DRUG DEALERS SQUEEZED BX. COPS MAP NEW OFFENSIVE

Several hundred narcotics cops will begin flooding into three Bronx
precincts later this month in a stranglehold operation against drug
dealers.

Two similar operations in the southern and western sections of the
borough have already produced thousands of arrests and forced dealers
to move their operations indoors, according to police.

With the new central Bronx initiative in the 42nd, 48th and 52nd
precincts, eight of the borough's 12 precincts will have such
operations under way.

The new initiative had been scheduled to get under way last month, but
sources said that commanders of already understaffed precincts had
asked that it be delayed until the current Police Academy class
graduates Friday.

The rookie cops will replace more experienced precinct cops now
finishing drug enforcement training. Assigned to narcotics module
teams, they will begin flooding into the initiative precincts on Feb.
22.

Each precinct also will have its own uniformed tracer unit with a
lieutenant, four sergeants and 32 officers who will patrol local drug
"hot spots" and, when needed, join the other precinct tracer units to
focus on particularly active drug areas, said a police source.

Bronx Narcotics also will continue to focus on building cases -- both
state and federal -- against large drug organizations, the source said.

Marilyn Mode, Police Department deputy commissioner for public
information, declined a reporter's request for information on the
initiative as well as a request to interview police brass involved in
the crackdown. Mode cited Police Commissioner Howard Safir's plans to
officially announce new drug initiatives in Brooklyn and Queens.

Police brass have publicly maintained they have been monitoring any
drug activity "spillover" from ongoing initiatives in the 40th, 41st
and 43rd precincts in the South Bronx, which began in November 1997,
and the 44th and 46th precincts in the west Bronx, which kicked off
in April 1996.

"Most of these street-level drug dealers are no rocket scientists,"
said one ranking commander who asked for anonymity. "They pretty much
stay in their own neighborhood."

But some community groups in the newly designated initiative areas
have complained that they've seen drug activity increase since the
initiatives began in adjacent precincts.

The 48th Precinct in East Tremont, which borders on the 46th Precinct
to the west in Morris Heights, saw a surge in shootings and killings
last year, with seven of 23 murders classified as drug-related.

Community activists also have reported increased drug activity and
shootings in the 52nd Precinct, especially in the Bedford Park area
to the north of the University Heights-Fordham neighborhoods covered
respectively by the 46th and 48th precincts.

"If you look at the other initiatives, they're like a horseshoe around
those central precincts," said a commander, who asked not to be
identified. "Now this is going to cap the Bronx right off. There's no
place for anybody to go."

"It can't happen soon enough," Msgr. John Jenik of Our Lady of Refuge
Church in Bedford Park said yesterday of the long-awaited new
initiative. "Today is too late."

Jenik has been among those leading the fight for beefed-up police
coverage in the neighborhood, which has seen a recent spurt in violent
crimes.

"We're seeing more and more of these young kids being sucked into
dropping out of school for the nice clothing and expensive sneakers
that come from drug money," he said. "The shame is that this
neighborhood is totally underserved by youth programs."