DEA TAKES DRUG WAR TO COMMUNITY LEADERS

Mobile And Prichard To Participate In Federal Agency's Fourth IDEA Project

09/07/02

By RON COLQUITT Staff Reporter

Mobile and Prichard have been selected for a new federal drug and crime
prevention program that relies heavily on community participation and
treatment programs in hopes of rounding up drug dealers and helping end the
desire for drugs, federal and local offi cials announced Friday.

The Drug Enforcement Administration selected the cities for the Integrated
Drug Enforcement Assistance project because of the 2001 shooting of a
Mobile officer during a drug arrest in the Roger Williams housing community
and the killing of a 6-year-old Prichard boy by a stray bullet meant for
Prichard police officers.

The local program will be the federal agency's fourth IDEA project to
target high-risk neighborhoods with programs designed to reduce demand for
drugs through prevention, education and treatment, officials said. Mobile
and Prichard join Allentown, Pa., North Charleston, S.C., and Portsmouth,
Va., in spearheading the program.

"It's a demand reduction effort, an effort to reduce the core problems
leading to the crime in the community," local Drug Enforcement
Administration agent Sam Houston said during a news conference at Roger
Williams to announce that IDEA will kick off locally within a few weeks.
"Hopefully, what we need to do is change the community attitudes and try to
change the underlying causes of these people becoming involved in drug
gangs and using drugs," Houston said.

Houston was joined at the news conference by Mobile Mayor Mike Dow,
Prichard Mayor Charles Harden, U.S. Attorney David York and Mobile County
District Attorney John Tyson Jr.

York said that IDEA is similar to community policing, which relies on
members of a community to form partnerships with police and identify the
drug dealers and users.

"What we are basically looking at is the Drug Enforcement Agency realizing
we can prosecute drug crimes and make drug arrests all day long," York
said. "But until you can get the community involved on the other side, the
treatment and rehabilitation side, you are not going to achieve what you
want to achieve."

The date and location of the first IDEA meeting, and which organizations
and community groups will be asked to attend, have not been finalized,
officials said. But, they said, the project won't cost the cities any
additional money.

Houston said Mobile and Prichard were chosen to participate in the program
mainly because of shootings last year that involved police officers and
innocent bystanders.

In June 2001, Mobile police officer Leland Terrell, then 27, was severely
wounded in a shoot-out in Roger Williams with suspected drug dealer
Nmeregini Beck. Terrell returned fire, and Beck died at the scene.

Last December, Prichard police officer Lance LaPorte, then 25, was wounded
in the neck when he and three other officers were ambushed at Queens Court
near the Prichard-Mobile city line, police said.

Six-year-old Kearis Bonham was killed by stray gunfire meant for the
officers, authorities said. Six men and a woman are awaiting trial on
capital murder charges as a result of the shooting.

"Prevention and treatment is something that is very much needed in this
community," said Harden, Prichard's mayor. "And everything that we can do
to prevent juveniles and young people from being involved in criminal
activity and drug activity is very important."

Betty Kilpatrick, 53, lives in Roger Williams and said after the conference
that she believes the IDEA program will be helpful.

"I think it would work," Kilpatrick said, "because if they stopped the
drugs in the community and try to get people who are on drugs off drugs and
into treatment programs -- that would definitely clean up the community."