CITY STEPS UP DRUG FIGHT

News Series Spurs Cops, Housing Officials To Increase Razing Of Narcotics
Houses

DETROIT - The Detroit Police Department plans to beef up its forfeiture
section and city officials promise to work together to make demolition of
vacant houses used as drug houses a priority.

In addition, Wayne County officials plan to file lawsuits in early February
against the owners of as many as 75 Detroit properties that neighbors say
have been plagued by drug dealing and other nuisances.

The moves follow a Detroit News report last month that nearly 300 houses in
the city had been the scene of three or more drug arrests since 1996. Drugs
continued to be sold at many of the properties, even after repeated police
raids. About 20 percent of the properties were vacant; 40 percent were
rentals.

The News found that only two drug properties had been seized under civil
forfeiture over the past five years, and that there was little
communication between police and officials about vacant drug houses that
should be demolished.

"Attitudes have changed and things will change," said Wayne County
Assistant Prosecutor Nancy Alberts, who oversees county forfeiture efforts.

Officials began formulating strategies to eliminate drug nuisance
properties following meetings that began last month. Representatives of the
police department and prosecutors office met with officials from Detroit's
Buildings and Safety Engineering Department, which oversees property
demolitions, and from the Planning and Development Department, which sells
properties forfeited because drugs were sold there.

In addition, Police Chief Benny Napoleon told Mayor Dennis Archer in a memo
that the department's forfeiture section will be given additional employees
and resources in the effort to seize properties where drugs were sold and
the owner knew about it. Two additional officers are expected to be added
to the forfeiture section.

Napoleon and his spokeswoman, Second Deputy Chief Paula Bridges, did not
return repeated calls.

Lt. Claudia Barden, commander of the department's forfeiture section, said
she had not been notified about any increases in her staff. But she said
there has been renewed emphasis on using forfeiture as an option to
eliminate drug dens.

"We are formulating a plan to get it done," Barden said.

At a meeting in December, police and prosecutors turned paperwork over to
Planning and Development officials that clear the way for three drug
properties to be sold.

Complaints filed in Wayne County Circuit Court show that one of the
properties, a house in the 3100 block of Elmwood, was raided five times by
narcotics officers in 1998. The other properties, a house in the 3100 block
of Canton and a dry cleaning business in the 7000 block of Kercheval, were
allegedly purchased with narcotics proceeds.

"We've done everything we can do and now it's a matter of Planning and
Development saying come and pick up the check,' " Barden said.

Sylvia Crawford, spokeswoman for the Planning and Development Department,
was not able to immediately determine the status of the properties. But she
said her department is working closely with the police to sell forfeited
properties. Money for properties seized under narcotics forfeiture laws is
used for drug-fighting efforts.

There is now also cooperation between the police and officials in the
Buildings and Safety Engineering Department.

Department director Geni Giannotti said that for the first time, her office
is getting information from the police that will help her decide which
vacant properties should be razed first.

It now is city policy, she said, for police to tell her in writing whenever
drug raids and violent crime occur in supposedly vacant houses.

"When the police can tell us about drug dealing or other crimes, we know
it's dangerous and can ask for an emergency demolition," Giannotti said.

In some cases, the city controls houses where drugs have been sold. Other
cases have shown that legal ownership of drug properties is murky. One
house, 15787 Parkside, which was identified by The News as a
city-controlled drug property, is not in the city's inventory, Planning and
Development officials said. Wayne County land records show that while the
property was among several on the block seized by the state in 1987 for
non-payment of taxes, the house was not turned over to the city with the
rest of the land.

(SIDEBAR)

What The News found

In a special report, "Detroit Drug Houses: Out of Control" published on
Dec. 19 and 20, The News reported:

Nearly 300 properties were the scene of three or more felony narcotics
arrests since 1996. Drugs continue to be sold in and around many of the
houses.

Forfeiture was used just twice in the past three years to seize and sell
drug nuisance properties.

Rental properties make up about 40 percent of drug-nuisance properties and
the city of Detroit controls or owns more than one in 10 of the properties.

Vacant drug properties were not given priority for demolition.