POLICE, INFORMANTS UNITE TO SEIZE DRUG SUSPECTS

CRIME: Detectives Watched Brazen Curbside Drug Deals 4 Months
Ago.

Just four months ago, two Bellingham narcotics detectives noticed that
things were not the same on Railroad Avenue.

They noticed circling cars whose drivers made brazen curbside drug
deals. When they made busts, the drug they confiscated was something
comparatively new here: crack cocaine instead of the heroin,
methamphetamine or marijuana they had come to expect. "It was almost
like downtown Seattle," one of the detectives said. "We said, 'Man,
this is Bellingham. It's not supposed to be like that here.' "

Their initial investigation indicated that crack dealers from Tacoma
and Seattle were moving to Bellingham, where competition from other
dealers was apparently less intense and they could charge two to three
times the prices they got farther south - once they converted local
addicts to the drug. That apparently didn't take long.

The two detectives then organized the three-month undercover buying
binge that set the stage for Wednesday's arrest of 13 people on
suspicion of selling and possessing drugs, mostly crack.

"Joe," a recovering meth addict, was one of those who helped. Joe (not
his real name) said he came to police to volunteer for undercover
informant duty because the dealers he used to patronize would not
leave him alone. They wanted him to buy - and they wanted him to steer
other addicts to them. That was something he used to do before he got
cleaned up.

"I couldn't go anywhere," he said. "They just kept bugging me. I'd go
walking down the street and they'd find me. I'd tell 'em, 'No, forget
it, I ain't doing it.' They wouldn't leave me alone. ... It pissed me
off."

The two detectives gladly enlisted Joe in their investigation. They
explained the procedure: The undercover informant arranges a drug buy,
usually by telephone. Police give the informant the cash for the deal,
and they watch from a distance as the deal is done, usually making
sound and video recordings.

Even as they watch, detectives know there are often others watching
for them. The two detectives said they have seen drug dealers'
spotters using binoculars atop the roof of the Parkade on Commercial
Street and from vantage points at the Bellingham Inn at Holly Street
and Railroad Avenue.

Undercover officers frequently change cars and even clothes, they
said, to reduce the risk of detection.

"Retail" drug trade, from street dealer to user, often takes place on
downtown streets, particularly Railroad Avenue or in motel rooms
anywhere in the city, Bellingham police Lt. Todd Ramsay said. Bigger
"wholesale" deals, where mid-level distributors supply larger
quantities to street dealers, often take place in parking lots in and
around Bellis Fair mall, where people carrying and passing packages
are less likely to attract attention, he said.

Drugs Easy to Buy

Another undercover drug buyer, "Ruth," said she went to work for the
police to earn herself leniency on a forged-check charge. Long after
that got straightened out, she stayed on the job.

"I have two little sisters and they're both crackheads," she
explained. "It pisses me off, basically."

As she explained it, making drug buys on Railroad Avenue is
pathetically easy "from the bus depot all the way to the gravel
pathway past the farmers market."

"You can stand out in front of the hotel (Bellingham Inn) and people
will come and talk to you: 'You want some rocks, you want some weed,
you want some cheeva (heroin)?" she said.

The buys made by Ruth, Joe, other informants and undercover police
officers were used to establish the probable cause that laid the legal
groundwork for Wednesday's arrests.

A year ago, Ruth said, most of the drug activity on Railroad was meth,
known to users as "crank." That has changed.

"Now there's so much crack it's pitiful," she said. "Probably one out
of five people down there (on Railroad) are doing it. Maybe three out
of five."

"Crack" is refined from powdered cocaine by boiling it with ammonia or
baking soda and water. The resulting creamy-colored, crumbly residue
is then smoked. A mass of crack cocaine in the police evidence locker
bears an uncanny resemblance to a Rice Krispies treat. A "rock" not
much bigger than a sesame seed costs $5 to $20 and delivers an intense
high for one hour, followed by an intense desire to smoke another rock.

Detectives say they need undercover informants like Joe and Ruth to
bust street-level crack dealers, because when they try to grab dealers
in the act on the street, they too often easily dispose of the tiny
evidence by tossing it or swallowing it before police can get it.

The street dealers are often users themselves, and they typically
employ other addicts as "runners" who recruit buyers and steer them to
dealers in exchange for a little cash or crack, police said.

Ruth said dealers are competitive. If a dealer sees a user making a
buy from someone else, the dealer will approach that user and try to
entice him or her with a better deal, she said.

Ruth said she resents the drug's invasion of downtown.

"Downtown used to be where I would hang out in the malt shop at the
Bon," she said. "I wouldn't let my kids hang out there now."

Drugs Persistent

On Thursday, members of the city's drug subculture didn't disappear.
Some of them - including one trio who were inside a Cascade Inn room
that was raided Wednesday but weren't arrested - wandered aimlessly
downtown.

A bike patrol officer who participated in Wednesday's roundup said she
too had noticed known crack users on the streets, looking in vain for
their accustomed drug suppliers. She predicted that drug dealers would
gradually creep back unless police kept the pressure on.

Downtown shopkeepers agreed that Wednesday's raid seemed to cause a
big drop-off in undesirable street activity.

"They (drug users) are being very quiet and they're very unhappy, and
that's fine with me," said one merchant who asked not to be identified.

Lefty Hendrickson, a shoe repairman at Sandy and Vale's Shoe Repair,
1333 Railroad Ave., said he hoped the rash of bad publicity for the
avenue was over.

"I wish The Herald would praise Railroad once," he said. "Railroad is
not a bad street. There's a lot of good businesses on this street."

Tony Averson, the operator of Bellingham Inn, agreed. He said he
welcomed the police crackdown, which included a bust inside one of the
inn's first-floor rooms.

"I'm glad it happened," he said. "It makes a statement. We've got a
good city down here and we're not going to put up with it anymore."