OAKLAND TEARS DOWN RESIDENCE

Reputed Drug House Demolished - Oakland Woman's Relatives Had Been Arrested
For Selling Pot There

It took just 30 minutes yesterday to tear down a reputed drug house that has
plagued an East Oakland neighborhood for more than a decade.

After politicians took a few whacks with a sledgehammer, an excavator with a
hydraulic claw took over, reducing Vernolia McCullough's bright blue trailer
- -- the alleged site of hundreds of marijuana sales with ties to five murders
over the years -- to little more than splintered boards and pink insulation.

The tiny home on 71st Avenue in the shadow of Network Associates Coliseum
had become a larger-than-life symbol of Oakland's war on crime and blight.
The city evicted McCullough, now 72, and boarded up the house for the second
time in August 2000.

Now, the lot will be a new symbol of that struggle. The Oakland Police
Department will place its mobile command center as a base for occasional
operations in East Oakland under an agreement with the federal government.

The five-year agreement is the first in Northern California under a new
program in which properties seized by the federal government can be returned
to communities.

Some neighbors said they would rather see a permanent police presence,
saying only that would put an end to the longtime drug dealing.

"You can't walk to the store without two or three people trying to sell you
drugs," said Alvino Luna, who is paying $1,100 a month to raise his three
young sons in a two-bedroom home, surrounded by iron bars, two doors down
from the demolished house.

"It will make a very small dent," he said, "but I hope it sends the word out
to other drug dealers out there that people in this neighborhood aren't
going to tolerate it anymore."

Other neighbors, who said previous efforts had done little to curb the
blatant drug dealing on their notorious street, were skeptical that razing
the house would make much difference.

"It ain't going to do a damn thing," said William Peoples, who has lived on
the street since 1954. Even with the house empty, drug dealers still show up
there daily, "like they're going to a job."

City officials and neighborhood activists acknowledged that drugs remained a
serious problem in the neighborhood, but called the demolition a good first
step that would send a message.

"We realize it's a massive problem, but you've got to start somewhere --
you've got to show people we mean business," said resident Sylvester Grisby,
who leads the neighborhood crime prevention council and has lived one block
away for 43 years.

Several of McCullough's grandchildren showed up to watch her house be torn
down and to declare her innocence.

"My grandmother never sold no drugs," said grandson Shaungo Cain, 20. "They
took her house for nothing."

McCullough was never charged with a drug offense, and her relatives and
former lawyer said numerous searches of the house had failed to turn up
drugs.

"They were just determined to take that property away from her and make her
out to be an example," said Oakland attorney Bob Beles, who had represented
McCullough. She now lives with relatives in Oakland. "Her inability to
control her relatives cost her her home. She took it pretty hard."

Several of McCullough's relatives, including sons and grandsons, had been
arrested for selling marijuana at the home, and police and city officials
believe McCullough was at least aware and most likely participated.

The city attorney's office, now under John Russo, first had the property
declared a public nuisance and boarded up for two years in 1992. But they
said the problems had returned with McCullough and her family.

When Oakland again sought to close the property, it enlisted the help of the
U.S. attorney's office, which permanently seized the home in January 2001.

"I am satisfied that this community finally has a reprieve from the criminal
activity generated by this house," Russo said.