TOWN VOWS TO WEED OUT DRUG DEALERS

Residents Of Eastern Oregon's Pilot Rock Spearhead An Effort Similar To
Their 1995 Campaign To Kick Out Gang Members

PILOT ROCK -- The Eastern Oregon town of Pilot Rock dealt with a street
gang problem three years ago by chasing the gangs out of town.

Now the townspeople are going after drug dealers.

"We're back at it again," Police Chief Ron Layton said Tuesday. "It's very
difficult to be a drug dealer in a residential neighborhood when all your
neighbors are taking photographs of your customers and writing down your
tag number and turning them over to the police."

Complaints about underage drinking and teen-age use of marijuana and
methamphetamine in this sawmill and ranching town south of Pendleton have
increased in recent months, prompting a public meeting at the Pilot Rock
Junior High School gym last week.

About 100 attended, and some angry residents said the problem is getting
out of hand.

One resident said he could name 15 locations in town where drugs are
available, which Layton said probably was an exaggeration. "I think what
they are saying is, we are not going to tolerate this anymore," Layton
said. "I was relatively surprised at the attendance. There were some real
issues that people brought up."

Since the meeting, about 30 residents have volunteered to act as an
advisory group responsible for coming up with ways to rid the community of
drug dealers.

"It's going to be the community, not the police force, that is the driving
force," Layton said. "This is something the community has asked for and
wants."

In early 1994, the 1,540 residents of Pilot Rock became convinced they had
a street gang problem after a wave of vandalism, graffiti and thefts by
local teens, coupled with reports of guns and increasing violence. About 50
local teen-agers had started dressing in low-riding baggy pants,
backward-facing ball caps and Oakland Raiders jackets. They congregated at
a downtown mini-mart, where they traded insults with gang members from
Milton-Freewater, Pendleton, WallaWalla and the Tri-Cities, Wash.

After a series of town meetings in 1995, a group of residents began working
with police. A handful of local people called the parents of the worst
troublemakers and advised them to leave town. About 40 students left the
local schools before classes began that fall, according to the school
district. The police received no complaints and none of the departing
parents mentioned threats. They told school officials they were moving for
their jobs.

Meanwhile, Layton and his three police officers made a point of citing
out-of-town gang members for underage smoking and other minor offenses.

The townspeople also changed the weeknight curfew from 11 p.m. to 9 p.m.;
created a "Committee of Vigilance" to produce a newsletter on youth
activities: adopted a "parental accountability ordinance and started a
five-member Juvenile Accountability Board, the first of its kind in the
state, to hear cases involving juveniles charged with minor offenses.

It wasn't long before Pilot Rock's teens stopped dressing like gang
members, and the estimated 220 gang members in Umatilla and Morrow counties
stayed away.

"We have decided to take the same tactics and apply it to the drug
problem," Layton said. "I notice many of the same people who were involved
with our anti-gang effort are also the same people who are coming to the
front in the anti-drug effort."

Layton said most of the local drug dealers were born and raised in Pilot
Rock. The community's goal is to put so much pressure on them that they
will decide it is impossible to function in the area, he said. "There is a
tendency in a small community like this to throw up your hands and say
there is nothing you can do," Layton said. "But if people commit and dig in
their heels and say, 'We aren't going to stand for this anymore,' they can
get rid of it. "It can be dealt with."