts from police to
step up the fight against drug activity.

A recent police request for an added $2.4 million from the city calls
for increasing policing throughout the city. That would include a
public housing officer who would work with a High Point-type model if
it were started in a housing development.

That budget request doesn't include any specific items related to the
plan, which hasn't yet had a cost put to it.

The city is already planning to invest in five new officers for the
drug suppression unit and one new crime prevention officer who will
work exclusively with the city's public housing developments. In High
Point, the plan did cost money but managed to be written in the midst
of the police department's budget year.

About $5,000 was used in each of the three neighborhoods for buying
drugs undercover.

The beat police already operating in those areas were able to
maintain each neighborhood after the plan was implemented, Sumner
said. That work involved never letting calls go unanswered. "You
can't let one crime go unnoticed without giving it special
attention," Sumner said.

Breaking Asheville's drug markets and stopping those who operate them
will be a challenge, Hogan admits.

"This is income for people and sometimes even income for the family,"
he said. Hogan said he has not yet put a cost to the proposed plan.
Making it work Shad Waters Jr. knows what it means to be addicted to
drugs. More than a year ago he gave up that life after facing more
than 30 years of prison time. Instead, "by the grace of God," he got
three years of probation. "I knew I was doing wrong," he said.

Now, he and his father, Shad Waters Sr., are working in their Shiloh
community to help young drug dealers find legitimate employment. Both
men know the challenge of pulling a community together to fight a
problem. Shad Waters Sr. said residents in his Shiloh neighborhood
are aware of the open-air drug dealing on their streets but fear
often prevents them from doing anything about it.

Giving someone a second chance can be a challenge, too. Cookie Mills
knows the struggle a person can go through when they try to give up
drug dealing for an honest living.

In recent weeks, Mills has been helping his two nephews find jobs.
Both have felony convictions. One of the young men had been shot
twice in the back at Pisgah View Apartments.

"That's a big part of the problem, getting off the streets," he said.
"I tell all these guys you got to be real with me." He said many
times, residents are reluctant to help because of fear. When told
about the High Point initiative, Mills was hopeful that the plan
could succeed in Asheville.

"We could get people to step up and get involved," he said. "I would
love to be involved with that program."