CRACK TRADE HAS GRAVITATED TO `THE WALK'

Even a modest elevation gain in the Santa Clara Valley makes for spectacular
viewing, and standing on this particular rooftop, with the sun coming at the
steep angles of early evening, I am once again impressed. The mountain
ranges are a study of shadow and light. The south end of San Francisco Bay
glimmers through the haze.

However, I'm up here with two guys who don't care about the view -- San Jose
police officers Moses Barreras and David Seminatore. Their binoculars are
trained on the street below.

``Look at this pair right here,'' says Barreras, handing me his glasses.
There is some sort of quick exchange between a man and woman. They separate,
with the woman getting in a car and the man strolling on down East Santa
Clara Street.

Barreras gets on the radio, but by the time the cruiser arrives on the
scene, the woman's car is blocks away, turning west into traffic on East San
Fernando Street.

Still, this kind of surveillance was key in a police department sweep last
month that netted dozens of arrests for selling crack cocaine along one of
San Jose's main drags. And while some police teams have moved on, Barreras
and Seminatore have this stretch of East Santa Clara Street as a
community-policing assignment.

``These are super good guys,'' said their boss, district Sgt. John Lax,
``good policemen and good investigators. The people they work with down
there love them.''

For whatever reason, the crack trade seems to gravitate to East Santa Clara
Street. In the recent sweep, Seminatore said, some 80 percent of those
arrested were from Alameda County. ``It turns out that they were taking BART
down to Fremont and then the 180 express bus to First and Santa Clara,'' he
said. ``Up there drugs and territory are controlled by gangs. That is less
so down here. They looked at this like a free, open market.''

The officers described a scenario in which the dealer might send a ``crack
fiend'' -- someone working for a small chip of the crystallized cocaine --
as a go-between to meet potential buyers in the parking lot at the Lucky
Store or elsewhere along the street.

``You wouldn't believe the span of people we've stopped for buying,'' says
Barreras. ``Everyone from street people to engineers. Yesterday we stopped a
guy who was a nurse. He told us he started doing crack because he heard it's
a good way to lose weight.''

We laugh.

Barreras says they've dubbed the street `the walk'' because that's what the
dealers try to appear to be doing -- just taking a walk.

``They're apprehensive,'' says Seminatore, ``but greed takes a higher
priority. They try to be clever to some degree, but they're too lazy to
actually do it.

``Look at these guys here, coming up. It's just that flagrant.''

As three young men walk below, one looks directly up.

``He made us already,'' says Barreras.

``They'll walk and tell others,'' says Seminatore.

I can't say for sure what the three are up to, but whatever it is, they vanish.

``We confront these guys, say, `Hey, how you doing?' '' says Barreras. ``We
ask them what they're doing here. Without fail, they always say, `Trying to
pick up girls.' At first, we might give them a chance, but they always turn
out to be selling.' ''

There are elementary schools and churches and neighborhoods along the
street. There are community groups that have worked long and hard with
various city agencies to build a healthy place to live and work. That means
reducing the number of the drug dealers, the chronic drunks, the other
dangers and nuisances.

Corporate Lucky Stores joined the fight this week, agreeing to change
alcohol sales policies and to make other positive changes at its store
directly across from Horace Mann Elementary. That was an important gesture
by Lucky, and a big win for the community. Overdue, the officers agree.

But the view from here on the roof is that the battle goes on.

Write Jim Trotter at the San Jose Mercury News, 750 Ridder Park Drive, San
Jose, Calif. 95190; call (408) 920-5024, or e-mail to jtrotter@sjmercury.com
via e-mail.