A CULTURE OF MURDER

Fueled By Drug Trade, Young Men In Some Dallas Neighborhoods Find It Easy
To Pull The Trigger

Doris Ojeda dominated TV news last year when she was killed in a drive-by
shooting as she walked near her northwest Dallas home. Jose Lopez made
headlines because he was stabbed to death at his middle school. But most of
the 248 people who made Dallas one of the nation's deadliest big cities
last year died in obscurity. Many were almost industrial byproducts of the
city's drug trade.

In some ways that trade is a murder machine, according to police and
community leaders. And in some ways, that machine is on the move. Drugs
drive the machine. Flaring tempers, bad judgment and payback grease its
gears. Ordinary arguments become gunfights. Friends become enemies.
Apartment complexes become killing fields.

The drug trade draws customers from every race and economic group. But
overwhelmingly the city's homicide victims are young minority men. Four out
of five homicide victims in 2004 were black or Latino. And about half of
the victims were black and Latino males under the age of 35 - even though
that group accounts for only about 22 percent of Dallas' population. The
killers are often black and Latino, too.

"It's the combination of no jobs, no education and drugs that gets you
violence," said Pastor Ronald Wright, who runs a Pleasant Grove ministry.
He said violence saps the spirit of some neighborhoods so badly that they
become easier prey for drug dealers - and he argues that residents in more
affluent parts of town would never tolerate such high crime. Police say
they can solve crimes only with tips and testimony from residents, who
often fear retaliation if they speak out. So far, minority neighborhoods
have had the biggest stake in the battle against death and drugs. Eight of
the nine most murder-prone police beats last year lies in the southern half
of the city. But deaths are not confined to "minority" neighborhoods. As
police squeeze drug dealers in one area, they scuttle to another. As
apartment complexes deteriorate, dealers can colonize them within days.

Last fall, elements of Dallas' murder machine made the move from Pleasant
Grove, up Buckner Boulevard and into the Lake Highlands area. Six men were
shot and killed. Another six were wounded.

A close look at those shootings shows how hard it can be for terrified
residents to fight back - and how huge an effort the city's beleaguered
Police Department must make to halt the violence once it takes hold of a
neighborhood.

"The drug business is a violent business," said Judge John Creuzot, Dallas
County's presiding felony criminal judge and manager of a drug court
program. "Power and respect is important. But lost in all that is a
complete absence of moral values that human life is important." Last fall,
there were three murders at the Autumn Ridge Apartments in 33 days, just a
short walk away from $150,000 brick homes. The Lake Highlands complex looks
like countless others on the way to the interstate, the suburbs and
shopping malls. But trespassing, drug dealing, prostitution and fights have
troubled residents of Autumn Ridge and other complexes for several years.

Corey Wooten, 24, known to his friends as "Kinfolk," was in an Autumn Ridge
courtyard after 8 p.m. Oct. 6 when someone came up behind him and shot him
several times.

He stumbled face-first into a concrete staircase leading to a second-floor
apartment. A pair of headphones rested on his ears.

A neighbor heard it was over $5 or "something to do with a girl." But
police say Mr. Wooten's connection to drug dealers in Pleasant Grove made
him target enough for rival dealers who claim northeast Dallas as their
territory. Soon his Pleasant Grove friends put out word that they were out
to get the "homeboys" who hung out on the "Sham" - a stretch of Wickersham
Road that runs by Autumn Ridge.

Four days later, Corey "Hook" Clark, 16, and Howard "Pee Wee" Simon, 19,
were gunned down across the parking lot from where Mr. Wooten fell. Mr.
Clark died, but Mr. Simon survived.

Corey Wooten's friends appeared to have made good on their threat. Police
believe the two slayings were retaliation.

"The guys from Pleasant Grove went to north Dallas. They got into it with
the north Dallas boys. [The north Dallas dealers] didn't want them out
there," said Shuntocqua Shine, a girlfriend of one of the suspects. Here's
how the deadly battle came to northeast Dallas:

Police pressure in Pleasant Grove and the search for new markets that
pushed some dealers to seek out other complexes near Buckner Boulevard. The
first stop was a cluster of complexes on Peavy Road in Far East Dallas.
There, they were frequently accused of trespassing. In July 2003, a
26-year-old man was shot dead there. Michael "Icy Mike" Griggs, Shuntocqua
Shine's boyfriend and an accused Pleasant Grove dealer, witnessed the murder.

The slaying brought a crackdown. Police increased patrols and undercover
work. New apartment managers evicted residents involved in crimes. Mr.
Griggs and his associates moved north again, where they clashed with other
dealers, resulting in the murders of Corey Wooten and Corey Clark. A
witness identified Mr. Griggs in a photographic lineup in the Clark
killing, but a grand jury cleared him. He declined to be interviewed.

The Wooten and Clark slayings were No. 183 and No. 187 for 2004. Dallas'
murder statistics for 2004 are being finalized and could change as some
deaths are ruled justifiable or if wounded victims die. The Dallas Police
Department reported Friday that the city had 244 murders in 2004. But a
Dallas Morning News analysis found 248 murders - an 11.2 percent increase
over 2003.

The increase gives Dallas its highest toll since 1998 and the
second-highest murder rate among the nine cities with more than a million
residents. The rate - about 20 per 100,000 residents - is less than half
that of smaller cities such as Baltimore, Detroit and New Orleans. But
among the biggest cities, Dallas moved ahead of Chicago and closer to
Philadelphia, which had about 22 murders per 100,000 residents.

As in recent years, neighborhoods south of Fair Park, north of Bachman Lake
and in Old East Dallas were hit the hardest.

Whether it's dealers fighting for turf, users behind on their debt, or
someone high or absorbed by the lifestyle, drugs are a huge factor. Each
year, at least 125 murders are tied to drugs or a vaguely defined category
of "arguments," according to annual homicide unit reports. Dozens more have
motives that remain unknown.

"If there is a single common denominator in violent crime, it's going to be
the drug issue - issues of turf and drug dealers ripping each other off,"
said Dallas Police Chief David Kunkle, who was sworn in seven months ago.
Since then, he has moved administrative officers to the streets, focused on
tracking crime trends by computer, and helped convince the City Council to
hire 50 new police officers.

On Friday, he announced structural changes aimed at taking guns off the
streets, closing drug houses and shutting down open-air drug markets. His
goal: reducing murders in 2005 by 20 percent.

Police say targeting drug activity would reduce murders and assaults as
well as robberies, car burglaries, auto thefts and prostitution. The fall
murder spree was unusual for an area that had drawn Texas Instruments
employees and young families attracted by the Richardson school district.
New developments with streets like Candlebrook Drive and Rolling Rock Lane
made it feel like a suburban enclave within the city. Developers followed,
building houses and thousands of apartment units. But many years on, the
aging complexes couldn't stay competitive with other parts of Dallas. High
vacancy rates drove rents down. In some cases, the quality of tenants
dropped, too. In some areas, crime has filled the vacuum. Several of the
murders bore witness to an odd juxtaposition. At Providence Apartment
Homes, an apartment that overlooked formerly well-maintained tennis courts
became a murder scene. At Bent Creek Apartments, a shooting broke out in a
parking lot divided by carports and lined with sculpted shrubbery. Drive
into Bent Creek on Forest Lane near Audelia Road. Pass through the
mechanical gate. Turn right and follow the patchwork wooden fence, where
gaps that allowed people to cut through between complexes are repeatedly
covered up with boards.

Go to the back of the complex, where police and apartment managers say a
pushers' paradise thrived. The back parking lot dead-ends into woods,
allowing dealers a view of who's coming and going.

"It's a perfect complex for a drug dealer to set up," said Sgt. Jeffrey
Kaiser as he patrolled the complex as part of Operation Kitchen Sink. Just
minutes from Interstate 635, Bent Creek was convenient for customers not
only in Dallas but also in Garland and Richardson, Sgt. Kaiser said. The
dealers' clientele included customers from all walks of life. The dealers'
"good-eyes" perched in the front, watching the main gate, sometimes
alerting others over walkie-talkies. "Runners" transported money and drugs
through the breezeways between clients and dealers. But these dealers were
just middlemen in a larger Dallas drug trade. With stash houses in Pleasant
Grove and Oak Cliff, they were just providing supply for demand.

The killing wasn't over after the shootings in Lake Highlands. On Oct. 12,
Louis Jackson and Victor Jimison were shot dead in Pleasant Grove. Once
again, protecting turf from an outsider or an argument involving drugs
could have been the motive. The Jackson and Jimison killings were Dallas
murders 190 and 191.

Sgt. Larry Lewis of the homicide unit said detectives have two theories
about the Jackson killing, both of which could be true. The first is that
Michael James - the same man suspected in one of the fatal shootings two
days earlier in northeast Dallas - along with a man named Demarcus "Hooty"
Smith, 22, and others were trying to get Mr. Jackson to help them rob
another drug dealer. He refused, and an argument ensued. The second is that
Mr. Jackson, 25, was simply a dealer crossing someone else's turf.

"I heard from people who are scared to come forward that they heard Hooty
arguing with Louis and that Michael James pushed him out of the way and
shot Louis in the head," Steven Knight, 26, said in an interview at the
Dallas County jail.

Mr. Knight has been charged with capital murder in the case. He confessed
to police that he was involved, though not as a shooter. But he now denies
being there.

Such shootings, Mr. Knight said, are often over something minor.
"Somebody's making more money than the next person. Or somebody's got a car
with nice rims. Or one guy has a few female friends, and he may be hated
for that," he said.

Whatever the motive, once Mr. Jackson was dead, Victor Jimison had to go,
too. Homicide detectives say his friends feared he would betray them to the
police. As he attempted to run, they shot him multiple times, including
once in the head. He was 18.

Still, the bloody cycle was not complete. Within an hour, "Hooty" Smith
turned on his friend, Michael James. Mr. James told police that Mr. Smith
had shot at him multiple times, striking him in the legs. A friend suggests
that the shooting was revenge for the Jackson killing. Mr. Smith "was
tripping and saying, 'Why did you kill my homeboy?' " - a reference to Mr.
Jackson, the friend said. "Hooty" Smith was subsequently arrested and
charged with capital murder in the Jackson and Jamison shootings.

Police also arrested Michael James. He has been charged with capital murder
in the Jackson and Jimison shootings as well as the Lake Highlands murder
of Corey Clark and the shooting of Howard "Pee Wee" Simon. That drug
pushers can be accused of killing someone on the north side of Dallas one
day and on the southern fringes the next highlights the mobility of
crime. The murderous violence in the Lake Highlands-area apartments
continued well into November. One of the next homicide victims was Terry
James Irvin, who was shot at the Providence apartments on Nov. 20. He was
the city's 216th murder victim.

Police suspect Mr. Irvin - who is white and, at 44, older than the other
victims - made a 2 a.m. trip to buy drugs. But as he walked a dark
stairway, he apparently came upon a man robbing an apartment that
overlooked tennis courts. Police believe the robber and perhaps another man
opened fire. Four people were hit, including Irvin.

"They shot him for no reason - nothing at all," said Bryan Jones, 26, a
local rapper known as "Mr. Pookie," who was also shot in the robbery. In
the early darkness, as the lights of police cars flashed across the
complex, Corey Whittaker stared in awe at the murder scene near his own
building in the complex.

"He was like, 'Man, did you see him hanging off the steps?' " said his
friend Tameka Smallwood.

Three days later, Mr. Whittaker, 24, suffered the same fate. Police said
two women knocked on the door of his apartment about 7:30 p.m. Nov. 23.
Shortly thereafter, he went outside and was shot. He became murder victim
No. 223.

"We suspect that probably may have been a setup to get him out of the
apartment," Sgt. Lewis said. Police found evidence of drug sales in the
apartment. The motive remains unclear, as it does with many of last year's
slayings. For most of the residents of the three northeast Dallas
apartment complexes, violence had become almost background noise to their
daily lives. "I hear sirens all the time, and when I hear them, I think,
'They must be coming here,' " Jeffery Williams, who lives at the Providence
complex, said in early December. When he first moved in about 17 months
ago, he said he was surprised that the area was so crime-ridden. "But I
guess there's crime wherever you go these days," he said.

Help did arrive on Dec. 13, when Dallas police poured resources into the
Autumn Ridge, Bent Creek and Providence apartments, posting dozens of
officers around the clock in the complexes in an effort to deter drug
dealing and reseed the complexes with crime watch groups. They called it
Operation Kitchen Sink.

By the end of the monthlong sweep, police had netted 1,188 citations and
197 arrests, 50 for felonies. A tip from a Providence resident helped solve
one of the shootings.

"The numbers look good," said Deputy Chief David Brown, who commanded the
operation. Four days after the crackdown ended, Jeffery Williams said he
was pleased with the results.

"Police were out here every day, and there's not much about crime anymore,"
he said. "I still hear sirens all the time, but it's up and down the
street, not in these apartments."

But like many residents at the complexes, he can only wonder whether the
added police presence will have a lasting impact.

And for the families of those killed, the sorrow lingers. Janice Patterson
Sanchell, whose son Tyson was murdered Nov. 8 at Autumn Ridge, misses the
calming voice of her son. He called her 10 minutes before he was shot.

"He was laughing when he got off the phone," she said as she watched
Tyson's 6-year-old daughter. "Tyson was the only one who didn't talk back
to his stepdad and get in trouble at school. He would always do what mama
told him to do." The Wooten family can't understand the killings, either.
"I don't think it gets easier," said Corteney Wooten, 23. "The devil works
in mysterious ways."

As experts struggle to explain such senseless violence, police and
community leaders are burdened with the task of turning things around.
"There's going to have to be zero tolerance for drug sales," said Thomas
Petee, co-editor of the journal Homicide Studies. "You're not going to
eliminate it. But you can get innovative with how you try to curtail that
kind of activity."

The plan Chief Kunkle announced Friday includes more undercover
surveillance and public pressure on suspected drug houses and stings
targeting the illegal gun trade.

Judge Creuzot believes breaking the cycle of violence must start earlier,
preferably when kids are in elementary school.

"These are often kids who are from broken homes and have a tough life and
have had to make their way on the streets," he said. "They grow up in jail
in the sense that they had to go see their fathers in jail." Targeting
crimes at apartment complexes, the City Council adopted an ordinance in
March that required owners and managers to post after-hours emergency
contacts, attend crime watch meetings and warn tenants that they can be
evicted if they or their guests commit a crime. As the manager of
Providence during the recent shootings, Loretta Perdue was bewildered about
how the complex grew so violent.

The management ran felony background checks on all residents and hired a
"courtesy officer" to roam the property every night, she said. But she,
too, said it doesn't stop felons from staying with friends and significant
others. Dr. Michael Lindsey, a Dallas psychologist who has studied the
issues of race and crime, said residents of the complexes must recognize
their responsibility.

"You can't blame the system. That's an individual choice," he said. But he
also said there needs to be more community outreach. Pleasant Grove
activist Hellen Johnson is doing that kind of work. Her group, Redirections
Community Coalition, last week began offering GED and vocational classes to
"no-to low-income" adults on weeknights at two Pleasant Grove high schools.

"We have these grandmas who say, 'All he knows is to sling dope because
that's what I had to do and that's what his mother and father had to do,' "
Ms. Johnson said.

"I believe that if an individual does not have the desire to live a slum
life, they can overcome. It doesn't matter about their grandfather. I
believe it's something they have to be exposed to."

But Dallas has an uphill fight. In the first two weeks of the year, there
have been 11 homicides. All the victims were black or Latino.

"How do you turn it around? It's about values," said Deputy Chief Alfredo
Saldana, who oversees the homicide, robbery and assault units. "In these
cases, there's no respect for the value of life. At that moment, they don't
think about any consequences and resolve their problems by taking it out on
someone else. They don't realize it has a lasting impact on families."

Staff writers Matt Stiles and Jason Trahan contributed to this report.