DRUG RAID NABS 9 ON 'THE HILL'

Sheriff: Main Cocaine Dealers In Vancleave

VANCLEAVE - Forty state, city, county and federal law officers on
Thursday raided a family compound in Vancleave, made nine arrests and
broke an alleged major drug trafficking ring.

"We know for a fact that they are the main distributors of cocaine in
the Vancleave area," Sheriff Mike Byrd said, standing downhill from
the group of homes and trailers known as "The Hill," just off
Mississippi 57, where the arrests were made.

FBI agent Jerome Lorrain said: "For Vancleave, this is it. I don't
think there's anyone bigger."

In the raid, police recovered six guns, including automatic weapons
and a .357-caliber Magnum handgun, several wads of cash believed to
total thousands of dollars and 7 ounces of crack cocaine.

Five main suspects were arrested on 10 federal indictments and charged
with conspiring to traffic cocaine and possession with intent to distribute.

The five - twins Terry and Perry Reddix, 26, Wilson Reddix, 38, Terry
Dunning, 21, and Ronald Simmons, 25 - all listed the 14200 block of
Mississippi 57 as their address and appeared before U.S. Magistrate
John Roper on Thursday afternoon. Bond was set for Simmons at $50,000.
The others will have a bond hearing early next week.

Four others were arrested on outstanding state warrants ranging from
aggravated assault to unpaid fines. Lebaron Mitchell, 18, of Gautier
was arrested on two charges of aggravated assault; Susan Waltman, 21,
of Jim Ramsey Road in Vancleave was arrested on charges of auto theft;
Chastity Waltman, 18, of Headstart Road in Vancleave was arrested on a
warrant for failing to appear in court, and Richard K. Nelson, 40, was
arrested on a warrant for public drunk.

"It's a family affair, and it's been going on for quite some time,"
said Sheriff Byrd, who said he has received a steady stream of
complaints about the group since he took office two years ago.

Byrd said the investigation, which teamed the FBI, the Safe Street
Task Force, the state Bureau of Narcotics, Jackson County deputies,
and Gautier and Ocean Springs police, took more than a year and
involved collecting evidence through drug purchases at the compound,
surveillance and interviews.

Byrd said that police have a thick file on The Hill, which centers
around the Reddix family and is located just above Martin Luther King
Jr. Park on 57, several hundred yards from an elementary school.

Byrd said deputies for years have been called to the compound for
aggravated assaults, property theft, drugs and shootings. The latest
was Friday night when Biloxi rap musician Garland Andrews, whose stage
name is Akus Smiff, was shot on The Hill.

At mid-morning, officers still swarmed the compound as family members
who did not participate in the alleged drug ring milled around or sat
on the porch.

The five main suspects were hauled away in a white police van, with
one of the young men hollering obscenities out the window as a family
dog nipped at the tires.

On The Hill, as soon as the ruckus cleared and the squad cars left, an
elderly man picked up his blue wheelbarrow and began pulling collards
out of his garden. Within minutes things looked as if nothing out of
the ordinary had happened that morning.