DRUG RINGS IN HOUSING PROJECTS

As police and FBI investigators target at least two San Francisco Housing
Authority employees as suspects in major drug rings in the projects,
critics are charging the agency's hiring practices have become almost
criminally careless.

The national policy is to evict public housing tenants if they commit a
single drug crime. Yet suspected narcotics dealers, convicted felons and
well-known troublemakers have ended up as city employees, under a Housing
Authority program designed to put low-income residents to work fixing up
the projects, according to police records.

While many of the 339 residents who work in the Housing Authority's Family
Sweep jobs program have been touted as hard-working and law-abiding
employees, police charge that a handful are well-known ringleaders in crack
cocaine sales operations, who continue to peddle their wares while they're
on the public payroll.

Police say investigators have captured workers on videotape selling drugs
in the projects, while still wearing their work dungarees. In one case,
Housing Authority employees actually tried to stop police from making a
drug raid on Potrero Hill, police say.

Housing Authority spokesman Ron Sonenshine said that several people whom
police have shown to be breaking the law have been fired, but he didn't
know how many.

Public housing officials say they are trying to help people who may never
before have had a shot at meaningful jobs, but others are asking where the
line should be drawn between giving people a chance and promoting a
criminal environment.

"You can't just have employees committing crimes right under your nose,"
said Supervisor Leland Yee. "People who have made mistakes in the past and
paid their dues should be given a second chance. But you have to institute
controls over them, rehabilitate them. You can't just let them run loose."

But Housing Director Ronnie Davis said he feels it's only right to give
people who want to work a shot at it.

"If I hire a felon, I know I'm going to get a story in the paper that says
Ronnie Davis hires felons," he said. "But if that felon goes to United
Airlines and asks for a job, they're going to say, "You can't have a job
because you're a felon.' These people have to have some hope in their lives."

The job program puts public housing residents to work as temporary
laborers, landscapers, painters and construction workers -- often with
little training -- for between $9 and $30 an hour.

"We've felt uncomfortable for a long time about many of these guys," said
one police officer who has tracked crime in the projects for more than a
decade. Like other police officers interviewed for this report, he asked
not to be named. "The residents feel terrified of these guys. . . . Having
the drug dealers working here now validates (the criminal activities)
they've been doing."

Law enforcement sources confirmed Thursday that two current and one former
Housing Authority employee are part of an ongoing joint local-federal
investigation into drug dealing in the housing projects.

The employees, Aaron J. Johnson, 35, and Sheldon Silas, 32, and the former
employee, Charles L. Tatum, 38, were all under federal investigation as
part of a suspected drug dealing ring, police said.

According to police records, all three have previous arrests and
convictions. Johnson, who still holds a $29-an-hour temporary job as a
Housing Authority painter foreman, spent most of the past six years in
custody, after he was convicted for possession of cocaine with intent to
distribute and illegal possession of a gun, according to police records.

Silas, who holds an $11-an-hour position as a laborer, was convicted in
1987 on possession of cocaine for sale. He has numerous drug arrests since
that time but no convictions, the records show. Last year, his probation
was revoked and he served several months in jail after he was arrested for
cocaine possession.

Tatum was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison this week for cocaine
distribution. He lost his $25-an-hour Housing Authority job as a painter
when he was arrested last November.

Sonenshine defended the agency's current hiring practices, saying that
under federal law, the agency cannot discriminate against employees because
of their criminal records, unless their past problems have some bearing on
their ability to perform their jobs.

"We don't ask them their criminal history," said Sonenshine. "But we may
start doing that in the future."

Police Chief Fred Lau said he would not second-guess any Housing Authority
hiring decisions nor would he comment on any specific people or
investigations in the projects.

But he said the police intend to make sure that Housing Authority residents
and employees abide by the law.

As part of an enforcement plan dubbed Operation Bluebird, San Francisco
police and FBI agents have been working closely together to unravel drug
dealing in the public housing projects.

Sources familiar with the probe said investigators have discovered
widespread small-scale dealing but are primarily focused on the major
suppliers.

Under the nationally touted "One Strike You're Out" policy, housing
authorities, including San Francisco's, are taking steps to evict anyone
arrested for a major crime. New screening processes also forbid renting a
public housing unit to any newcomer with a felony conviction.

But Housing Authority spokesman Sonenshine said the same rules have not
necessarily applied to Housing Authority hiring programs.

"We're working on a new screening process," he said.

But Yee said indiscriminate hiring is another example of the "ongoing saga
of the Housing Authority not being able to take care of its business." "You
don't simply turn over the keys of the Housing Authority treasury to people
who have not shown the ability to hold responsibility," he said. "That's
what we've done."

1998 San Francisco Examiner

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski