EXTREME SECURITY SURROUNDS TRIAL OF D.C. DRUG GANG

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 hit 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 them, 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 lawyers 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."