CITY OFFICERS TAKE OVER POLICING OF BELEAGUERED LASALLE PARK HOUSING
COMPLEX, WHERE FAMILIES ARE WORRIED ABOUT DRUG TRAFFICKING

Beleaguered residents of the LaSalle Park public housing complex -- angered
by open drug dealing and worried about protecting their children --
welcomed a new St. Louis police patrol Monday to the 148-unit development.

"Things have changed," said an optimistic Marvin Thompkins, an official
with the company that manages the complex. "This is a new day."

At 10 a.m. Monday, the St. Louis Police Department officially began
patrolling the area, just south of the city's downtown business district,
in the shadow of the Nestle Purina high-rise office building. LaSalle is
the first of four public housing complexes to turn over policing
jurisdiction to St. Louis police under a $2 million a year agreement
between the St. Louis Housing Authority and the department.

Previously, security at LaSalle had been provided by a private security
company. Eventually, the program also will take in the Blumeyer Village,
Cochran Gardens and Clinton-Peabody complexes.

LaSalle Park resident LaWanda Moore, 33, a mother of three children who has
lived in the complex for four years, said she was thrilled that the police
had taken over security at the complex.

"People have been using this area as some kind of an amusement park," Moore
said.

"The fact that the police are taking over - that makes a big difference."

City Patrolmen Everett Culberson and Karl Brown, formerly partners in the
police district that includes the Central West End area, said Monday that
they volunteered for the new program, hoping to make a change in the lives
of the people in the complexes.

"There are a lot of good people down here," said Brown. "It's just a few
people making it bad for the rest of them."

Culberson said: "We want to help clean up this area. That's why we're here."

Culberson and Brown spent much of Monday morning and afternoon patrolling
the complex on foot, memorizing streets and alleyways and nodding to the
few residents who were outside on a crystal clear but chilly day.

"It shouldn't take long to get to know the families and know who belongs
here and who doesn't belong," said Brown, who worked security for the
housing authority before joining the department.

The complex is a series of well-kept, single-story frame and brick
apartment buildings linked by well-maintained streets and sidewalks.

On Monday, two teen-age boys played catch with a football on a blacktopped
street. Two women hurried into an apartment, their arms filled with bags of
groceries. A series of Scooby-Doo stickers decorated one window; a sign
that read "Our Neighborhood is Drug Free" hung in another.

Sgt. Ken Newsome spent part of his boyhood in the Blumeyer complex. He said
he was excited about the chance to "make a difference."

He attended a meeting of residents last week, and most of those who spoke
said their main concern was drugs, he said.

Monica Harris, 30, an 11-year resident of LaSalle and the mother of four,
said private security had been ineffective in breaking up crowds of young
people and keeping outsiders from trafficking drugs in the complex.

"You see the 13- and 14-year-old kids hanging out, getting involved in
drugs," she said. "It's sad."

Thompkins, with the complex management company, said, "Because this is
public housing, people think they can come in and get away with things on
our property."

Most of the problems, she said, involved drugs, graffiti and vandalism.

Signs are torn down and street lights broken almost as fast as they can be
repaired, she said. Private security guards were limited by their powers,
she added.

Especially troublesome, she said, was the fact that private security
personnel were not empowered to pursue lawbreakers off the housing
authority property.

By the time police arrived, the perpetrator usually had disappeared.

Thompkins did say that some residents were worried about what they see as a
police reputation for heavy-handed tactics.

"That is the big question," she said.

But she said the complex had been assured that the people of the complex
would be "treated with respect."