CRIME RATE ON ANNISTON'S ELM STREET WORST IN CALHOUN COUNTY

Elm Street stretches 2,700 feet, a short walk for neighborhood
children on their way to Constantine School. They pass an elderly
woman tending her daffodils, three playgrounds in red, yellow and
green - and drug runners with semiautomatic weapons. Crime data
shows 43 felony crimes were committed on Elm Street in the two years
from Jan. 1, 2004 to Dec. 31, 2005.

That's one felony for every 62 feet of the street the kids walk
along. It's more than any other street in Calhoun County, according
to an analysis done by The Anniston Star of area crime reports and maps.

This is where the children get their first images of a community and
how it lives. It's where many of their parents and grandparents grew
up. It's the place they call home.

The reasons vary, police and residents say, but in recent years Elm
Street's business with the law seems to come from a blend of factors
that make the road on Anniston's south side a hot spot for blue lights.

On one side is the Constantine Homes public apartment complex, which
makes the street one of the county's most densely populated.
Residents of the complex are mostly single mothers, and officials
say that while the apartment residents aren't the source of the
crime, the situation leads to trouble.

On the other side, elderly residents, some of whom have lived in the
neighborhood for more than 40 years, keep track of the comings and
goings. At the street's west end are the motorcycles of the Devil's
Disciples, whose headquarters is behind a 6-foot wooden fence.

The human mix on Elm Street, like the crime, is diverse. The
classrooms at Constantine Elementary School capture that diversity
every day in the community's children, who decorate their classrooms
with the creativity of their artwork.

Police, Elm Street residents and city officials say an equally
creative solution is needed to root out the neighborhood's crime.

Many on Elm Street are identified here by their first names because
they're afraid to let anyone know what their last one is. The Star
generally doesn't rely on sources who aren't fully named, but in the
case of crime reporting, the paper's editors thought it was
important to get the perspective of residents, even if they spoke
only on a first-name basis.

An elderly woman at the end of the street, Norma, has lived in her
home for 43 years.

She said she feels safe because the Devil's Disciples are neighbors.

"I think if I needed them really, really bad, they'd be there," she said.

She walks her dog, Benji, every day and likes to garden.

Like many longtime residents, Norma won't leave, even though the
neighborhood has changed.

Down the street, at the housing complex, round-the-clock activity
brings a steady stream of visitors, some of whom make their living
breaking the law.

More shootings, assaults, and thefts are concentrated at the complex
than anywhere else in Anniston. In April 2005, police found Demond
Quortez Curry, 25, and Kenneth Sheppard, 31, riddled with bullets in
one of the Constantine apartments.

Elm Street residents know of the assaults. They hear the shooting.
They say that one way or another, they're addressing crime in their own ways.

"All our guns are legal," said Tatu, a leather-clad spokesman for
the Devil's Disciples.

"I'm not going mess with them down there," he said, gesturing toward
the east end of Elm Street and Constantine Homes.

He said he has seen illegal rifles in the hands of some of his neighbors.

"But if somebody slaps me," he said, "I'm gonna be hitting back pretty hard."

Administrators and residents say the people who live at Constantine
Homes aren't the source of the street's crime. Most of it is
committed by outsiders who congregate around the Constantine complex.

"It's the baby daddies coming in here making trouble," said Tia
Ford, 25, mother of two small boys and a resident of the complex.
"They're just crazy."

The complex has more residents than any other public housing
facility in the county. There are 176 apartments with 462 residents.
A majority of those renters, who all had to pass a criminal and drug
background check, are single women aged 19 to 28.

Ford said that when some girls get pregnant as teenagers, they go to
the housing authority office and say, "I want a project," so that
they can live alone, away from their parents' authority.

With so many single young women in one place, young men are
attracted to the area.

"It's like putting out honey for flies," said one city housing
official, who didn't want to be quoted by name.

Some of the women have children with different fathers, and those
fathers sometimes fight, the housing official said.

"The majority of the crime going on down there is from outside the
housing (complex)," said Sam Jones, director of the Anniston Housing
Authority. "We've tried just about everything."

Tatu and his friends chased three burglars away from Norma's house
last year by firing shots into the air and riding their Harleys.

Norma won't move despite her children's pleas for her to relocate to
White Plains.

Biker parties sometimes shake the china cabinet in her house.

"I called over there once when it was too loud and asked to speak to
the man of the house," she said. "But as far as trouble, no, mainly
they're not."

The Devil's Disciples' headquarters, which looks a lot like a blue
fraternity house, has been raided three times in the past three
years, Tatu said, by ATF and FBI officers who arrived in helicopters.

"They're after us because we're a big, bad motorcycle gang," Tatu
said, his words tinged with sarcasm.

Anniston police Chief John Dryden said his department has had only
two confrontations with the Devil's Disciples since they moved in
nine years ago - once over a rowdy party and once when police
received a tip that a fugitive on the Ten Most Wanted list was there.

Dryden said he wouldn't label one place as being the spot for crime,
but he said that his department has to concentrate on Constantine
Homes recently more than ever.

"Rather than sporadic, it's become constant over there in the past
10 years," he said. "There's been more people living there, which is
the number one thing."

Constantine Homes, situated near Hobson City and Oxford on
Anniston's far southern edge, is prime real estate for the drug trade.

Crack is the most popular drug, Jones said.

"Kids walk to school, and they see the drug dealers selling drugs,"
Ford said, holding her 4-year old son's hand. "They think it's cool
that they're making money."

She said she wants to move.

On any given day, runners beckon to passing cars.

Lt. Rocky Stemen, an investigator at the Anniston Police Department
who also heads the Anniston Housing Authority Police Unit, said it
isn't fair to look at Elm Street's crime statistics without taking
the population density and numbers into account.

"There is no other street in Calhoun County that has 462 people
living on it. It's comparing apples to oranges," he said. "The per
capita crime rate might be a different story."