WITH DRUGS AN EASY SELL, OTHER TYPES OF CRIME FOLLOW

As the car slowed to turn from Paris Street onto Henderson Avenue
Extension one recent weekday morning, one of a group of young men
standing on the corner shouted to the driver, ''Yo! What up?''

After a slight pause, he approached the car and asked, ''What you
want? You want some crack?''

The driver declined the offer of cocaine, and after going once around
the block he returned to the same corner, prompting the men to begin
walking away, muttering, ''You're the police!''

Showing his press badge, the driver explained he was not a cop, just a
reporter out on a story about life in Henderson Extension, a pocket of
extreme poverty and high crime in west Athens. The area - roughly
bounded by West Broad, South Rocksprings, Baxter and Magnolia streets
- - is also known as ''Rocksprings'' because dominating the center of
the neighborhood is the Rocksprings Homes public apartment complex,
off South Rocksprings Street.

The young men decided to talk, but despite the earlier offer of crack
denied being drug dealers. Before long they were joined by about eight
other young men, none of whom was willing to answer questions about
drug dealing, but rather chose to rail against those who try to stem
such illegal activities.

''The police were just here about 15 minutes ago,'' one young man
said. ''They knocked some of them young boys riding their bicycles
onto the ground.''

The others began recounting how a group of about nine officers armed
with shotguns and pistols jumped out of a van, ordered everyone to the
ground and began searching them for drugs.

''You can stand on the sidewalk on Broad Street downtown, but you
can't stand on the sidewalk where you live,'' said a 17-year-old, who
would only identify himself as a football player for Clarke Central
High School who lives at Rocksprings Homes. ''The police think
everybody around here sells dope.''

The Athens-Clarke County Police Department acknowledges that Henderson
Extension has a serious enough crime problem to warrant ongoing drug
investigations and the planned opening next year of a neighborhood
substation.

In addition to the increased police presence a substation will bring,
and because the neighborhood suffers from other such problems as poor
housing and joblessness, Henderson Extension has become the focus of a
multi-agency revitalization effort, involving grassroots and church
organizations as well as public agencies to provide career counseling,
economic development and affordable housing.

While not suspicious of everybody, in spite of the young man's
assertion, Athens-Clarke police regularly target Henderson Extension
for drug raids and prostitution sweeps, and the easy availability of
illegal drugs in the area brings with it other sorts of crimes as well.

For example, as a reward for her son earning his graduate equivalency
diploma last year, Alean Sims bought him a shiny blue 1987 Monte Carlo
with sporty wire-rim tires.

Three days later, 18-year-old Justin Sims drove his car to the nearby
Rocksprings Homes public housing complex, where he had an appointment
with a girl living there to show up so that she could braid his hair.
While waiting for the girl to show up, a group of young thugs pulled
Sims from his car, beat him and stole his new car.

Police later recovered the Monte Carlo - minus its compact disc player
- - and the young man spent the next several hours in the hospital being
treated for his injuries.

''I told him to stay away from Rocksprings, but he still goes there to
get his hair braided,'' Alean Sims said.

Other examples abound of how dangerous Henderson Extension can be.

So far this year there have been dozens of incidents, including one
involving a Northcrest Drive man who told Athens-Clarke police he was
walking in the vicinity of West Hancock Avenue and Evans Street when
mugged by three young males who beat him and stole his wallet.

That same month, a man selling shoes from his van at the intersection
of Paris Street and Henderson Avenue Extension was beaten and robbed
of 12 pairs of shoes, police said.

A few months earlier a man suffered a fractured skull when set upon a
group of six men who attacked him with a garbage can and stole his
wallet.

And just a few weeks ago, Antonio Hitchcock, a 29-year-old wire cable
maker, was driving along South Rocksprings Street at Baxter Street,
when he heard a gunshot and felt his truck take an impact. He drove to
a nearby restaurant on Baxter Street, where he inspected his vehicle
and found a bullet hole in the passenger door. Police later retrieved
a bullet from the floorboard.

''I don't know if it was intended for me or not,'' Hitchcock told
police. ''I don't mess with anyone in that area.''

Not every crime in the area involves violence, but even petty crimes
create a sense of fear, insecurity and a general decline in the
quality of life.

For example, early on the morning of May 19, Dearing Street resident
Farley Richmond was awakened by his barking dog. When he went to see
why the dog was agitated, Richmond saw a man run through his backyard
and hop a fence into his neighbor's yard, and found that a screen
window had been pried open.

When officers arrived, they found a 25-year-old Athens man in the
neighbor's house, and that the residence had been ransacked.

When later interviewed about the incident, Richmond said,
''Surprisingly enough, I feel safe but remain vigilant.''

A University of Georgia drama and theater professor, Richmond moved
into the Henderson Extension area in 1997, a decision he and his wife
made because of the area's diversity.

''We recognized this was a very mixed neighborhood, from historic
homes on the street we live to condos, to student housing, and then
the public housing project down the street,'' he said. ''It didn't
strike us at the time there would be any kinds of problems here.''

That same year Richmond moved in, 17-year-old Clarke Central High
School basketball player Ricardo ''Rico'' Williams was slain in a case
of mistaken identity. He was sitting in a car on Henderson Avenue
Extension one April evening when shot in the head by a young man
seeking vengeance against another who had implicated him in a previous
homicide. Williams' murder marked the third time within a year a young
person was killed violently in the Henderson Extension area.

Despite the high rate of crime, Richmond said he planned to stay put.

''We're not moving, because we like diversity and would not want to
lose the essential character of that,'' he said. ''I think the crime
element has been kind of a continuous thing that has happened in the
neighborhood, but we are specifically security conscious,'' with
burglar alarm system, outdoor lighting, and a dog.

Among crimes committed against his neighbors, Richmond rattled off a
list of incidents: ''One of our neighbor's windows was broken and her
purse was stolen; someone came in two houses down from us and stole
Christmas presents, a football player was roughed up on Pope Street by
a couple of guys who stopped in a truck and stole his wallet, and
someone else's car window was jimmied open.''

Citing other attempted break-ins, panhandling and homeless people
found sleeping in neighbors' yards, Richmond was resigned to having to
live a guarded lifestyle.

''Other than having Guardian Angels walking the streets 24 hours, I
can't think how much farther one can go beyond continuing to be
vigilant and alert,'' he said.