EXTREME SECURITY FOR D.C. TRIAL OF ALLEGED DRUG GANG CHARGES INCLUDE
18 KILLINGS

Seven alleged members of a Southwest Washington drug gang went on
trial in U.S. District Court yesterday under extremely tight
security, accused of running a violent organization that built and
defended a lucrative marijuana market by ordering the execution of 18
people, seven of them potential witnesses.

Prosecutors said the trial will provide a close look at a ruthless
drug gang and a problem they say has frustrated law enforcement in
the District for years: the intimidation or elimination of witnesses.
Two of the slain linked some of the defendants to various crimes soon
before they were killed, and prosecutors plan to use those statements
at trial.

The K Street Crew, prosecutors said, was adept at learning the names
of people who might be cooperating with police and then hunting them
down, in some cases just before they were to testify in court. "They
were incredibly efficient at this. They used license plate numbers,
telephone numbers . . . whatever scraps of paper they could to get an
address," Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter R. Zeidenberg said in opening
statements yesterday.

That reputed history has led to the trial's extraordinary security
measures, with more than a dozen federal marshals inside the
courtroom yesterday and several more outside. The proceedings are in
the building's most secure courtroom, with bulletproof glass
separating spectators from the judge, attorneys, jury and defendants.
Everyone entering the courtroom passed through a metal detector, and
marshals searched all bags.

Jurors are getting special treatment. Their names are being kept from
prosecutors, defense attorneys and defendants. Acting at the request
of prosecutors, who said they feared the defendants might attempt to
intimidate the jury, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson has arranged for
the panel to meet each morning at a site known only to them and the
marshals, who will then escort them to the court.

The precautions are unusual, but so is the nature of the case.

The defendants ran what prosecutors called a "weed market" in the 200
block of K Street SW from 1989 until 1998, attracting so many
customers from the District, Maryland and Virginia that traffic jams
resulted. The killings began in 1989, with the slaying of rival Larry
"Patcho" Wright, 21, who was shot five times in the head. Other
victims included the former girlfriend of one of the defendants, who
prosecutors said was shot because she wouldn't return his AK-47
weapon. Amid all the bloodshed, gang members were making thousands of
dollars a week through their drug enterprise, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said crew members killed or wounded people who attempted
to move into their territory or who slighted them at nightclubs. They
said the gang members considered it part of the "job" to target
anyone who might testify against them. Prosecutors said the K Street
Crew killed seven witnesses and attempted to kill nine more. One
survivor was shot five times in the buttocks, neck and shoulder.
Another survivor was hit in the back.

"This is a case about greed and violence," Zeidenberg said in his
opening statement to jurors yesterday. "It's about a group of men who
would commit just about any crime imaginable to enrich themselves and
their organization."

Zeidenberg told the jury that drug-dealing has been a scourge in the
K Street SW area for more than a decade, with the Greenleaf Gardens
housing complex serving as a hub. Drug trafficking and violence
continued to escalate despite the 1992 arrest of Wayne Anthony Perry,
an alleged kingpin who pleaded guilty to carrying out five killings
and wound up with a life prison sentence with no chance of parole,
Zeidenberg said.

One of the defendants, Vincent Hill, was a close friend, associate
and partner of Perry's, and he kept the K Street organization running
after Perry's arrest with help from other longtime friends from the
neighborhood: co-defendants Samuel Carson, Sean Coates, Jerome
Martin, Maurice Proctor and William Sweeney, Zeidenberg said. "An
attack on one of them was an attack on all of them, and they would
all respond," he said.

All six of those defendants have pleaded not guilty to charges of
murder, racketeering and other felonies contained in a 101-count
indictment. A seventh man, Gary Price, also is standing trial on a
charge of participating in the drug ring but not the violence.

The group initially sold PCP or marijuana laced with PCP in the
Greenleaf Gardens area, Zeidenberg said. Over time, members branched
out into other neighborhoods and also began selling crack cocaine, he
said. In the mid-1990s, the crew shifted to sales of large quantities
of marijuana, partly because people arrested for dealing in marijuana
rarely were arrested or sentenced to prison in the District,
Zeidenberg said.

Violence initially was directed toward potential competitors, he
said, and ranged from beatings with baseball bats to drive-by
shootings with semiautomatic weapons. The group later bolstered its
revenue by robbing people on the street or holding rivals for ransom,
Zeidenberg said. As law enforcement authorities began to focus on the
group, the targeting of potential witnesses began, he said.

Jailed crew members would get information about witnesses from
investigators hired for their defense and then channel it to people
on the streets, he said, adding, "They were incredibly efficient at
this."

Zeidenberg cited the 1996 killing of Chrishaunna Gladden, 20, who he
said was ambushed as she left a party in Southeast Washington just
four days before she was to testify against Martin in a first-degree
murder trial stemming from a 1992 shooting.

The case still went to trial in D.C. Superior Court, he said, "with a
group of witnesses who were terrified and quite intimidated." Martin
and a co-defendant were acquitted.

Zeidenberg said authorities had taken steps to protect Gladden,
moving her from her old neighborhood. But she was drawn back by a
party, he said, and then slain.

Defense attorneys are scheduled to present their opening statements today.

Yesterday got off to a contentious start when Judge Jackson excused a
juror for what he termed "disgraceful conduct." Sources said the
juror, whose name was not revealed by the court, had repeatedly asked
to be excused, saying a trial expected to last six months would pose
a hardship. In recent days, someone attempted to intercede on the
juror's behalf, apparently causing the judge to conclude that his
anonymity on the jury was compromised.

Jackson brought the juror into the courtroom and angrily told him: "I
think your conduct is disgraceful. You've disgraced your profession."
When the juror apologized, Jackson shot back: "Your apology is not
accepted. . . . I will remember this."