MOTHER ENLISTS OTHERS IN COMMUNITY'S WAR ON DRUGS

LOGANSPORT -- For one Logansport mother, the catch phrase "war on
drugs" is more than just words. It's a personal fight to save her
family -- and her community.

The anguish, misery and embarrassment that once haunted Sissy Morris'
life has evolved into a show of strength involving close friends and
even strangers who are responding to her "I'm tired and I'm not going
to take it anymore" attitude.

For 23 years, Morris watched helplessly as her son, now 39, succumbed
to a life dependent on illegal drugs. He was doing well until a recent
relapse, she said. But it was his fall and eventual plea "to be sent
away" that spurred Morris, husband Rusty and close friends Lisa and
Michael Deutsch into action.

"I told my son, 'No, we're fighting this,'" Morris said.

Although she declined to call him by name, Morris said she approached
her son and told him of her plans to bring communitywide attention to
the drug-trafficking problem in Logansport. "He told me to do whatever
I think is best."

First, Morris poured out her heart in a letter to the editor that was
transformed into a story in The Tribune, a DeSoto Parish newspaper.
Within days, the telephone calls started. There even was a letter from
a woman in Oklahoma.

"I had no idea it would have this type of impact," Morris said.

But it didn't stop there.

A quickly organized community meeting Thursday night solidified
Morris' belief that others in the community are hurting just as much
and are just as concerned as she is. About 70 people, from
grandparents to pastors to business owners, stood and sat shoulder to
shoulder in the Logansport Board of Aldermen meeting room to show that
they, too, want to be part of a solution.

"That meeting shocked me because help came to the addicts," Morris
said the next day. "The important thing is not to back down now."
Michael Deutsch also is pumped by the community reaction.

The lifelong Logansport resident is disheartened by the decline he's
witnessed in his community.

"We want drug dealers on the run. We want them to stop. We're not
saying that we hope it happens. We're saying it's going to happen."

Morris and Lisa Deutsch already have requested to appear on the Aug.
10 agenda of the Logansport Board of Aldermen meeting to solicit its
support in projects that can be small steps toward making the
community less desirable to drug dealers.

Among their suggestions are signs proclaiming "community watch" areas,
ensuring streetlights are working in the neighborhoods where darkness
hides illegal activity and enforcing curfew and loitering laws.

Owners of Seasons Apartments, a low-income complex where many
drug-related arrests are made, recently put up surveillance cameras to
record activity only to find days later that the cameras had been
damaged. Plans were to have the cameras replaced.

Morris vows to keep after the apartment complex owners to ensure
they're doing their part to help the community turn the tide on drug
activity.

Expect Morris and her neighbors to be more vocal in their criticism of
those who do nothing to report suspicious activity. She admits to
being the one who turned in information on one so-called "big" drug
dealer. And she won't hesitate to do it again.

Logansporter Rick Wing even suggested last week that concerned
residents start packing disposable cameras. They're cheap and would
provide an easy way to document drug activity that he says he
witnesses almost daily.

Though residents are cautioned against vigilante action, "it's the
squeaky wheel that gets the grease," DeSoto Sheriff Rodney Arbuckle
said. "But like I've been saying all along, when the community gets
tired of it, we'll be more effective."

Perhaps suspected drug dealers already are taking notice.

DeSoto sheriff's deputies, Tri-Parish Drug Task Force agents and a
state Probation and Parole officer made impromptu visits to Seasons
and Lum apartments Friday morning to check on probationers and
parolees only to find empty dwellings.

"We just shook some bushes to let them know we're looking at them,"
Arbuckle said.

The apartment checks were planned prior to the community meeting
Thursday night, but the coincidental timing didn't hurt, Arbuckle said.

The sheriff hears complaints that not enough is being done on the law
enforcement side, a sentiment with which he and veteran narcotics
officers disagree. Sheriff's Lt. Robert Davidson, who worked drug
enforcement exclusively until four years ago, readily admits that
Logansport has the most drug trafficking among DeSoto
communities.

But more drug arrests have been and are being made there. It's the
behind-the-scenes work that the public is unaware of, he said.

Most do not know what it takes to build a case against a suspected
drug dealer, many of whom are wise to law enforcement's investigative
techniques.

Sometimes the cases get bogged down in the overburdened court system.
DeSoto alone accounts for 400 to 500 felony arrests a year, and it
must share three judges with neighboring Sabine Parish, Assistant
District Attorney Richard Johnson said.

Admittedly, homicides, sexual offenses and other violent crimes get
preference in the nine to 12 weeks of criminal jury trials scheduled
throughout the year. While an attempt is made to concentrate
prosecution on drug dealers and not those deemed to have legitimate
substance abuse problems, there are limited alternatives available,
Johnson said.

The DeSoto-based drug court, which acts as a diversion program for
first-time offenders who are substance abusers, has limited space and
can take a year to 18 months to complete. The program itself even
suffered a black eye this year when the person overseeing it was
arrested for soliciting a controlled drug in return for favorable reporting.

Johnson acknowledged the problems that law enforcement has in putting
together a drug case for prosecution. It's difficult at times to get
undercover officers into the area to make cases.

And law enforcement officers have rules to abide by, Arbuckle said.
"Drug dealers don't have rules."

Added Johnson: "Drug dealers are like viruses. When they evolve, you've got
to evolve with them."

One of Logansport's largest drug dealers, Marvin Garrett, was arrested
two years ago -- after about 10 years of drug dealing -- and is
serving decades behind bars. Greg Franks and Billy Roy Dickson are
other known Logansport area drug dealers who are incarcerated and out
of business.

It's the street-corner dealers -- those who make trips to Shreveport
or Houston for smaller buys that they divvy up for sale in local
neighborhoods -- who are more troublesome, Davidson said.

"It's not like you've got a kingpin sitting somewhere in a house.
There's just a lot of little dealers coming in and out," he told
community members last week. "We're as frustrated as you are, but
we're working as fast as we can."

Logansport is somewhat unique, though, in that as a state border town,
it's the first stop for drugs flowing over the bridge that connects
Louisiana and Texas.

"Getting across the river is another part of this circle," Arbuckle
said. "There's just something about that bridge."

He's received a commitment from one of two candidates seeking the
sheriff's job in Shelby County, Texas, to assist DeSoto in its drug
fight if he's elected.

The Rev. Chris Welch, pastor of Word of Faith in Joaquin, Texas, may
have been the lone Texan in the crowd at last week's Logansport town
meeting. But he pledged to take a leadership role on his side of the
river and to join forces with Logansport.

His support and that expressed by Logansport pastors is encouraging to
Morris. The Rev. Charles Hall, pastor of First Baptist Church in
Logansport, offered his sanctuary as a meeting place for the support
groups that Morris is committed to seeing organized.

Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon meetings once were held in
Logansport. The closest locations now are in Mansfield and Center,
Texas; distance sometimes provides excuses for Logansport addicts not
to attend. Morris wants the meetings open to family members, who often
times are suffering silently, she said.

"Years ago, there wasn't the moral support. All of these years, I
walked around and I knew people knew (about my son). I went to
meetings with him. I read books," Morris said. "Parents have to be
alert. There's so much that we don't know about this."