MIAMI POLICE DECLARE WAR ON DRUG GANG

MIAMI, Dec 28 (Reuters) - Miami police launched "Operation Draw the Line"
in an inner city neighbourhood on Monday to try to find an alleged drug
dealer blamed for a bloody turf battle marked by four execution-style
shootings since Christmas.

The target of the manhunt was Anthony Fail, 25, wanted since August and
said to be a former member of a cocaine gang known as the John Does. Police
said the shootings were the result of "bad blood" between Fail and current
gang members.

"He's a big deal in this," police Lt. John Campbell said. "I think if we
remove him and a few of his associates we'll see some of this violence kind
of decline."

Police believe the turf war was triggered by the November arrest of Corey
Smith, the reputed head of the John Does. His arrest on grenade possession
charges created a power vacuum, prompting rivals to vie for the John Does'
turf, police said.

Assistant Police Chief John Brooks said the group as "very dangerous and
highly armed." Police linked them to two dozen shootings in the Liberty
City neighbourhood in northwest Miami since August. Eleven of the shootings
were fatal.

"It's a territorial thing," police spokesman Lt. Bill Schwartz said. "They
(the killings) all appear to be retaliatory in nature. It goes back and
forth."

The battle escalated on Christmas Day. Jarvis Hilbert, 15, was gunned down
shortly after dawn as he stood outside a convenience store. Four men in ski
masks jumped from a truck and opened fire, police said.

A few hours later outside a nearby store, Mark Couch, 30, was shot and
killed after exchanging "Merry Christmas" greetings with passers-by. A
security video showed a man walked up to Couch and pumped seven shots into
him at close range.

Schwartz said the holiday was probably chosen "so that their action is not
forgotten."

Two other men, Billy Walker and Glenn Robinson, were shot to death on
Saturday in the same northwest Miami neighbourhood.

Walker, 20, was shot repeatedly while sitting in his car. Robinson, 31, was
riding his bicycle when three or four men barraged him with gunfire. Police
found 67 bullet casings at the scene.

All four victims had drug arrest records and all the killings were
gang-style hits, Schwartz said.

At a news conference on Monday, Miami Police Chief William O'Brien said
"Operation Draw the Line" would include a task force of SWAT team officers,
homicide detectives and Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents in a
coordinated hunt for Fail.

"I want the message to be real loud and clear, and that's the criminal
element cannot think that they can step into Miami because there is a
vacuum and easily take a lucrative trade. They're going to be resisted and
they're not going to be allowed to do that," O'Brien said.

Police have been looking for Fail since August, when a grocery store video
camera captured him leaping over a counter and shooting a rival gang member
in the hand. A ricocheting bullet seriously wounded an 8-year-old girl.

"His footprints are all over this," a police spokesman said of the latest
shootings.

The killings come amid reports that Miami's overall crime rate is dropping.
The city's violent crime rate dropped by 9 percent in 1997, mirroring a
national trend that has put the U.S. crime rate at its lowest level in 24
years.