POLICE TARGET STREET DEALERS

Project Aims to Curb Crime on East Side, Other Neighborhoods

The Charleston police are cracking down on street-level drug dealers on
the city's East Side in a push to end a cycle of black-on-black violence
and other crime that has eaten away at the neighborhood's quality of life,
authorities said.

By late Monday, police had rounded up 23 people accused of selling crack
cocaine, heroin and other drugs to undercover officers over the past few
weeks, said police Lt. James Mackey, a narcotics squad supervisor.

The effort, dubbed "Operation Fresh Start," grew out of a January forum
police held to address a wave of intraracial violence that has left three
black people dead and nine more wounded by gunfire since the year's start.
Police have long maintained that much of the city's violence can be traced
to drug disputes.

"This is a project we put together to give the neighborhood a fresh start,"
Mackey said. "We want to show dealers that the heat is on in this area, and
we are looking for a safer community."

Police plan to conduct similar operations in other neighborhoods in the
coming months. The idea is to keep dealers unsettled and confused so they
will eventually just leave the city rather than hopscotch from one
neighborhood to the next, Mackey said.

Investigators knew there were drug problems on the East Side, but they
didn't realize just how bad those problems were until they received a call
in late February from a Hanover Street landlord, Mackey said.

The landlord explained that drug dealers had forced one of his tenants from
an apartment so they could use the place for their narcotics operation,
Mackey said. The tenant moved into the city's homeless shelter rather than
fight the dealers, he said.

"The drug dealers just ran him out, and they took over the house," he said.
"After we heard that, we realized the problem was a little more serious
than we assumed in the beginning. We knew it was time to put more focus on
that area."

The predominantly black East Side has been the site of at least three
shootings this year, including the Feb. 14 slaying of a 43-year-old mother
of three. Neighborhood leaders have tried to enlist residents in the fight
against drugs, prostitution and other crime, but many people remain fearful
of retaliation.

Latonya Memminger, president of the East Side Community Development Corp.,
said she welcomes the extra attention from police and hopes they will keep
the pressure on.

"It's good to see that they are devoting more time to the area. We could
certainly use some more efforts from the police department dealing with the
drug issue," she said. "It's very difficult for people. Nobody wants to
feel that where they live is a danger to their well-being."

The Hanover Street landlord who called police last month said his former
tenant was among those living in fear. A group of drug dealers struck up an
acquaintance with the tenant, a former homeless man, and started using his
apartment as a place to hang out when they needed a break from the street,
said the landlord, who asked not to be named for fear of retribution.

"The next thing he knew, they had basically taken over his apartment," he
said. "He just didn't think it was safe to stay there anymore ... and he
has gone back to the shelter for a while."

After the landlord's call, investigators began closely watching the
apartment house. When police raided the apartment a week or so ago, they
seized two pistols and a "cookie," or ounce, of crack cocaine, which is
worth about $1,600, Mackey said. No one was home at the time, he said.

Over the past few weeks, undercover officers also bought drugs from about
25 people on the East Side, Mackey said. Officers then got arrest warrants
and started hitting the streets Thursday to round up the suspects, two of
whom remain at large. All 23 people in custody were young black men from
the Charleston/North Charleston area, he said.

A list of the suspects was not available Monday, and police were still
working to determine the amounts and values of the drugs collected through
purchases and arrests, Mackey said.

Over the past few years, police have conducted several investigations and
raids aimed at driving drug dealers from city neighborhoods. Among those
efforts were 2001's "Operation Mayday," which targeted East Side heroin
dealers and resulted in nearly 40 convictions, and 2002's "Operation Broken
Needle," aimed at 32 suspected heroin dealers in the same neighborhood.

Some residents and community leaders have complained that these efforts
merely shifted the problem from one neighborhood to another.

The area above Cannon Street on the peninsula, which includes much of the
east and west sides of the city and the Neck Area, had 315 reported drug
offenses in 2003, about a 17 percent drop from the previous year. That
figure, however, was nearly double the number of drug offenses reported on
the lower half of the peninsula, which includes the Market area and the
tony South of Broad neighborhood.

Police were winding up the operation Monday, but they plan to keep a close
eye on the East Side as they move to other areas of the city, Mackey said.
Police plan to keep a visible presence as well, through such efforts as
Friday's driver's license checkpoint on the East Side, he said.

"We plan to keep the heat up in the area we just hit," he said. "We're not
going to just hit it and let it go."