PROSECUTIONS RISING SHARPLY IN MILWAUKEE COUNTY'S WAR ON DRUGS

Law enforcement officials can offer only partial answer for higher numbers

The local war on drugs has never been hotter.

Investigators, prosecutors and judges assigned to the battle have never been
busier, and they can't completely explain it.

In his spiffy downtown office where local law enforcement gets the latest
intelligence and technology for the war on drugs, Erick Slamka said there's
no clear-cut explanation for why narcotics investigators are putting cases
together against drug traffickers at a record rate.

"You won't get a definitive answer," said Slamka, who became director of the
Milwaukee High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program in 1998, after 35
years with the South Milwaukee Police Department. "You'll get opinions.

"I think we're getting better at what we're doing."

In his ever-cluttered Safety Building office, Milwaukee County District
Attorney E. Michael McCann said he's puzzled over the jump in new drug cases
for the past few months.

"There is unparalleled cooperation between law enforcement agencies," McCann
said. "There has never been that level of cooperation here before.

"I think that is part of it."

And in his chambers on a slow Friday in the Criminal Justice Facility,
Milwaukee County Circuit Judge John Franke said the volume of cases he saw
when he returned to drug court in 2001 for the first time in nine years
dismayed him.

"It's distressingly similar to what I saw before in terms of the nature of
the defendants, the nature of the charges and the nature of the stories that
we're hearing," Franke said. "The anecdotal facts raise a question of
whether we are accomplishing anything."

At the current rate, 2,540 new cases will be filed in Milwaukee County's
three felony drug courts in 2002, an 18% increase over last year. The
current projection would be 52% higher than 1997, when 1,668 cases were
filed in the drug courts.

Who are these dealers and why aren't they getting out while the getting is
still good?

Consider two recently filed cases.

Rajko Markovic, a 25-year-old Portage native, pleaded no contest to cocaine
trafficking in Columbia County Circuit Court earlier this year. While
awaiting sentencing, he moved to Oak Creek and dealt cocaine out of an
apartment he shared with his girlfriend, according to a new criminal
complaint.

When investigators came calling, according to the new complaint, he wanted
his girlfriend, Erin K. Huebner, to take the fall by herself, telling her to
hide his cocaine in her car, the complaint says.

"You can't pin anything on me because I didn't have possession of anything,"
Markovic told investigators, according to the complaint.

A prosecutor charged Huebner, 23, and Markovic with cocaine trafficking.

Abraham Scull, 19, kept selling crack and marijuana out of his girlfriend's
neighborhood in the 2500 block of N. 10th St. in Milwaukee, even though he
was angering rivals who had been there longer, according to another
complaint.

"Other drug dealers in the area were upset with Abe because he was
interfering in their business and many of the hypes (addicts) in the area
were now going to Abe," a woman told police, according to a criminal
complaint. "She stated that approximately one month ago, Abe and four of his
associates jumped on another drug dealer and beat him so badly that the drug
dealer had to go to Sinai Samaritan (Medical Center) for treatment."

When bullets flew last month, one hit Scull's girlfriend, Lena Price, in the
head, killing her, according to the complaint.

Scull took off with the bag of crack he was planning to sell, was arrested
later and was charged with cocaine trafficking, according to the complaint.

Residents speak up

McCann said that drug trafficking and the violence it spawns have residents
complaining louder than ever.

"If you go to neighborhood meetings on the near north side and the near
south side, nine out of 10 times you're going to hear a complaint about a
drug house," he said. "People are encouraged by the police to complain about
drug dealing in their neighborhoods, and they are doing that.

"There is a constant drumbeat in these neighborhoods, and the police are
responding to it."

Law enforcement's drug-trafficking program, which has been operating out of
an office building on the eastern edge of downtown since 1998, makes it
easier than ever for police to conduct narcotics investigations.

With an annual budget of $4.5 million from the federal government and a
charge to "measurably reduce drug trafficking and associated violent crime,"
the program isn't a law enforcement agency in the traditional sense.

"We're a coordination umbrella to integrate state, local and federal
efforts," Slamka said.

In one room, intelligence officers from the National Guard process crime
information. In another, enormous computer servers hum. In still another
room, officers from departments throughout the southeastern corner of the
state learn about interdicting drug shipments on freeways.

"Hardly a week goes by that we don't offer training," Slamka said.

The program also funds several initiatives that Slamka declined to disclose.

More than anything else, it fosters cooperation between law enforcement
agencies so drug investigations can be coordinated.

"It's counterproductive to have two or three law enforcement agencies
focusing on the same person or organization," Slamka said.

'Warlike atmosphere'

One organization apparently being targeted for drug trafficking is the Latin
Kings, five years after a major federal, state and local probe put more than
50 of the gang members in prison.

"The Latin Kings are also involved in retribution and intimidation of
witnesses who have provided information against the gang," police said in an
affidavit filed in Circuit Court last month when officers obtained a search
warrant for an alleged drug house. "The Latin Kings are involved in the
substantial illegal distribution of controlled substances."

Franke said the "warlike atmosphere" present in some neighborhoods because
of drug dealing produces a variety of "costs."

"There are extraordinary costs to the vigorous enforcement of our drug laws,
both financial and social," Franke said. "We owe it to ourselves to make
sure that we are accomplishing something that is worth the cost."

The obvious costs include law enforcement and incarceration, Franke said.
Less easily measured is the effect the war on drugs has in neighborhoods
targeted by police for extra effort, where "young people are growing up
being frisked," he said.

Constitutional concerns

"Our efforts to curtail drug dealing have had a dramatic effect on Fourth
Amendment rights and on the relationship between police and the community,"
Franke said. "The sense of confrontation between law enforcement officers
and citizens in drug-trafficking areas is just one of the costs of the war
on drugs."

Franke added, though, "You don't know what things might be like if we
weren't doing this."

McCann agreed.

"The people being prosecuted are only a fraction of the people out there
doing this," McCann said. "How many more are out there, who knows?"

While the use of heroin, OxyContin and Ecstasy increased in the Milwaukee
area in recent years, cocaine - particularly crack cocaine - remains the
most problematic drug in the city, according to narcotics investigators.

"Don't forget, this is all about addiction," Slamka said. "You can't preach
enforcement as the sole answer.

"You need treatment."

McCann noted that it's addicts' demand that keeps drug dealers in business.

"There are proposals now to cut back on treatment," McCann said. "In my
opinion, that's a mistake.

"You've got a demand problem, and you've got to deal with that, too."