POLICE: DRUGS, GUNS ADD UP TO MURDER

Man Found Dead, Teen-Age Girl Wounded When Pot Party Turns Violent At
Luscher Park, Authorities Say

A situation police believe started as a pot party at Luscher Park
turned violent Wednesday night, ending in the death of a Mobile man
and the wounding of a young Mobile woman.

Horace Joiner, 31, of Fernwood Court was found dead in the parking
lot of the popular, family oriented park on Dog River in south Mobile
near Navco Road, police said.

Eighteen-year-old Angela Gam ble, of Glenwood Street, suffered a
gunshot wound to the leg with the bullet shattering a femur, John M.
Tyson Jr., Mobile County district attorney, said.

"Drugs and violence, the two go together," said Tyson who went to the
scene of the shootings.

Joiner's slaying was the sixth homicide this year in Mobile. "Five of
the six were by gun, there is no question about it," Tyson said.

There were 45 homicides last year. Six occurred in December.

"There are lots of guns out there, but I think the story is the
violence -- lethal violence and drugs. Drugs and violence, the two go
together," Tyson said. "I think that explains the increase in
homicides last year, and it's turning out to be true this year."

Police said Gamble was taken to Springhill Medical Center, but a
nursing supervisor said there was no report of her being admitted.

Mobile police Chief Sam Cochran said in a recent story about last
year's 45 slayings that more than half of them were drug related. The
chief also pointed to a proliferation of guns in Mobile.

"There is a significant drug problem in Mobile. If we were not doing
what we're doing now, things would be so much worse," Cochran said in
the story.

Cochran could not be reached Thursday.

Tyson said, however, "There is an unbelievable amount of violence in
the communities right now. We are coming off a horrific December."

Mobile police Maj. Tommy Calhoun said Joiner has a "fairly extensive
criminal history with felony arrests including narcotics charges."

Calhoun said no arrest had been made late Thursday, but earlier in
the day homicide investigators had questioned and released someone in
connection with the case.

"Efforts are under way to identify the suspect and motive for the
shooting," Mobile police officer and spokesman Pat Mitchell said.
"The preliminary investigation revealed that all parties involved
were possibly smoking marijuana together at the time of the incident."

Luscher Park is in the 2400 block of North Dog River Drive. Mitchell
said Gamble may have been shot in the area of Navco Road which
intersects with Dog River Drive North. Tyson said Joiner's body was
found in the parking lot of the park.

An older model car, possibly belonging to Joiner, was found near the
railroad tracks that parallel North Dog River Drive, Tyson said.

Louise Padgett, president of the Morningside Community Action Group,
said the neighborhood around Luscher Park generally is quiet.
Violence at the popular, family-oriented park is unusual.

"It comes as very much of a surprise to me," she said of the
shootings that left Joiner dead and Gamble wounded.

The Action Group, a crime-and-blight-fighting organization that works
with local police, meets monthly at Morningside Elementary School
during the school year, but holds its meetings at Luscher Park in the
summertime.

Sam Owens, who lives near the park, said police reports of drug
activity in the park were not really surprising, but a homicide there
is highly unusual.

"It probably surprised everyone in the neighborhood," Owens said.

He said the park is very popular with weekend boaters and fishermen,
and that a youth football group meets there regularly.

"You go there in football season, there's hundreds of people there," he said.

People sometimes go to the park late at night, even though it's
supposed to be closed at that time, Owens said.

"I've come by there at 12 or 1 at night, and it's full of cars," he
said. "The police come by and run everybody off, but then they come
right back again when the police leave."