RESIDENTS SAY DRUG ROUNDUP GAVE SOME RELIEF

Standing in the middle of a courtyard yesterday in the Woodland
Terrace public housing complex, a 24-year-old mother said life in the
Southeast neighborhood was a little better these days -- ever since
police started taking down the drug dealers who have long operated
openly in the complex.

"Before, this whole place would be crowded with people, with boys that
don't even live around here," the mother said late yesterday
afternoon, her son and daughter at her leg clamoring to go home.

Gone, she said, are the buzzing motorbikes that would crisscross the
courtyards and alleys of Woodland Terrace, often driven by drug
dealers and their accomplices around what has been a busy market for
PCP, cocaine and marijuana.

Yesterday, authorities explained how the change happened, announcing
that a five-month-long undercover investigation by D.C. police, D.C.
housing police and the U.S. attorney's office had led to charges
against 24 people.

Taken into custody over 12 days this month, the suspects have been
charged primarily with drug distribution offenses, most of them
felonies, and the effect at Woodland is evident, people who live there
say.

"It's good," said the young mother who grew up in Woodland Terrace.
"We can rest. Our kids can rest. You don't have to worry about your
kids."

But the sense of liberation only goes so far. Like other people
interviewed yesterday at the complex, the mother was too fearful of
drug dealers to give her name. Things are better, she said, but not
that much better.

The investigation is part of a federally sponsored push to target drug
trafficking and violent crime in public housing. The District is one
of 20 jurisdictions nationwide selected for the Public Housing Safety
Initiative.

News of the arrests in Woodland Terrace came a day after the D.C.
Housing Authority, aided by D.C. police, staged a crackdown of their
own at the Park Morton public housing complex in Northwest -- another
hot spot for drug dealing.

Responding to complaints from Park Morton residents, the Housing
Authority went door-to-door looking for people not listed on leases
and told them they have to leave. In dozens of cases, authorities
changed locks on apartment doors in an effort to keep out unauthorized
tenants. Resident leaders say such tenants are a big part of the crime
that has made Park Morton notorious.

Over the years, some of the city's public housing complexes have been
razed and replaced with mixed-income development. But as the city
struggles to preserve affordable housing for the poor and for
working-class people, improving the public housing that is left has
taken on greater importance.

Woodland Terrace is one of those places. Spread over a maze of two-
and three-story buildings, the 234 garden apartments sit in an area
bordered by Ainger Place, Bruce Place, Reynolds Place and Langston
Place.

The buildings are faded, and the gardens are bare. "Adrian Fenty for
Mayor" signs pop up here and there. It was at Woodland Terrace that
Fenty, who won the Democratic primary, and opponent Marie Johns staged
their one-on-one debate a few weeks ago.

As nearby schools let out yesterday, children made their way home
through the alleys and courtyards that perhaps were envisioned as
welcome open space but that ultimately became accomplices in the drug
trade.

The courtyards are hard to see from the street, making it harder for
police to observe illegal activity, and the warren of alleyways makes
it easy for people to make quick getaways.

"It was something like a fortress," said Cmdr. Joel Maupin, whose 7th
District station sits barely a block away from Woodland Terrace.

And that is why it took a lot of stealth work, he said. "You have to
infiltrate the interior and make your buys in the interior of the
complex," Maupin said.

Undercover officers from the 7th District made 63 drug buys in
designated "drug free" zones from April to August, many of them in
open areas where children were playing. Using video surveillance
equipment provided by the U.S. attorney's office, investigators were
able to record drug buys to use as evidence in the cases.

Another woman, who is 44 and has lived half her life in Woodland
Terrace, said the difference is unmistakable. Sitting in front of her
Langston Place home, the woman said the blocks around her home are
much quieter these days, with less traffic, less fighting, less gunfire.

"It's changed a lot," she said. "It's quiet."