DRUG USERS FROM SUBURBS BUY IN CITY

Baltimore Police Charge Traffic From Counties Helps Foster Crime

Corrie Simpson wakes up every morning in a stone rancher outside
Westminster and heads to Shipley Street and Fairmount Avenue, a drab pocket
of sagging brick rowhouses and concrete front yards in Southwest Baltimore.

There, her boyfriend, Patrick Cook, 35, leans out of the 1984 Chevrolet and
shouts to a stocky man wearing a red bandanna. "Any Ready?" he asks, using
street-corner slang for crack cocaine. The seller nods. "Give me six."

The drugs are for Simpson, a 19-year-old former Glenelg High School student
from western Howard County. "For what I do, you have to go to Baltimore to
get it," the teen with shoulder-length, dark-blond hair said.

The drug scourge that has helped wreck city neighborhoods is fueled, police
say, by people who live in the comfort of suburbia, immune from the daily
violence that consumes inner-city streets and has claimed a generation of
young men.

Now, police say, even with an estimated 55,000 addicts in Baltimore, the
supply of heroin and cocaine far exceeds the demand. Business at some of
the city's drug corners wouldn't be as brisk without middle-class buyers
from places such as Glen Burnie, Dundalk and Sykesville.

"If you are on a corner and selling drugs, it means you shot someone for
the right to stand there," said Police Commissioner Thomas C. Frazier. "If
you live in the suburbs and come into the city to buy drugs, you have blood
on your hands."

But police seem to be the only people doing something about it. The Sun
accompanied officers on numerous stings over the past three months in which
they posed as drug dealers and arrested nearly 100 people from Dundalk to
Frederick and beyond.

A review of court files suggests, however, that few, if any, will go to
prison. They are charged with trying to buy drugs, a rarely used
misdemeanor offense that makes the act of asking for an illegal substance a
crime.

City prosecutors -- who require a minimum seizure of 30 vials of crack to
bring a felony drug charge -- often do not pursue the seemingly trivial
charge. In December, an entire group of defendants arrested at an East
Baltimore corner was sent home from court, their charges dismissed en masse
without explanation.

Even the administrative judge of the Circuit Court, Joseph H. H. Kaplan,
said he doesn't believe that police "are accomplishing anything" by
arresting addicts.

Yet officers continue their initiatives, delighting residents who live on
streets overwhelmed by vacant and boarded houses, who helplessly watch more
prosperous outsiders visit their Baltimore neighborhoods to feed their
hunger for cocaine and heroin.

"These are viable taxpaying homeowners who have lived in their homes for
years, and they are watching their neighborhood crash around them," said
Maj. John L. Bergbower, commander of the Southwestern District. "They don't
know what to do and they want us to do something about it."

`Come Here To Buy Drugs'

The back doors of a police van swing open, and suburbanites -- shackled
with plastic handcuffs -- are paraded to the van past some of the neatly
kept rowhouses of North Denison Street near Edmondson Avenue.

Deborah Randall, a quarter-century resident of the once-thriving
middle-class African-American neighborhood, offered a bemused smile as the
stream of white faces marched past.

She had just returned from a bridal shower in a predominantly white area of
North Baltimore, where, she said, "people watched every move we made. We
were not wanted in that neighborhood, but they come down here to buy their
drugs."

The blight from Edmondson Avenue -- drunks, addicts, dealers -- has spread
to Denison Street, where vacant shells of houses are sandwiched between
homes where children play, fathers mow small plots of grass and families
hold cookouts.

In five sweeps by police this year in predominantly black neighborhoods of
Southwest Baltimore, police arrested 110 people, 68 of them white. Of those
from outside the city, 25 lived in Baltimore County; 23 in Anne Arundel; 15
in Howard; three in Carroll; two each in Prince George's and Montgomery;
one from Frederick; and five from out of state.

Bergbower wants a billboard on Washington Boulevard: "Welcome to Baltimore.
If you are coming here to buy drugs, you might be buying from a police
officer."

Some suburbanites say they come because the drugs are better in the city.
Others say they're cheaper. Sonya Price, a 27-year-old recovering heroin
addict who lives in Southwest Baltimore's Shipley Hill, offers a simpler
explanation. "They come to where the drugs are."

"It's the same way we know where to get the best steak or find the best
bottle of wine," said Officer Kenneth Parks. "The addicts know where to get
the best heroin or the best cocaine."

Dangerous Trek

That often means a dangerous trek into unfamiliar neighborhoods. Three
Carroll County residents were killed last year in botched drug deals on
city streets. There are 41 identified open-air drug markets within the
Southwestern Police District. In Shipley Hill, there have been five
homicides from January to May, most of them drug-related.

Suburban residents "know that the distribution of drugs is a dangerous
business," Bergbower said. "Yet they are willing to come here, get out of
their cars and walk to a vacant rowhouse in the middle of the block in the
inner city.

"It astounds me. The average citizen thinks this is an inner-city problem.
It's not," the major said. "My drug dealers are making a living off
middle-class citizens who come here to buy drugs and then retreat to their
homes in relative safety."

Even with heroin use becoming a frightening reality on suburban
cul-de-sacs, inner-city corners remain the supermarkets of the drug
culture, drawing in thousands from outside the city limits attracted by
cut-rate deals and a better high.

"It's usually thick with dealers," said Randall, watching the arrests. "I
can take my children out to play, at least for today."

Charges Often Dropped

Arresting people doesn't translate into prison. The only jail most
suburbanites who are arrested ever see is a temporary holding cell at the
downtown Central Booking and Intake Center, where they are held for a bail
hearing.

Punishment comes in other ways. Prisoners are often held more than 20 hours
before they get bail. If they drove into city, their car will be waiting at
the impound lot on Pulaski Highway and can be retrieved for $120.

Add a lawyer and court fees, and the price tag on a single arrest jumps to
nearly $1,000. Out-of-pocket expenses, missed work and embarrassment are
often the severest punishments.

Police are hoping that publicity will deter customers such as John Kaiser
of Dundalk, one of 56 people caught in a sting in East Baltimore last year.

Kaiser, 45, who said he has been addicted to heroin for eight years, admits
he was buying drugs on North Bradford Street that day in October. But he
doesn't think the police had probable cause to arrest him.

"I pulled up and was asked by the undercover officer, `What's up,' " Kaiser
said. "I said, `I'm here to get one.' " He was arrested at gunpoint when he
turned up an alley to meet a supposed seller.

"I was up there doing no good, but even the bail commissioner said she
didn't think they had probable cause to arrest me," Kaiser said.

In a courtroom two months later, the judge had everyone charged with
attempted possession stand up. "She said, `Your cases are [dropped] and you
are free to go.' "

Prosecutors say they don't routinely drop cases. "We will prosecute all
crimes," said Baltimore State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy. "We review
every one of these cases on an individual basis."

Kaplan said police should spend their time on other crimes, as they do in
Boston. Officers there "spend their time arresting violent offenders," the
judge said. "Police cars drive past two addicts shooting up."

Relief For Residents

Three years ago, the city's police commissioner said he wanted his officers
to concentrate on violent dealers and ignore addicts, arguing that grabbing
users did nothing more than pad arrest statistics.

But police say that these stings target suburban residents to scare them
off and to give temporary relief to neighborhoods.

"When we lock them up, it's almost like a joke," said Officer Parks. "But
[judges] will have to answer when we have elections."

Kaplan said the problem can only be solved through treatment. "There are
55,000 addicts in Baltimore," he said. "That's 8 percent of the population.
You can't arrest 8 percent of the population. I don't know why we haven't
figured this out."

Mary Ellen T. Rinehardt, the administrative judge of the Baltimore District
Court, agreed that arresting people like Kaiser "probably doesn't work."

"But I just feel so sorry for people who own houses in these
neighborhoods," she said. "They feel they are hostages in their homes."

To help neighborhoods, police turn the tables on the drug trade by running
dealers out and taking their places. On June 5, North Shipley Street and
West Fairmount Avenue belonged to the Baltimore Police Department.

Three officers displaying the cool swagger of drug dealers and wearing
baggy pants, oversize T-shirts and flashy sneakers leaned against a
Formstone wall and waited. Within three hours, 28 people -- more than half
from the suburbs -- tried to buy drugs from them.

Corrie Simpson came clutching six $10 bills, along with a small vial of
crack, a spoon, a syringe and a container of marijuana. Angry at being
arrested, she unleashed a string of profanities.

Parks said Simpson exhibited what he called the typical "cocky white
attitude: `Why are you locking me up for this?' "

Later, after having spent 20 hours in custody awaiting a bail hearing,
Simpson had a different attitude. "It really opened my eyes," she said.
"I've been doing this for too long. A jail cell isn't where I need to be."

Know Street Slang

Those arrested in similar stings throughout the city this year have
included parole officers, city school teachers -- three in one afternoon at
the same west-side corner -- waiters, machinists, nurses, counselors and
department store clerks.

One man took the Light Rail from Severn and then changed buses three times
to get to a vacant house in Southwest Baltimore.

They arrive knowing the street slang. "Give me some raw" for heroin, or,
"Give me a dime of Ready," for crack cocaine.

Sitting on an old blue couch in the un-air-conditioned corner house in the
500 block of N. Denison Street, one of the arrestees shouted to an officer
who complained of the stifling 100-degree heat. "Why do you do this?"

"Because the people in this neighborhood have got to live here," Sgt. Tim
Devine shot back. "Nobody really cares too much about your personal comfort."

It was the third time in a month Devine and his officers had used the house
to stage their arrests. There was no shortage of suspects. Even publicity
on television didn't stop people from coming.

William Nowak, 58, a construction worker from Catonsville, said he saw
someone get arrested at the house on the news a week earlier and thought it
would be a good place. Scott Jones, 19, also from Catonsville, said, "I
just thought I'd try this." Charges against both men are pending.

White suburban drug users once stuck to the city's perimeter, afraid to
venture too far into the inner city. Now, Randall said, North Denison
Street is often lined with pricey cars from the suburbs, full of neatly
dressed people holding out folded 10- and 20-dollar bills, waiting to be
served drugs as if the vacant house next door to hers were a restaurant's
drive-up window.

"This is a new thing, them coming this far into the inner city," said
Devine. "Three or four years ago, you might get one or two white guys up
here. Now, they're the majority. It's the depth of their addiction, I guess."

Even suburbanites arrested say they can't understand why Baltimore remains
a drug center.

"I really think they could clean it up," Simpson said a week after her
arrest while charges were still pending.

"They have to go after the dealers who are bringing it in. It's greed;
that's why it never changes.

"They lock us up and make everyone think they are doing something about
it," she said. "People in the city are the problem. If they got rid of all
the dealers, then we wouldn't have any place left to buy. They aren't doing
anything by arresting the addicts."

Contributes To Addiction

Kaiser's mother, Ruth Cook, 68, accompanied her son to Bradford Street
twice to see where he went. "I will not do that anymore," she said. "It was
like a jungle. There were cops and people standing on corners selling drugs
and all kinds of dope."

Cook said it's the city that contributes to her son's addiction. "From what
I saw, there were very few innocent people. It's like all of them were
doing the drug thing. It's not all the users' fault."

Her son, a jobless Vietnam veteran, said he has bought drugs in East
Baltimore for eight years, paying for it by driving others to city corners
and keeping a cut of what they buy.

"Baltimore has a big problem," he said. "I definitely think I'm part of the
problem. If it wasn't for people like me, the dealers wouldn't be in
business."

He recalled news stories about one family who reportedly helped police
arrest some local dealers -- part of the same sweep in which he was
arrested -- whose house was shot up the next day.

"That's a shame," Kaiser said. "Here they are trying to do something to
help their neighbors, and they paid the consequences. The drugs are
everywhere out there. It's amazing that the police haven't found a way to
shut it down."

Kaiser said he lives in a quiet Dundalk community. "I wouldn't want someone
coming into my neighborhood to buy drugs," he said. Asked how many times
he's driven to Bradford Street since he was arrested there eight months
ago, he paused, then quietly whispered: "More than I can count."

Checked-by: Richard Lake