INTENSIVE CAMPAIGN BY CITY POLICE YIELDS SHORT-TERM SUCCESS

Officers Inundate 14 Areas Of High Crime And Violence During Three-Month
Stint; 'Sending Them A Message'

Three plastic grocery bags cartwheeled in a strong wind down a Southwest
Baltimore street, fluttering past Lt. Jerry VanDerMeulen's unmarked patrol
car. For an instant, VanDerMeulen focused on the bags before returning his
attention to the corner, scanning for potential trouble.

But the streets were deserted - an unusual circumstance for a Friday night
at West Pratt and Monroe streets, an intersection with a reputation for drug
dealing. The empty corner did not surprise VanDerMeulen, a 31-year veteran.
His officers had been patrolling since dawn, crisscrossing the area in
police cruisers, serving arrest warrants, and locking up drug dealers and
prostitutes.

"We've been at this all day," VanDerMeulen said. "Usually, we have a lot of
people on this corner. We're sending them a message."

The message is part of a broader crime-fighting effort by the Baltimore
Police Department, which has targeted 14 areas scattered throughout the city
for extra aggressive enforcement during the past three months. Together, the
designated zones are small - a total of 3.4 square miles, about 4 percent of
the city - but they accounted for 37 percent of the city's homicides and
shootings during the first nine months of the year.

To stem the violence, police have spent $2.5 million in overtime flooding
those areas with officers in a street offensive that began Oct. 1 and ends
Tuesday.

So far, the heavy police deployment appears to be working in the zones
themselves, where violent crime is down 28 percent during a 75-day period
that ended Dec. 14 compared with the previous 75 days. Since the initiative
began, police working in the target areas have made more than 10,000 arrests
on charges including prostitution and felony drug dealing, and have seized
295 guns.

Acting Police Commissioner John McEntee says the initiative is one of the
most sustained and focused during his 30-year police career in Baltimore.
McEntee and other commanders helped craft the deployment strategy during the
tenure of former Commissioner Edward T. Norris, who is becoming the Maryland
State Police superintendent.

Police will cut back on overtime spending next year, McEntee said, and
commanders will analyze results of the current deployment to determine where
to assign their officers next year.

"This gives us a lot to build on," McEntee said.

Although the department's brass is encouraged by the results, the all-out
effort has raised concerns among police union officials and skepticism from
some experts.

Gary McLhinney, president of the city police union, said the initiative has
been exhausting.

"It's been extremely tiring," McLhinney said. "Some guys are working six
straight 12-hour shifts. ... Literally, officers weren't home for a couple
of months."

'Displacement affect'

Experts on policing strategies and crime reduction say it is difficult to
gauge what long-term benefits might be realized outside the targeted areas
from the intensive three-month effort in the high-crime neighborhoods.
Citywide statistics show that violent crime is down about 8 percent compared
with the same period last year.

Some experts say that temporary stepped-up enforcement in certain areas
simply shifts crime from one part of the city to another.

"It's like squeezing a balloon; there is this displacement affect," said
Jack Levin, director of the Brudnick Center on Violence and Conflict at
Northeastern University. He has studied violent crime and police tactics for
20 years. "The criminals just move to another neighborhood. Over a couple of
months or three months, the tactic is just not going to do it."

In the area patrolled by VanDerMeulen's officers in Southwest Baltimore,
merchants say things are better, but they are leery about what will happen
when police reduce their presence in the new year.

Rick Zeskind, who owns Zeskind's Hardware store in the 200 block of S.
Payson St., has seen the surrounding neighborhood decline during the last
several decades. But things have improved substantially in recent months,
Zeskind said.

"It is 100 percent better," said Zeskind, 54. "There is nothing. It is a lot
better than six months ago. ... There were so many officers all the time."

But Zeskind said that when police pull back, such as during holiday breaks
or when officers leave for vacation, he sees drug dealers re-emerge -
although in smaller numbers.

Several blocks away, Brian Scott, 41, operates Uptown Fashions in the 1900
block of W. Pratt St. He has lived in the neighborhood for eight years and
said fewer people have been congregating on street corners in recent weeks.
A healthier street environment has meant more customers. But he is worried
about what will happen after Tuesday.

"The [criminals] are going to come right back and take the street right back
over" when police ease their presence, Scott said.

The Tri-District area

This tiny section of Southwest Baltimore, known to police officials as the
Tri-District area - which includes portions of the Southern, Western and
Southwestern police district - is a boot-shaped 16-square-block area whose
core is at West Pratt and Monroe streets.

Dotted with vacant houses, it is similar to the other 13 targeted areas.
Drug dealers openly work the corners and alleys; sidewalks and buildings are
covered with "Rest In Peace" memorials to those killed nearby. Prostitutes
shuffle down the street looking for customers.

Since the initiative began in October, plainclothes detectives have been
posing as drug buyers and dealers. Many patrol officers have been working
12-hour overlapping shifts during peak times of crime and violence such as
late evening and early morning. Officers in the K-9 and traffic units have
also been thrown into the area.

So far, police have posted impressive statistics in the Tri-District, with
violent crime dropping from 99 to 57 reported offenses from Oct. 1 through
Dec. 14, compared with the preceding 75-day period. Officers in the area
have made more than 2,400 arrests since the initiative began.

'Move along'

Police officials credit aggressive officers such as Edward Creed and Thomas
Moody for those results. Creed and Moody operate in the Southern District's
portion of the Tri-District area. One afternoon in mid-December, they worked
in plain clothes and in an unmarked car to add a small element of surprise.

They surveyed the area near West Pratt and Monroe streets and noticed a man
walking back and forth. He was talking briefly to people in cars and
muttering to those walking down the street.

"Move along," Creed told the man, who had been at the corner most of the
day. The man was a tout for a drug dealer on a nearby corner, Creed said,
and was letting potential customers know where they can buy the dealer's
heroin or cocaine.

"This is really an information center," Creed said.

Creed has a simple strategy to chase away drug dealers: He hassles them. On
several occasions, he said, he has even arrested drug dealers for littering.

"They complained it wasn't a fair arrest," Creed said. "But they didn't come
back."

Under the initiative, Creed and Moody's normal patrol time has been extended
by 30 hours a week, enabling them to target more drug dealers and other
criminals while working neighborhood sources for information.

"We're usually only out there eight hours a day," said Creed, 36, a 9-year
police veteran. "And something usually happens before or after we leave.
With us being out there 16 hours, three or four days a week, it helps keep
it down. They don't know what to expect."

On the same day about five blocks from West Pratt and Monroe, Creed spotted
a group of men standing in front of a vacant house, a place an informant
urged him to investigate.

"Move along - you don't live here," Creed said.

The men complied. During the next half-hour, Creed and Moody repeated the
exercise, moving groups of people from several street corners.

Just after shooing away the last group of men, Creed and Moody arrested a
16-year-old boy who was hiding 16 vials of crack cocaine in a soda cup. They
caught the youth after a brief chase that ended next to a makeshift memorial
to a 19-year-old fatally shot at the same spot in September.

A flood of officers

Later that night, just a few blocks away in the Southwestern District's
portion of the Tri-District area, more plainclothes officers prepared to
begin their shift.

About 7:30 p.m., officers Shawn Frey, Craig Streett and Frank Gaskins piled
into an unmarked Ford Crown Victoria and began their patrol. Every 10
minutes or so, they got out of the car when they saw something suspicious
and usually ended up frisking a large group of people.

A half-hour after hitting the streets, the officers became excited when they
spotted a car being driven by a man who appeared to be a drug buyer. But
anticipation that the three might soon make an arrest evaporated when they
saw the man being tailed by another unmarked police cruiser.

The officers in each car exchanged waves and smiles. But Streett, Frey and
Gaskins shook their heads soon after passing the other police car.

The officers know what will happen if police completely withdraw from the
area.

"Crime will be crazy here," Frey said.

But on this night, the officers had four hours left on their shift and not a
criminal in sight.

"Sometimes it's hard to get lockups when there are a million police in one
area," Frey said. "If there are that many police in one area, [the
criminals] stop coming out."