FOR DRUG-INFESTED AREA: WIN SOME, LOSE SOME

PORTSMOUTH -- For years, drug dealing and prostitution have flourished in
the city's Prentis Park and Brighton neighborhoods.

Young men on corners and parking lots cut deals on cell and pay phones.
Seemingly without fear, they flag down cars in the middle of streets.

On a recent afternoon, a teenager flashed a wad of cash just one block from
Brighton Elementary School, and three prostitutes paced the corner outside
Brighton Rock A.M.E. Zion Church.

Authorities occasionally have rounded up the dealers and shut down their
crack dens. But the problems always return.

"When the police pick up two or three guys," said Reginald "Reggie" Allen,
head of the neighborhood watch patrol, "there's five or six guys that take
their place."

Still, federal, state and local authorities aren't giving up.

Today, U.S. Attorney Paul J. McNulty plans to release a report card in the
latest law-enforcement effort to clean up the neighborhoods. He is expected
to announce, among other accomplishments, the breakup of five large drug
organizations and dozens of federal convictions in the past year.

Those who live and work in the neighborhoods have seen good come from the
arrests. They hear gunfire less often. Property crime is down. Murders
citywide are at their lowest level in more than 10 years.

But others said they've seen federal agents sweep in before, make a big
splash and then go away. Meanwhile, the young dealers sitting in jail are
replaced overnight.

Hyokuy Choi hasn't seen much change from Lee's Supermarket, where he has
watched drug deals go down in the parking lot and in his store's aisles.

"Right now, it's kind of worse," he said.

Every few years, authorities target Brighton and Prentis Park, an area
wedged between the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Interstate 264 and a railroad line.

Despite the recent federal enforcement, dealers and prostitutes still work
in the open.

Residents, business owners, churches, the civic league and the neighborhood
watch group report feeling frustrated over the ongoing battle.

There have, however, been pockets of success.

The authorities shut down a crack house on LaSalle Avenue, two doors from
Julio Washington's brick ranch.

Ruben A. "Gus" Starks, 27, and his brother, Thomas E. Starks Jr., 25,
turned their longtime family home into a den of drug dealing that attracted
lines of cars on both sides of their streets, according to federal authorities.

The Starkses were members of the New York Boys, a loose-knit gang that
pumped tens of millions of dollars' worth of heroin and cocaine into the
region since 1998, court records say.

The brothers operated from 1520 LaSalle Ave. They stored many of their
drugs in a doghouse out back, records say.

"You'd come home and you'd get people sitting in front of your house, cars
stopping all the time," said Washington, a longshoreman. "You couldn't even
get in your driveway."

It's quieter now, he said. He's also happy that the neighborhood police
officer stops and chats with him and his neighbors.

"I noticed he's paying more attention," Washington said.

The Starkses and all 17 co-defendants have pleaded guilty in the case.
Ruben Starks received 30 years in federal prison, and his brother 20 years.

Federal authorities said they have arrested dozens of members in five large
drug organizations and shut down three open-air markets that operated on
street corners and in the public housing of Prentis Park and Brighton.

No one charged has gotten off. Defendants have either pleaded guilty or are
awaiting trial. The federal effort also is meant to address Portsmouth's
problematic revolving-door justice system, in which repeat drug offenders
often get a slap on the wrist in state court. The federal court provides
for harsher punishments.

Crime statistics for the area show some positive results.

From 2000 to 2002, the number of violent crimes in the Prentis
Park/Brighton neighborhoods dropped about 10 percentfrom 173 incidents to
156. Property crime dropped 26 percent, from 798 incidents to 587.

Authorities said that is an indication that fewer hoodlums are on the
loose. Portsmouth police also have stepped up efforts to combat
street-level dealing. Drug arrests by local police nearly doubled between
1999 and 2001, the last year for which figures were available.

Last year, Portsmouth was one of three cities nationwide chosen for the
U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's Integrated Drug Enforcement
Assistance program.

The mission is to build grassroots support for drug prevention and combine
it with law-enforcement efforts and treatment.

This is the second time in 10 years that Portsmouth has been chosen for
such a program, and some people remain skeptical about the law-enforcement
efforts.

Lee's Market at 1820 Elm Ave. is a magnet for drug dealers, according to
court records and federal agents.

Hyokuy Choi, who manages the midsized grocery store, said there is little
he can do. The dealers are intimidating, he said, and he sometimes sees
them with guns.

"I'm not a bully," he said. "I cannot stop them."

Choi's 10-aisle store, where he sells everything from milk to wigs, is on a
busy thoroughfare that splits Prentis Park and Brighton. Young men loiter
in his large parking lot, even after closing time.

Sometimes they trade drugs for money in the aisles. One time, Choi said, he
found crack hidden between some dry goods. One man pulled out some cash to
buy a soda, and Choi could see the plastic bag of crack in his hand.

"I understand the police are busy," he said.

He said he can't afford the $22 an hour it costs to hire private security.
He also noted that as the weather warms, the parking lot swells with young men.

"We go home at 8:30, and they're still outside," he said. "Everybody sees it."

The Rev. Clifford D. Barnett has a similar problem outside his Brighton
Rock A.M.E. Zion Church.

He sees the same people loitering on his corner when he opens the doors at
6:30 a.m. and when he closes for the evening. He calls the corner "a hot box."

But Barnett said he believes in trying to solve problems instead of shooing
them away. So Barnett invites the loiterers in for counseling. Sometimes it
works.

Barnett focuses on the children, too, many of whom are forced to wait for
the school bus in the morning next to prostitutes.

The Brighton Rock church offers substance-abuse counseling and other adult
services, as well as morning and afternoon study groups for children.

He said he has noticed people's attitudes change. They will report crimes
more often and are volunteering in the community in greater numbers.

Reggie Allen has led the Brighton/Prentis Park neighborhood watch patrol
for more than 10 years.

He speaks today with the same optimism as he did back then.

"It's going to take time to stop it," Allen said in 1993 after a similar
drug-enforcement effort was announced. But pessimism still slips out.

He suggested that the city work harder to attract jobs that pay well.

"The young kids, they believe drugs are the things to sell. You can't get
them to work in McDonald's."

During a recent patrol, Allen pointed out new crack houses and street
corners that have replaced the old.

"The only thing you really do is stir these guys up from one place to
another," he said.

Still, he doesn't think the problem is as bad as it was five or more years
ago, when Portsmouth had record numbers of murders. So he sticks to it as
patiently as he can.

"Everybody's trying to help," he said. "It's a tough job."

News researcher Diana Diehl contributed to this report.