BATTLEFIELD ON BEAT 252

The police officers who responded to the scene the night that Tyshaun
Cauldwell was killed still have trouble describing their reactions to it.
They use words like shock, horror and heartbreak.

"I've never seen a little boy laid out like that," says Officer Carlos
Santory, 23. "As soon as I saw him, I knew he wasn't alive anymore. And
I've got a little sister, so it kind of hits me there."

Yet it does not surprise him.

On the west side of Rochester, in the Maple Section of the Rochester Police
Department -- in Tyshaun's world -- drugs and killing are ever-present
enemies. And for all their strategies -- flooding the streets with officers
in cars, on bicycles, on foot and on horses; assigning them to special
"drug disruption details" -- police are overwhelmed.

And victory is often partial.

"We haven't stopped one person from smoking cocaine," says Sgt. Mark
Freese. "We've stopped some people from selling. But we're just forcing
them not to be so obvious about it."

One week after Tyshaun's slaying, narcotics officers made a bust at a house
across the street. As officers approached, the three children left
unattended there shouted a warning to their mother: "The jump-outs are here."

Officer Brian Cala wages this futile drug war, working the 3 to 11 p.m.
shift on Beat 252. Within its boundaries -- Lyell Avenue on the north,
Interstate 490 on the south, Glide Street on the west and Saxton Street on
the east -- there are an elementary school, several churches and a police
station.

Cala, 27, was off the night that Tyshaun was killed.

He knew the 10-year-old only in the sense that he knows most of the kids in
this area who ride their bikes on hot summer nights down cramped little
streets.

"When I was this age, I was in bed by 9," Cala says. But three years into
the job, he understands that that is not the norm here.

He knows this area and its inhabitants well. He can point out the houses
where homicides have occurred; the houses where marijuana, crack and heroin
are sold. He knows where they are, but he can't always do much about it.

"It's like a game. It seems like every time you catch up with them, they've
found a new way to deal," he says.

"Oh, they hate you," he says, referring to the people who glare at him as
he drives by.

Cala has to rely on information from prostitutes and informants, while
lookouts on bicycles and meddling neighbors foil his plans, warning drug
dealers of his whereabouts. Some dealers learn for themselves: They have
their own police scanners.

On a recent night, Cala responds to dozens of calls -- not all of them
drug-related. But drugs always play a part in his night.

Before sunset, he has arrested a man with an open container of beer on the
corner of Jay and Whitney streets -- two blocks from where Tyshaun was
shot. Cala finds a crack-pipe in the man's pocket, but no crack. The man
tells Cala he can't afford to smoke it more than once a week.

At dusk, Cala rushes to help another officer on a call about men selling
drugs on Delmar Street, just north of his beat.

Cala arrives too late. He finds an abandoned Acura Integra, engine running,
radio blasting. He also finds six bags of marijuana on the lawn.

"Can you imagine just leaving your car running like that?" he asks. "Can
you imagine dropping sixty bucks (the approximate street value of the
marijuana) on the front lawn?"

Cala recalls the times he has busted into drug houses, only to find people
frantically tearing up money, burning it and flushing it down the toilet,
fearing the bills were marked.

"This is normal," Cala reminds himself. "This is business. Around here,
this is pretty much how it goes."