CITY, APARTMENT COMPLEX IN SHOWDOWN

Lake Highlands: Accused Of Unlawful Tactics, Police Defend Efforts In
Crime-Ridden Area

Two years ago, Dallas Police Chief David Kunkle rolled out a set of
aggressive crime-fighting tactics aimed at taking guns and drugs out
of several Lake Highlands-area apartment complexes.

Now, the tactics face what appears to be their first legal challenge
as a complex owner accuses officers of breaking the law and a City
Council member of trying to run poor black residents out of his district.

The showdown centers on the Bent Creek Apartments, an
affordable-housing development and hotspot for violent crime on Forest
Lane.

The complex's owner, AHF Community Development of Amarillo, has sued
Dallas in federal court, saying the city violated the Fair Housing Act
by harassing the low-income and minority tenants.

Residents complain that police have searched their apartments without
a warrant, made traffic stops for no reason and set up a video camera
across the street to spy on them.

"I have never seen a local government use their office and their
police in such an abusive manner as I have with the city of Dallas,"
said Gary Lacefield, a former U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development investigator hired by AHF for the case.

Police and city officials counter that their efforts are legal and
were intended to curb the violence. Since November 2004, there have
been four murders, more than a dozen rapes and robberies, and almost
daily drug dealing at the complex, police say.

Chris Bowers, a supervisor in the Dallas city attorney's office, says
the complex is exaggerating.

"I have no reason to believe at this point that anything that happened
at Bent Creek was unlawful," he said. "I think the property owner is
trying to use litigation as a tool to get the city to back off."

CHERYL DIAZ MEYER / DMN Claudia Brown, who receives Section 8 housing
at the Bent Creek Apartments, says police searched her closet. The
city defends the inspection of units at the complex as part of a
program to address quality-of-life issues.

In the lawsuit filed June 12, AHF accuses City Council member and real
estate developer Bill Blaydes of conspiring with the Lake Highlands
Area Improvement Association to get police and code enforcement
officers to scare away minorities from his district.

"That's absolutely false," Mr. Blaydes said. "I have been working
since the day I got elected to get rid of the worst operators ...
because of what they do to tax value and quality of life.

"They have a terrible reputation in Dallas," he said of AHF. "They're
sorry landlords. They care not for the people who live in their
operations."

Inspection labeled 'raid'

The dispute revolves around a March 13 code-enforcement inspection
that apartment managers and residents have dubbed a "raid."

"The officers entered each apartment, some with their guns drawn, and
proceeded to search the units, making the residents sit on the floor,
on their hands and with legs crossed," the lawsuit alleges. "The
police officers searched through the personal belongings of the
residents, including those located in drawers, cabinets, hampers and
closets."

At the complex, several residents recalled this week being forced to
stand against walls as police barked orders and rummaged through their
kitchens and closets.

Claudia Brown, who is on disability and receives Section 8 housing at
the complex, said police searched her closet, mixing up clothes that
she keeps in alphabetical order by color.

"It insults me kind of," she said. "It's like they assume because I
live in a lower-income apartment that I'm doing something wrong."

REX C. CURRY / Special Contributor A security guard checks each car
that enters the Bent Creek Apartments. The complex owner has sued
Dallas in federal court, saying the city violated the Fair Housing
Act.

City attorneys say nothing happened that was out of the ordinary for a
"SAFE Team" inspection, a 15-year-old program in which police, fire
inspectors and code officers work with property owners to address
quality-of-life issues in neighborhoods.

During a typical inspection, officers check smoke detectors, talk to
residents about crime issues and look for code violations such as
rodents and loose balcony railings.

AHF filed complaints with HUD over the incident. The department is
investigating the case and expects to make a ruling about Sept. 30,
said HUD spokeswoman Patricia Campbell.

The complex has been under scrutiny since November 2004, when a man
was killed and two others were shot in a volley of gunfire that
started after someone flicked cigarette ashes onto a carpet at a party.

In the following weeks, the police conducted a massive warrant sweep
and placed officers in the complex around the clock in a sting they
nicknamed "Operation Kitchen Sink."

The operation seemed to work for a while. But in August 2005, a
20-year-old man was fatally shot. As the violence returned, Bent Creek
had an influx of Hurricane Katrina evacuees. That incited a battle for
drug turf between some of the new residents and the old ones, some
officials say.

"When the two of them got together, they started warring as to which
one was going to be the kingpin up there," Mr. Blaydes said.

Deputy Chief Jan Easterling, who oversees patrol operations in the
area, said that while some suspects and victims were from New Orleans,
the department has not documented any gangs operating in the complex.

Still, the violence continued. In October, two men were working on a
car when they were robbed and shot, leaving one in critical condition.
In February, a 32-year-old man was shot and killed in a dispute at the
complex. And earlier this month, a 19-year-old man was fatally shot in
the head after an argument in a breezeway.

"We have done everything we can do legally to ensure the security and
the safety of that complex," said AHF attorney John Ben Blanchard. "If
one of our tenants invites someone onto the property ... and when they
get onto the property one of them shoots another, we can't stop that.
It's not a prison."

This week, an armed security guard stood outside a locked mechanical
gate taking down visitors' license plate numbers and asking them which
apartment they were visiting.

But the stepped-up security didn't deter one man bent on buying
drugs.

An Austin college student, who goes by the nickname "Blue," said he
was passing through downtown Dallas and looking to buy some marijuana.

Word on the street led him to Bent Creek, he said, where he was told
to wait at the back gate to avoid the security out front. As he
waited, a young man pointed a gun in his car window and demanded his
money, said the student, who agreed to talk on the condition that he
not be named because he was buying drugs.

"The only way you can actually shut that [expletive] down is stop
leasing, stop renting apartments," he said. "Just tear it down."

A trial date for the lawsuit has not been set.