PA. COCAINE BUST SHOWS DETROIT KIDS AS SELLERS

Three years ago, drug dealers migrated from Detroit to New Castle,
Pa., with bags of powder cocaine in hand.

The goal? To take over the crack cocaine market. And they succeeded,
law enforcement officials say -- in part because they used Detroit
youths to sell the drugs.

The dealers, who went by street names such as Moses and Tone,
employed as many as 20 workers from Detroit -- some as young as 14
- -- to peddle.

After a few weeks, the dealers sent the teenagers back to Detroit
and brought in a new crop in an effort to throw off police in the
western Pennsylvania town.

"We would see new faces," New Castle Police Chief Thomas Sansone
said after an investigation resulted in drug charges against 18
Detroiters, including one juvenile, last month. "They'd all give us
fake names."

Using juveniles to sell drugs is nothing new, authorities
acknowledge. In Detroit, Young Boys Incorporated, or YBI, used
school-age children to sell drugs in the 1970s and '80s.

"But the specific use of juveniles rotating from Detroit to New
Castle was something much more organized than we've seen with
others," said Nils Frederiksen, spokesman for the Pennsylvania
Attorney General's Office.

Two Detroit-based drug rings supplied New Castle's dealers,
sometimes cooperating in selling as much as $2 million in crack
since 2003, authorities said.

But their empires came crashing down when 70 New Castle and
Pennsylvania officers closed an investigation and issued charges
against 28 people.

Five of the 18 Detroiters are in custody -- including one of the
reputed leaders, 39-year-old James (O-Z) Brooks -- while the others
are still at large. Pennsylvania authorities said they think the
suspects may have fled back to Detroit.

Several of those facing warrants have criminal records in Michigan,
according to the state Department of Corrections. Brooks,
32-year-old Shantez Johnson and 36-year-old Darian Hall have served
time for dealing cocaine; David Randall, 20, and Andrew Davis, 18,
have been convicted of breaking and entering.

Frenzado Snow, 28, who authorities say goes by the street name Kill,
was convicted of negligent homicide in 1997.

Snow, Randall, Hall and Davis are still at large. Johnson is in custody.

In addition to drug charges, everyone charged faces two counts of
participating in a corrupt organization and one count of criminal conspiracy.

The name of the juvenile charged is not being released. Police said
other juveniles couldn't be located or identified to face charges.

New Castle, across the border from Youngstown, Ohio, was an easy
target, officials say: The old mill town with 28,000 residents has
been hurting for jobs for years. Housing prices have suffered and
unemployment is rampant, residents say.

"All our big steelworks are gone," said Josephine McFarland, who has
lived on North Walnut Street for more than 50 years. Her home is
down the street from a rental house police say was used to sell crack.

Another home nicknamed the Clubhouse, at 922 Carson St., was the
Detroit operation's first base, according to a Pennsylvania grand
jury investigation. The gang would cook into crack the cocaine it
brought from Detroit and sell the rocks.

Brooks allegedly ran the operation, keeping all of the home's
windows and all but one of its doors nailed shut.

After that house burned down, other New Castle homes were
transformed into crack houses -- including the one near McFarland.

"There were a lot of cars coming and going there," she said last
week. "But we didn't realize it was as much as it was."

Police raided that house on the corner, at 102 N. Walnut, in January
and confiscated 700 grams of powder cocaine and $4,000 from the
ceiling above the kitchen and the attic.

Police also found a handgun, a digital scale, baking soda and empty
plastic bags -- items used in the preparation of crack.

"We've had a neighborhood watch in this area," McFarland said.
"We're trying to keep it drug free right in our little spot. We're
trying, but it's not working too good."

Detroit dealers turned a tidy profit by selling typically $5 rocks
for up to $20, authorities said. And they strong-armed themselves
into power, threatening buyers who bought crack from non-Detroiters.

Detroit-based dealers have been accused of running similar
operations in other small towns.

Police in Huntington, W.Va., are investigating Detroiters after four
teenagers were killed last year in what officials described as
drug-related shootings.

In New Castle, the dealers used juveniles to help sell the drugs
because it's tougher to track down minors, Sansone said.

The kids and their families back in Detroit likely were paid
hundreds of dollars a week for their work.

Juveniles are "expendable and fearless," Sansone said. "That's
nothing new to us."

Juveniles also face less time in custody when they're caught.

Detroit Police Lt. James Tolbert said kids aren't used as often to
sell drugs in Detroit as they were in the YBI days. Juveniles
arrested with narcotics nowadays are sent straight to youth homes, he said.

But he said he remembers when gang leaders would prey on low-income
families, offering them money, nice clothes and trendy shoes to draw
them into the organization.

"Still, there are inherent issues when dealing with juveniles all
the time," Tolbert said. "Are they going to be loyal? Will they get
lonely and call home? You don't want to put them in an unfamiliar
surrounding unless you can totally brainwash them.

"You can have a very dedicated individual, but that's one heck of a risk."