POLICE: DRUG SALES OCCUR ON ABOUT 150 CORNERS

Jurors in an ongoing drug conspiracy trial on Tuesday heard facts about the
establishment and control of illegal drug markets in Camden.

The testimony of Camden Police Lt. John Scott Thompson formed the basis of
anticipated testimony that will focus on the composition of street gangs
the government claims controls drug sales.

Despite teams of federal, state and local investigators, Thompson said,
there are about 150 active drug corners in Camden that attract buyers
around the clock.

On trial on charges of using violence to control several North Camden drug
operations are Bernard Murray, Allen Resto, Lorenzo Hardwick and Jose
Rodriguez, all of Camden. An indictment charges the four with conspiring to
murder three men in 2001 to protect their control of drug markets at 5th
and Grant and 9th and Cedar streets.

Eight other people who were indicted with the men now on trial have pleaded
guilty to conspiracy charges and many are expected to testify against them.

Today, Joseph Bowen, a senior investigator with the Camden County
Prosecutor's Office, is expected to testify that gang ties of at least
three of the defendants date to the early 1990s. That was when, as members
of the Sons of Malcolm X, they terrorized North Camden with violence that
included three "test night" killings of pedestrians as part of a gang
initiation rite, according to pretrial briefs.

Instead of being shattered by arrests and prison terms in the 1990s, Bowen
will testify, the gang regained the right to sell heroin and cocaine on
street corners after their release from prison, according to trial briefs
filed by Assistant U.S. attorneys Kevin T. Smith and Jason Richardson.

U.S. District Judge Robert B. Kugler previously denied a request by defense
attorneys to exclude any reference in testimony to membership in street
gangs in general and the Sons of Malcolm X in particular.

Bowen is expected to be the first prosecution witness to refer to the gang
and its tattoos and rituals.

Objecting to the defense attempt to avoid describing the four defendants as
gang members, Smith said they "would prefer that we call them the flower
children of North Camden."