WESTSIDE COMMUNITY, POLICE JOIN FORCES TO FIGHT CRIME

The CADAVER Christian Fellowship Outreach Ministry on Pendleton Street
offers more than just a soul-stirring Sunday service and Wednesday Bible
study to the people of West Greenville.

According to its pastor, the Rev. Phillip Poole Jr., CADAVER -- which
stands for Christians Against Drugs and Violence Equal Rights -- offers a
candle in the darkness for a section of the city and county that has become
rife with homeless people, drug dealers and abandoned buildings.

"It's a tough fight, but I'm not giving up," Poole said about his desire to
help the people of the community come to terms with its problems.

This summer, he is getting support from local law enforcement. The
Greenville County Sheriff's Office has started its Safe Streets initiative,
which puts more deputies into high-crime areas.

Sheriff Sam Simmons said Safe Streets focuses on high-crime areas ranging
from Cedar Lane Road to the Eastside of Greenville. A main focus is on
areas just west of the city, such as the Sterling community.

The Greenville Police Department has added between 15 and 20 officers to a
task force patrolling parking lots and congested areas near all-night bars,
said Chief Willie Johnson.

That's in addition to other steps on the Westside such as opening three new
substations and putting officers' cell-phone numbers on their cars so
people can call them directly, Johnson said.

"The key to success is for the police and the community to have a strong
partnership," he said, "and to address issues way before they become a crisis."

Poole said the police support is appreciated and welcome. But he said more
law enforcement is not the answer to the problems in that community or any
other in the county.

"I don't care if you had 100 officers out there, there is no way out," he
said. "This is an inside-out issue. It takes people here to do the job."

People in the West Greenville area say summer is the worst time of the year
for drug dealers on the street because they are not driven inside by the
cold, Poole said. The vacant buildings give them places to set up shop.

"The officers do a good job, but the problem is the drug dealers know how
to get around them," Poole said.

Simmons said there is truth to the idea that policing the streets is not
enough.

"What we are addressing is offenders, but some of the underlying problems
in some of these lower-income neighborhoods are not really law enforcement
issues," Simmons said. "We would like to help them, but the fact is we
don't have the resources."

Things such as education, economics and health play into crime, Poole and
Simmons said.

The Rev. Steve McDonald of United Ministries said a lot of crime is the
result of poverty, but the problem is most people don't understand what
poverty does to a person.

"Going to work and following a schedule sounds easy to most people, but if
you've never seen it done, it would all be foreign," he said. "But we
expect the poor to think about things like education and voting like we do."

McDonald has spent the last 13 years at United Ministries working in many
of the areas targeted by law enforcement and has seen firsthand the
problems the officers face there.

He points to the rows and rows of houses set in a maze of crisscrossing
streets that give suspects ample opportunity to escape authorities. He also
notes places such as Brookhaven in West Greenville that have gone to great
lengths to stop crime.

The public housing unit has only one road leading into it, and the
apartments have been redone, he said. A Head Start center and a playground
were added.

"It gives the drug dealers less impunity," he said. "As the community
developed, the crime goes down."

However, despite success at Brookhaven and other communities such as
Brewtontown and Greenline, there is still a lot of work to be done,
authorities said.

"There is so much that needs to be done and so much that has been done," he
said. "... You have to understand it from their perspective."