TOUGH COPS NEEDED TO CURB CITY'S DRUG TRADE

If you doubt that the druggies are winning the war on some Durham
streets, I refer you to our story last Wednesday on the criminal
activity at a house on North Elizabeth Street.

Police have responded to about 120 calls related to the house at 1015
N. Elizabeth St. in the past year and arrested people on drug warrants
in and around the house. One hundred twenty calls!

Nearby residents are sick of the crime coming from that one house and
sick about what has happened to their neighborhood.

I'm sick of the city's Band-Aid response.

Officials need to find a way to shut the place down. Even the poor
landlord has not been able to evict the tenants.

The police reaction to the problems at the North Elizabeth Street home
is telling of a much larger problem in Durham.

As one police officer explained:

"But like any place else, there are so many trouble spots it is hard
to concentrate on that one house."

That is the sad truth of the matter.

Through one administration after the other, Durham has allowed drug
dealers and street criminals to take over whole neighborhoods in our
city.

Police tried to fight back once a few years ago, when a tough officer
named Paul Martin led a squad of equally tough cops who raided about
200 drug houses before Martin was collared by police politics and
called off for being too aggressive in black neighborhoods. He was
effectively removed from the force.

It was exactly what the drug dealers wanted, and their dirty business
has thrived ever since.

Martin, who now works for the Sheriff's Office, remains close to what
is happening on Durham's streets.

He says the best estimate is that there are 500 to 600 drug houses in
Durham where dealers sell cocaine and heroin. About 40 percent of
their customers come here from out of town to procure easy drugs, he
says.

These "crack houses" operate openly in East Durham neighborhoods. They
are no secret to anyone who lives there, and no secret to Durham
police. Drugs are brazenly sold out in the open day and night, close
to churches and schools.

And it is surely no secret to the druggies that they have little to
fear from authorities, despite the fact that the crime that drugs
breed has consumed some neighborhoods entirely and infects our entire
community. We can trace much of our gang violence to the drug trade.

Because Durham has written off its poor neighborhoods, we are dealing
with a classic case of "out of sight, out of mind."

I am encouraged that Mayor Bill Bell has taken an interest in the
plight of the law-abiding citizens on North Elizabeth Street and will
attend a block meeting next week to offer them what help he can.

"I have written a letter to the city manager and the police chief to
try to understand how somebody can tolerate something like this. It is
unconscionable that something like that has gone on," Bell told a
Herald-Sun reporter. Bingo.

I am certain that if city officials decided to get tough on these
street criminals, following the lead of New York City, we could take
back some of our neighborhoods.

That said, I confess I am not sure exactly what it will
take.

But my guess is that it will come down to finding a tough cop like
Paul Martin who will put on his flak jacket, raid the crack houses
night after night, and make life in Durham living hell for the dealers
and buyers, instead of the residents.

I do know that it will take a strong city administration and a
determined judicial system to back up the police.

And I do know that would at least send the message that Durham is no
longer an easy town in which to deal drugs.

That message alone is worth the effort.