MUSKEGON'S PROBLEM

It destroys lives.

It sparks violence.

And, in the 20 years it's been in Muskegon County, crack cocaine has
been a big, ongoing burden on the local criminal-justice system.

Think of crack-based crime as a chronic illness: not the acute crisis
it once was -- but a draining, debilitating disease that drags on and
on, with no remission.

Unlike other drug surges of the past, the most potent form of cocaine
has never faded from favor. Since it hit Muskegon County like a crack
of thunder in 1988, the cheap, enormously addictive drug has remained
the No. 1 drug problem for law-enforcement officials and many users
and dealers.

"Crack is still the drug of choice in the Muskegon drug trade,"
Muskegon County Prosecutor Tony Tague said.

"The most common thing we deal with is crack cocaine," said Michigan
State Police Detective Sgt. Andrew Fias. Fias is a team leader for
the West Michigan Enforcement Team, a multi-agency regional drug-fighting unit.

Muskegon County statistics show that more than half of all felony
drug arrests are for the category that includes cocaine, heroin,
opium and methadone. Police and prosecutors say cocaine constitutes
the vast majority of that category, in the range of 80 percent to 90
percent. And they say crack makes up the bulk of the cocaine arrests,
although Michigan law doesn't distinguish between crack and powder coke.

Overall, Tague said, drug arrests make up about 20 percent of the
felony cases his office prosecutes.

The crime story doesn't end there.

Not only is selling or possessing crack a crime, but the drug spurs
other crimes -- from bad checks to break-ins to bank heists -- by
addicts seeking money to pay for it. Also in the mix are robberies of
buyers and dealers, and shootings by rival dealers.

In recent months, Muskegon County has had its share of high-profile
crack-related crimes:

* Of the two homicides this year charged as murder cases, one was
crack-based: the Aug. 5 death of reputed dealer Odell Brown in a
Muskegon Heights alley, crushed against a pole by a van after three
customers from the White Lake area allegedly tried to rob him.

* One armed robbery of a bank stemmed from a crack addiction: A
47-year-old Muskegon Township woman was sentenced to prison for 111/2
to 20 years last week after pleading guilty to the crime. On Sept.
28, she took a taxi cab to a suburban Huntington Bank branch and
stole more than $2,350. Pamela Louise Taylor told police she needed
the money to buy crack. It was her third felony to get money to
support her drug habit.

"It kind of goes to show the destruction that crack has," said
Muskegon Township Police Detective Sgt. Ken Sanford, who investigated
the case and interviewed Taylor. "She seems to be a normal
middle-aged lady when you talk to her."

At her sentencing last week, Fourteenth Circuit Judge William C.
Marietti stated: "If anyone has any doubts about the impact of crack
cocaine on this community, they need to be here to see you sentenced on this."

* Several nonfatal shootings were spurred by dealers' turf battles,
law enforcement officials believe. They suspect a resurgence of
Detroit-based drug activity.

* A string of highly publicized "serial burglaries" of small
businesses earlier this year have been attributed to the crack
addiction of the two young suspects who eventually were arrested,
police said. One, 20-year-old Ryan Michael Armstrong, pleaded guilty
in three cases and faces sentencing Monday. The other, 23-year-old
David Nicholas Snow, has denied involvement in the break-ins and
still faces trial. Both defendants have admitted being crack addicts.

The list goes on, with endless burglaries, shopliftings, bad checks,
credit-card frauds, armed or strong-arm robberies and shootings
attributed to crack.

Fourteenth Circuit Judge Timothy G. Hicks estimates that 80 percent
of the felony cases he sees "are probably related in some way to drug
use," and of that, "crack's the biggest chunk of it."

Some police officials think local crack use, dealing and related
crimes have been trending upward in the last few years, though others disagree.

Drug arrest statistics, which don't count related nondrug crimes,
aren't conclusive. Numbers supplied by Tague's office show a modest
increase in the number of felony charges filed in the
"cocaine-heroin-methadone" category in 2006 compared to the previous
three years, especially for small quantities of drugs. But this
year's numbers were back to roughly the pace of 2003-2005. Each year
of the last five, the number of charges -- in some cases, counting
multiple charges against the same person -- has hovered slightly
above or below the 300 mark.

Longer-term arrest trends also show no obvious pattern. A change in
the reporting definition in 2002 made earlier numbers noncomparable
with more recent ones. But Muskegon County's overall felony drug
arrest levels from 1989 through 2001 -- the first 13 full years of
Muskegon's crack era -- held pretty stable.

But local law-enforcement officials all say another important
indicator has dropped sharply since the early years of Muskegon
County's crack invasion: the amount of related violence, including homicides.

"Although the problem continues to be an issue in law enforcement, it
is not at the same significant level that it was in the late '80s and
early '90s," Tague said.

Most officials credit the damp-down of violence, and a much less
out-in-the-open atmosphere of crack dealing to an aggressive effort
by Tague and local police agencies to fight the first onslaught of
Detroit-based crack dealing and the resulting turf wars.

The local homicide rate has dropped sharply since the mid-'90s, and
crack dealing, though still widespread, is much less open than it was
in that era, officials say. "When crack first came into Muskegon
County, we had the street-corner marketplace," said Norton Shores
Police Chief Dan Shaw, a WEMET detective in that period. "It was
pretty bad. ... Now it's a little more underground."

Fias, the current WEMET team leader, agrees that the crack trade
isn't wide open anymore. But finding crack to buy still is easy "if
you know what you're doing," he said.

If you don't, Fias said, "it's probably going to be a robbery, or
you'll get soap or candle wax. ... If you don't know the 'speak,'
you're going to get ripped off."

It happened to him about two months ago. Working undercover, he was
the victim of a strong-arm robbery. A man he was making a buy from
sucker-punched him in the face -- bruising him -- and tried to grab his money.

State crime statistics show Muskegon's overall rate of narcotics law
offenses compares well with most Michigan counties of similar size.
Muskegon County's drug-offense rate in 2005 was near the bottom of
the eight counties closest in size, according to state police Uniform
Crime Reports.

Police give much of the credit to continued tough prosecution
policies and local judges with a higher prison sentencing rate than
the statewide average.

"We're tough on drug sentences (and charging decisions) from the
prosecutor's office," said Muskegon Heights Police Chief Clif
Johnson. "We're real strong about trying to rid or curtail this drug."

Part of Tague's philosophy has been to have drug teams focus not just
on major dealers but on smaller, street-level operators as well. "I
think it's extremely important," he said. "Having a drug dealer or a
drug house on your block has a dramatic impact on the quality of life
in that neighborhood."

One consequence of tough enforcement and sentencing is lots of beds
filled in jails and prisons.

Locally, in the Muskegon County Jail, "there's a significant amount
of bed space being taken up with people being charged with drug
crimes -- in particular, crack," said Undersheriff Dean Roesler. Many
more are taken up with people facing charges, or serving year-or-less
sentences, for other crimes linked to crack.

At the state prison level -- where people convicted of felonies serve
sentences of more than a year -- the percentage of drug offenders has
declined over the years, according to Department of Corrections
spokesman Russ Marlan. In 2006, 15.5 percent of the prison system's
new inmates were drug offenders, with cocaine offenses the bulk of
that. That ratio was more than 20 percent in the late '80s and early
'90s, Marlan said. The number doesn't include people convicted of
other crimes connected with crack dealing or using.

If state officials had their way, the number might decline more. In
the interest of cutting state prison costs, Governor Jennifer
Granholm earlier this year proposed a revamp of state sentencing
rules to reduce penalties for some offenses, including low-level drug
crimes. One outcome might be even more pressure on county jails.

So far, the proposal has gone nowhere in the Legislature, and it's
unpopular among Muskegon County criminal-justice officials. "I find
it unfortunate that Lansing is totally focused on cost, oftentimes to
the detriment of public safety," Tague said.

Currently, penalties for crack possession and delivery vary from a
potential life prison sentence for the biggest dealers with
aggravating factors -- such as prior criminal record or gun use --
down to probation for those caught with small quantities and with an
otherwise clean record.

Specific sentences depend on the state guidelines for each case.
Judge Hicks said guidelines for possession or delivery of less than
50 grams are typically zero to 17 months if there are few aggravating
factors; that means a sentence to county jail or probation. Delivery
of 50 to 449 grams usually means a prison term, while delivery of
larger quantities guarantees multiple years in prison.

One gram is usually the equivalent of three or four "hits," police said.

Though it might not be the crisis it was in the early years, no one
denies that crack is a prominent, continuing problem for local law
enforcement and the criminal-justice system. It ties up jail beds,
court time and police resources.

And crack creates criminals from all layers of society -- geographic,
social, racial and age. "You look at people who wouldn't ordinarily
commit crimes," Tague said.

Several law-enforcement officials noted the phenomenon of small-town
users driving into Muskegon Heights to buy crack -- a trend that
might have cost Odell Brown his life as the victim of a dark-alley ripoff.

"It's absolutely the worst (drug) by far," Muskegon Township Police
Detective Sgt. Ken Sanford said of crack. "The people that I've
talked to that are addicted to it, they know they're addicted.
There's nothing they can do about it. It's such a physical addiction,
they can't live without it."

Law-enforcement officials agree the crack problem is ingrained and
unlikely to go away in the foreseeable future.

But if there's at least a partial answer to the problem, Sanford
thinks, "it would probably be more drug rehabilitation programs --
successful ones, ones that work. There are some, but they're very expensive."

Muskegon Police Chief Tony Kleibecker said the same. "Dealers and
constant abusers who cause communities problems, they need jail
time," Kleibecker said. "(But) there are people who need treatment
instead of jail time. You've got people with addictive personalities,
and jail's not going to change that." He'd like to see more state
resources directed toward treatment.

"In thirty years of police work, we've not addressed the situation in
terms of the treatment perspective," Kleibecker said. "I think we've
really missed the boat."

But that's not a universal perspective in law enforcement.

Fias, the WEMET detective, is skeptical of the value of treatment for
crack addicts. He believes a better answer is more state funding for
"putting enough police on the streets."

And, in the larger view, Fias said, "Society's acceptance of drugs
has got to change."