S. BOSTON LEADERS PROPOSE STAKEOUTS

They would descend on the house of the alleged drug dealer, equipped
with video cameras and dressed in shirts advertising exactly who they
are: the South Boston Community-Wide Crime Watch.

Day and night, they would sit outside the home, recording the face of
every client who went inside for his fix and, if possible, his dealer.

It is a scenario that state Representative Brian P. Wallace envisions
as he and other South Boston community leaders try to organize a
crime watch to halt the rising drug use they believe is hurting a
neighborhood still reeling from the fatal attack last month on a
68-year-old woman. A big part of the group's mission would be to
stake out the addresses of known drug dealers, Wallace, a South
Boston Democrat, said yesterday.

He already knows where to go. "People . . . know who the drug dealers
are," he said. "I have a list right now of 10 places people have given me."

Wallace is expected to discuss the proposal at a meeting tentatively
scheduled later this month, when he and other officials hope to
enlist volunteers for the crime watch. They are hoping to recruit
people with computer skills, knowledge of film equipment, and brawn
to keep an eye out for street criminals. Residents with a police or
military background are more than welcome, he said.

"We would like to have some people who know what they are doing," Wallace said.

The idea of molding volunteers into an alert force that would stand
guard outside a dealer's house is one of many proposals South Boston
politicians have pitched since the death of Jean Lampron on Oct. 13.
Police and family say she was walking to catch a bus to work early
that morning when a man on a bicycle dragged her down the street,
beat her, and stole her purse. She suffered a heart attack and died
later that night.

The community has been galvanized by the death. Neighborhood leaders
held a well-attended meeting last month in hope of finding
information that might lead to the capture of the mugger. Councilor
James Kelly has proposed installing cameras around South Boston and
setting curfews for young teenagers. Next week, a billboard with
Lampron's face and an offer of $10,000 for anyone with information
leading to the capture of the assailant is expected to go up on D and
West 7th streets, three blocks from the scene of the attack.

Wallace said that by standing guard at a dealer's house, the group
would meet two goals: informing neighbors about what is happening
next door and shutting down the business.

The proposal appealed to Lampron's daughter, Barbara Delaney. "It's a
good idea to know where the drug dealers are," she said. "If I knew
somebody who was dealing, I'd drop a dime."

Boston police have made no arrests in the Lampron case, a department
spokesman said.

But many in the community, including Lampron's family, believe that
the attacker, described as a white male wearing a black overcoat and
tan baseball hat, was an addict who attacked Lampron for drug money.

Drug activity in South Boston is on the rise, many residents and
politicians say. According to police statistics, the number of
arrests on drug-trafficking and distribution charges increased from
150 in 2003 to 181 last year.

Deputy Superintendent Paul Fitzgerald acknowledged there was drug
activity in the neighborhood and named heroin, cocaine, and
prescription medicine such as OxyContin as typical drugs found during arrests.

He attributed the increase in arrests to a "focused effort" by
district police on drug activity.

"We deploy according to intelligence that we're getting, tips that
we're getting," he said.

Such tips often come from active crime watch groups, but he said
residents should be careful not to put themselves in harm's way to
stop a perceived drug dealer.

"Communities when they unite are very powerful," Fitzgerald said. "I
would never encourage vigilantism or community members trying to take
the law into their own hands. . . . They have to leave the
enforcement end to the Police Department."

Many drug dealers in South Boston appear to be people trying to earn
enough money to feed their own habit, not sophisticated criminals,
said Karen MacDonald, assistant director of the South Boston Family
Resource Center.

"I'm not in favor of watching people in front of their houses," she
said. "I think that should be left to the police."

Activists have occupied streets before to fight crime. In August, the
Rev. Bruce Wall and several followers spent a week on Lyndhurst
Street in Dorchester in an effort to stymie drug dealers,
prostitutes, and loiterers.

Wallace said he would not deploy the group to a house without first
investigating whether a drug dealer actually lived there.

He recently learned his lesson when he followed a tip that a dealer
was selling drugs from her house. When he knocked on her door, a
sweet woman in her 60s holding a newspaper answered.

"I felt like an idiot," Wallace said.