SMALL TOWN NO REFUGE FROM CRIME

TROY - To outsiders, it may have seemed like a shocking departure from
small-town life recently when a man was shot at close range, then pumped
with bullets as he lay on the ground.

But police and residents of Troy, a town of about 3,400 in southwestern
North Carolina, say the homicide -- which police said was drug-related --
was hardly shocking. In fact, it came a week after another shooting on the
same street, Faduma Street.

The crimes are an indication, law enforcement officials say, of just how
much drugs and the problems they bring have spread to small communities
that were once refuges from such big city ills.

"The influx of drugs has absolutely created a totally different ballgame,"
said E.J. Phillips, Troy's police chief for the past 18 years. "The small
town atmosphere has disintegrated."

Drug-related crime now accounts for 85 percent of all crime in Troy, law
enforcement officials say. In Montgomery County, for which Troy is the
county seat, drug-related offenses account for 70 percent of all crime,
authorities say. That includes both of the county's homicides over the past
six months, 75 percent of its robberies and larcenies and 60 percent of
aggravated assaults.

"Anything to get the money to buy more drugs," Phillips said.

Montgomery County authorities say a souring economy from floods,
hurricanes, tobacco lawsuits, along with the exodus of textiles and
cutbacks in surrounding industries, has produced a downward spiral and
created drug breeding grounds in Troy.

The county's unemployment rate, 8.1 percent, is well above the state's 6.5
percent and Wake County's 5.3 percent, according to state figures.

Unemployment "is slowly rising every month," said Troy Mayor Roy Maness.
"It's up 3 percent from a year ago and it doesn't seem to be turning around."

Other small towns in North Carolina, and elsewhere, are seeing more
problems with drugs in recent years. In Robbins, a town of less than 2,000
not far from Troy, a woman lost her husband, brother and a neighbor last
month in a triple homicide. Police say those killings came during a robbery
in which home invaders stole cocaine.

But the impact of drugs is particularly severe in Troy. Although the crime
rate for major crimes has dropped over the past decade statewide, drugs
have fueled a sharp increase in crime in Troy in recent years. The rate of
major crimes in Troy jumped from a little more than 5,780 per 100,000
persons in 1997, to just more than 6,109 per 100,000 in 2001.

'Snuff Street'

The impact of drugs on Troy is starkly evident on Faduma Street. Residents
fondly remember when people used to call the little enclave just outside of
town "Snuff Street," because so many women who lived there routinely kept a
hefty pinch tucked between their gums and lower lips.

Residents and police say cocaine sales have consumed the street like weeds
overtaking a garden. They say drug dealers have taken over the
working-class street with a large elderly population and are holding it
hostage.

The impact of drugs on Faduma Street has been "terrifying," said Dorothy
Horne, a school bus driver who lives with her grandson and 87-year-old
mother on Horne Street, which intersects with Faduma Street.

"You mind your own business," Horne said. "You hear gunshots, you go in the
house."

A narrow, dead-end street, Faduma Street is a hodge-podge collection of
about 23 mobile homes and rickety, pre-urban renewal houses -- a few
without indoor plumbing. The street is marked by abandoned houses overgrown
with vegetation, burned-out hulls of rusted cars and trucks and
rough-looking characters.

Nurse's aides from a local home health care agency that provides services
for the elderly refuse to visit the area because they fear for their
safety. Blighted houses are being used to conduct drug sales. Prostitution,
once nonexistent, is now a growing problem on Faduma Street and throughout
the county, authorities say.

"We've probably made 100 arrests over the last three years," said
Montgomery County Sheriff Jeff Jordan.

On April 4, Steven Dunn, 31, of Troy, was injured by a gunshot from a
passing 1994 Lexus as he sat on the front porch of an abandoned house
that's often used as a base by drug dealers and users, according to
investigators with the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office.

Drug house killing

The problems reached a deadly peak April 11. It was about 7:30 p.m., and
Naomi Drake had just arrived home from a class at the local community
college. She stepped inside the front door of her doublewide trailer when
she heard a gunshot from across the street.

"I told my husband, 'Larry they're out there shooting again,'" said Drake,
a 45-year-old school bus driver and teacher's assistant who's trying to
earn an associate's degree by attending night classes at Montgomery
Community College.

More shots rang out, then a woman's screams arched across the sky as a car
backed into Drake's driveway and sped away.

When it was over, Stacey Terrell "Big Poppa" Atkins was dead. Atkins, of
Troy, was gunned down in the driveway of a known drug and liquor house at
195 Faduma Street, authorities said. He had a "pocket full of dope" and
sheriff's deputies found guns and liquor in the trunk of his car, said Jordan.

Authorities charged William Garfield Little Jr., 22, of 198 Springdale
Road, Troy, with the crime. Little is Atkins' brother in-law.

Charges against Little were dropped last month during an arraignment in
Montgomery County District Court when three state witnesses retracted
written statements identifying Little as the killer.

"They [the witnesses] were shaking, trembling and sweating," said Jordan,
who added that they are investigating whether Little had any contact with
the witnesses prior to their testimony.

Jordan said the sheriff's office is waiting for the State Bureau of
Investigation in Raleigh to finish forensic tests on evidence obtained at
the crime scene and may seek another indictment of Little.

Little was also charged in the triple homicide in Robbins, along with
another suspect, Kevin Nicholas Brower, 22, of Eagle Springs. The two men
are currently sharing a cell at Raleigh's Central Prison while awaiting trial.

Little could not be reached for comment, but his mother, Wanda Little, said
she asked her youngest child if he killed Atkins and he denied it. She said
he admitted discharging his gun in the Robbins homicides but said he told
her he got off only one shot and didn't think he killed anyone.

Little and Brower were arrested June 4 in a Rockingham motel. A kilo of
cocaine, which authorities believe was stolen from the three victims in
Robbins, was found in the motel room.

If Little were indicted and convicted of the Faduma Street killing, it
would be an eerie coincidence: His father was fatally stabbed by his
brother-in-law on Faduma Street in January of 1983, Little's mother said.

No place for families

The drug dealers scattered for awhile from Faduma Street after the April 11
shooting. But they returned.

"It got so bad, when you turned onto the road to go home, you had to stop
your car until they got out of the road," Drake said. "And they look at you
like, 'I dare you to say something.' "

The dealers eventually set up shop across the street from her home and
plunked a wooden bench at the end of the driveway of a house that was
condemned shortly after the shooting.

"I would even see them out there on Sunday mornings before I went to
church," Drake said.

The 45-year-old married mother of seven children stopped letting her
7-year-old ride his bike on the street. She's thankful that her two oldest
boys have left home.

Her 19-year-old son Derrick, a freshman at Fayetteville State University,
is spending the summer with his uncle in Spring Lake. Her 21-year-old,
Larry Jr., was inducted into the Army in early June.

Noting the irony, Drake said she thinks her oldest son has a greater chance
of surviving as an infantryman than in the neighborhood where he grew up.

Budget cuts

Authorities aren't expecting improvements on Faduma Street in the
forseeable future. In fact, law officials say cutbacks to public safety
budgets are giving criminals the upper hand.

A countywide drug task force, for example, was dismantled in March when
Gov. Mike Easley announced he would withhold more than $200 million in
state-shared revenue.

"We have many, many, many investigations on hold right now, all over the
county," said former task force member, Lt. V.E. Higgins with the Troy
Police Department.

Police have undertaken a number of steps, including beefed-up patrols and
community meetings to encourage neighborhood watch groups. One alternative
being considered, Jordan said, is burning down the abandoned houses on
Faduma Street.

Naomi Drake, who helped organize the community meeting, said she realizes
the sheriff's office is doing all it can. But she said it's not enough.

"We need so much more down here," Drake said. "We need help."