CAMPERS BRING HOPE TO STREETS

After two nights sleeping in a tent pitched near the corner of Mather and
Brooks streets, Hartford activists said Sunday they will soon return to
other drug-infested city neighborhoods.

"We are going to make sure the criminal element in this city gets the
message," said the Rev. Cornell Lewis, who, along with leaders from the
Hartford chapter of the NAACP and others, spent Friday and Saturday nights
camping along sidewalks. "People are not going to roll over and play dead."

The group had an eventful weekend, Lewis said. During their nights on the
street, campers shined powerful spotlights on suspected drug dealers and
their customers, held a 7 a.m. Easter worship service and received
unexpected visitors - such as interim City Manager Albert G. Ilg and a
woman who brought muffins and coffee.

The activists were joined during the nights by a city council member,
representatives from the American Friends Service Committee, and Thirman
Milner, former mayor and Hartford NAACP president.

"It was a great experience on a lot of different levels," said city
Councilman John Kennelly, who estimated he slept about an hour on the
corner Saturday night. A police chase down Brooks Street in the middle of
the night added to the drama, he said.

"People who live in these neighborhoods, they are challenged every day by
the crime around them," said Kennelly. "It was a beautiful way to start
Easter Sunday."

The urban camping will be expanded to other North End street corners during
the coming months, said Lewis, who is working with the Rev. Michael
Williams and others to arrange future campouts.

The idea was to both scare off drug dealers and inspire local residents to
retake their street corners and neighborhoods from criminals, he said.

Already, Lewis said, drug dealers are upset, having sent word one evening
to the campers that their presence was driving off customers. "Progress has
been made. For a few days we pacified that area," Lewis said.