CITY PAYS FOR DRUG PROTESTS

LAKELAND -- The War On Drugs Is Getting Noisier.

The city is paying a Philadelphia activist $21,000 to organize residents
who march to suspected drug houses where they chant and protest.

"Drug dealer, drug dealer you can't hide, we charge you with genocide," is
a favorite chant.

City police identify the drug houses and accompany the marchers.

Herman Wrice, the organizer, signed a five-month contract with the city to
conduct the marches intended to scare drug dealers out of neighborhoods.

Wrice has lead 10 marches in seven Lakeland neighborhoods. Two more will be
held today.

City Manager Gene Strickland said the city hired Wrice on the
recommendation of Police Chief Sam Baca.

Strickland supports Wrice's unusual tactics, saying that it takes a
multifaceted approach to combat drugs in neighborhoods.

He said other methods have not worked.

"We have tried everything from code enforcement to blocking off
neighborhood streets that have drugs, but nothing has seemed to work," he
said.

Baca said Wrice is known nationwide for his anti-drug efforts. "He's able
to get the community to stand on their own two feet," Baca said.

Unlike the police, citizens do not have to watch what they say, Baca said.
So officers let citizens say anything to alleged drug dealers and are on
hand during the so-called "Take Back the Night" marches to make sure there
are no physical confrontations.

"This brings police and citizens together," Baca said.

A march Dec. 4 resulted in the arrest of Milton Louis Morrison who turned a
garden hose on the marchers and officers when they approached his home on
East Oak Street.

Morrison, 38, was charged with simple battery, resisting an officer without
violence and playing loud music. A warrant has been issued for his arrest
for failure to appear.

Two marches are planned for today.

The first will be at 1:30 p.m. off Cleveland Heights Boulevard near
Martin's Landing apartments in South Lakeland.

The second march will be at 6:30 p.m. in the Seventh Street neighborhood on
the city's northwest side.

Community residents are asked to gather at Lake Ridge Community Center at 4
p.m. for training.

"We show them how to march and teach them some chants," Wrice said. "We try
to make druggies feel ashamed that they are selling drugs."

The evening march, starting at Brunnell Parkway and Second Street, will be
filmed by the show

"Anatomy of Crime" for Court TV.

Wrice said about 30 people normally show up.

He said the marches are a payback for residents who have to put up with
drug dealers. "What we do is extreme but so is selling drugs."

Wrice said he and his followers once chanted for five five hours in front
of a suspected drug house in St. Petersburg.

When Baca was asked why police don't just arrest dealers, he said hundreds
are arrested yearly, but Wrice's effort was more of a joint venture between
citizens and police.

Wrice received $5,000 from the city to train 20 police officers for one day
in how to use his "Wrice Process."

The other $16,000 paid for Wrice's fee to organize residents and for his
travel, lodging and meals here.

He usually does about a dozen marches in a city and leaves behind a group
who can carry on his work.