RED RIBBON WEEK: DO DRUGS CAUSE OTHER CRIMES?

Officials Say Motivation For Several Crimes Is Drugs But Proving It Is
Difficult

The belief that illegal drugs and other crimes intimately are
intertwined is common. But the evidence often is anecdotal.

Capt. Bill Turner, head of the Columbus Police Department's vice
squad, told of a crack addict who was caught with a stolen flat-screen
TV. He needed money to buy some rock.

He and the TV weren't hard to spot, Turner said: "He was walking down
the street with it."

But getting caught with a stolen TV is not a drug offense. It's a
property crime.

So-called "white-collar crime" also could be drug driven.

"A lot of times you see these financial fraud cases, but it's people
engaged in financial fraud to get money to buy drugs," said veteran
Columbus attorney Frank Martin. "It just looks like, you know, people
being people, but the motivation for an awful lot of crimes is clearly
influenced by drugs."

Superior Court Judge Bobby Peters told of an addicted son of a
well-to-do family who forced his mother to withdraw money from a bank
machine so he could buy crack. But robbing your own mother is not a
drug offense, either.

In waves of burglaries across Columbus, flat-screen TVs have been
taken. Sometimes little else was touched. Police believe many of these
thefts were driven by a need for drug money.

"Ninety-nine percent of all crime is green in color," says Maj. Stan
Swiney, who heads the division that keeps police department records
and runs the 911 dispatch center. Most crime is driven by the desire
or desperation for money, he means.

Police Chief Ricky Boren believes 90 percent of the crimes his
officers investigate are drug-related. But he can't prove it.

By the numbers

Records show that from January through August, the police department
took 24,185 reports resulting in 19,492 chargeable offenses. How many
those reports were labeled drug-related?

Thirty.

Police know that can't be accurate. Over that same period,
investigators presented more than 1,000 drug cases for prosecutors to
pursue.

In 2004, the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics found in a survey of
state and federal inmates that 32 percent of state prisoners and 26
percent of federal prisoners said they were under the influence of
drugs when they committed their offenses.

State prisoners convicted of drug and property crimes showed the
highest incidence of drug use at the time of their offense. Federal
drug offenders and violent offenders were the inmates more likely to
report drug use at the time of their crimes.

According to the National Association of Drug Court Professionals, 80
percent of offenders abuse alcohol or other drugs, and half of all
jail and prison inmates clinically are addicted. The association that
promotes diverting addicts into treatment estimates 60 percent of
suspects test positive for illegal drugs when they're arrested.

Paul Morris, the medical administrator at the Muscogee County Jail,
believes that at least 60 percent of jail inmates' crimes are caused
or influenced by drug abuse, whether the offense was driving under the
influence, domestic abuse or theft.

Addicts get caught stealing to buy crack, powdered cocaine or
methamphetamine because they don't have any. So police catch robbers,
burglars and car thieves, not crackheads and methheads.

Among those committing burglary, flat-screen TVs remain a popular
piece of loot, along with other electronics such as video games and
laptop computers.

One investigator noted that unlike old console TV sets, the new
flat-screens are relatively light and easy to carry, and they are much
in demand.

How are they so quickly converted to cash?

Easily, police say: Sell 'em cheap on the street. Got a $1,000 HD
flat-screen TV? Unload it for 20 bucks. In crack, that equals two rocks.

Stolen guns are worth a few rocks, too, on the street. Sometimes
burglars get both.

An area considered drug-infested is expected to be infected with other
crimes. But Columbus' crime stats for the first eight months of this
year don't always match that expectation.

The police department divides the city into patrol zones -- tight
geographic segments, often just a few blocks. Those where neighborhood
drug-fighting organizations or undercover drug investigators allege
drug deals occur do not always rank highly in other crime categories.

But sometimes they do.

Aggravated assault

The Ledger-Enquirer looked at three crime categories for January
through August and ranked the top three patrol zones that got the most
reports.

The felonies were aggravated assault, robbery and burglary. Larcenies
such as the smash-and-grab thefts of guns and laptops from cars were
not included for two reasons: Car break-ins happen all over town, and
larceny includes shoplifting. That shifts the ranking toward shopping
centers. When police take a report on shoplifting, it usually means a
suspect was caught leaving the store.

Aggravated assault includes shooting, stabbing and beating. Robbery
means taking something by force or threat. Burglary means breaking
into a home or business.

The patrol zone with the most aggravated assaults was Zone 97, along
the Chattahoochee River from 29th Street north to 38th Street, one
stretch of it reaching as far east as Veterans Parkway. It had 13
assaults, just one more than the Booker T. Washington public housing
complex off Veterans Parkway downtown. Designated Zone 453, it had 12
assaults. Two zones each recorded 10: Zone 17, south of Victory Drive
between Leslie Drive and Clay Drive; and Zone 31, north of Cusseta
Road between Andrews Road and Brennan Road.

Robberies, burglaries

Two zones tied for the most robberies, with nine each. One was Zone
23, a triangle coming to a point where North Lumpkin Road meets
Victory Drive, with a creek behind 30th Avenue as its western border.
Some call the area Southwestview. It once was known as Kendrick Quarters.

The other patrol area with nine robberies was Zone 410. That's right
around the public library and the new Muscogee County school
administration building -- south of Macon Road, bordered to the west
by Rigdon Road and to the east by I-185.

Zone 31 had eight robberies. Zone 118, the Beallwood area, also had
eight.

Two zones previously noted here for their number of aggravated
assaults had seven robberies: Zone 17, which is right across Victory
Drive from Zone 23, and Zone 453, Booker T. Washington apartments.

The patrol zone with the most burglaries was 18, south of Cusseta
Road, north of Victory Drive and east of Bull Creek. It had 47 from
January through August. And once again, Zone 23, Southwestview, ranked
high with 42. Also reporting 42 was Zone 73, south of Forrest Road
from Mahan Drive west to Morris Road.

Ranking third, with 41 burglaries, was Zone 31.

Zone 31: Winterfield

Zone 31 is sort of hat-shaped: Cusseta Road is the brim, St. Marys
Road is the tip, the sides are Andrews Road and Brennan Road.
Accentuating the band of this headgear would be Martin Luther King
Elementary School.

Just a block or two from the school is what the Rev. Willie Phillips
of Winterfield on the Move Against Drugs alleges is a crackhouse. He
believes others are in the area.

"You got people that pull up to the house, go in the house, come out.
They done got so now that they don't stand out in the street. They got
smart. The people pull up and want to go in the house and buy drugs,
come back and get in the car. And another car will pull up."

Phillips believes drugs are boosting the area's crime rate. "Where you
got a crack house, you're going to have all types of people coming in
that neighborhood, buying drugs. That's what's driving the crime
rate," he said.

Zone 31 through August this year recorded 164 of the most serious
crimes, those police call "Part 1." These include murder, rape,
aggravated assault, robbery, motor vehicle theft, larceny and arson.
Zone 31 ranked second to Zone 23, with 171 Part 1 offenses, and was
followed by Zone 18, with 157.

Zone 23: Southwestview

Hearing Zone 23 has more Part 1 crimes than Zone 31 would be little
comfort to Winterfield's Phillips. It is the patrol zone immediately
to the east of Phillips' neighborhood, which is in Zone 30, directly
between 23 and 31.

Stretching from Cusseta Road to Victory Drive and encompassing Wade
Street, where an undercover drug investigator said police get
complaints about drug sales, Zone 18 is just a few blocks from Zone
23.

Coming in fourth with 141 Part 1 cases for January through August was
Zone 17, right across the road from Zone 23, between Victory Drive and
the Chattahoochee River, and from Clay Drive and Leslie Drive.

Where the people are

After that, the Part 1 crime rankings leap north, to shopping
centers.

Ranking fifth with 140 reports was Zone 153, encompassing much of
Columbus Park Crossing, from Interstate 185 east to Ginger Creek and
south to Weems Road. Ranking sixth 136 Part 1 crimes was Zone 423.
That's Peachtree Mall.

Police Lt. Bill Rawn, who tracks crime stats, cautions that because
Part 1 crimes include larceny, or common theft such as shoplifting
that typically occurs in shopping centers. that may sway the numbers.
Because of store surveillance systems and other security measures,
shoplifters often get caught, further increasing the number of reports.

That doesn't mean people shouldn't beware of other crimes in such
areas. Where folks go with their money, crime follows. "You can't have
crime without people," said Swiney, noting that burglaries often occur
where people aren't home during the day, and robberies occur where
they're out on the town. "The only place there's not a street robbery
is where no one's on the street," he said.

'I can't control the street'

In some neighborhoods where drugs reportedly are being sold on the
street, the number of assaults, robberies and burglaries remains
relatively unremarkable. Consider the East Highland area in which
police in 2008 conducted a sting operation along 26th Street to catch
motorists trying to buy crack and other drugs.

East Highland falls into two patrol zones numbered 82 and 94. From
January through August, those two zones combined had 13 aggravated
assaults, seven robberies and 27 burglaries.

Walt Davis, 79, of Seale, Ala., owns property along 24th Street in
East Highland.

"I haven't had any problems," Davis said last week, standing outside a
brick apartment building he owns east of a business called Brown's
Corner. No dealers or users live in his building, he said: "I got them
out of here."

But drugs continue to be dealt no more than a block north or east of
his property, he said. "I tell people if you're going to do drugs, go
one block over."

He can control only his property, he said: "I can't control the
street."

Green Island Hills

Police say drug-related crime isn't confined to any one area.
Experienced burglars can go anywhere and cause the waves of break-ins
that last year alarmed residents in Hilton Heights and Overlook and
just recently prompted Green Island Hills residents to meet with the
police chief, Mayor Jim Wetherington and other city leaders.

The goods stolen included electronics and handguns, said Councilor
Glenn Davis, who lives in Green Island.

"These people who are committing these crimes, we want them to know
that 'We're looking for you.' We're tired of it," Davis said.

A crime wave in Green Island Hills gets city leaders' attention not
just because the residents are more influential, but because a crime
wave there is rare, and the residents won't tolerate it.

Three patrol zones are in Green Island Hills: 123, 169 and 186. From
January through August, they combined had no robberies, no aggravated
assaults, two auto thefts, 12 burglaries and 47 larcenies.

For the same period combine those crimes as reported in Zones 31, 23
and 17 off Victory Drive, and they have a total of 24 robberies, 25
aggravated assaults, 50 auto thefts, 102 burglaries and 268 larcenies.

In those zones, crime is common, and residents have to fight it every
day.

"We fight for our children," Phillips said. "We're doing the best we
can."