ELLENDER BASKETBALL STANDOUT ARRESTED ON DRUG CHARGES

One of Ellender High School's star basketball players was arrested Thursday
afternoon and charged with selling crack cocaine.

Police say he was videotaped selling the illegal drug in April, on East
Street near Genesis High School.

Accompanied by anti-drug activist Robert Charles, Marcus Twiggs, 19, 1110
Vivian St., turned himself in shortly before 3 p.m. at the Terrebonne
Parish Sheriff's Office, more than 24 hours after police tried to arrest
him at school.

The arrest means he likely will not be allowed to play basketball again
this year because of a School Board policy which says any student charged
with a felony crime cannot play sports.

Twiggs was one of dozens of people wanted in connection with "Operation Our
Home for Christmas," a six-month operation in which undercover policemen
bought illegal drugs from dealers.

Police tried to arrest him at school on Wednesday, but he managed to get away.

Terrebonne Parish Narcotics Cmdr. Mike Solet said agents arrived at the
east Houma school's campus at lunch where they caught sight of Twiggs in a
crowded hallway.

Solet said agents did not try to arrest the high school senior at that
point because other students surrounded him. While they waited for the
crowd to disperse, however, Twiggs disappeared.

When he failed to show up for the Wednesday night basketball game against
H.L. Bourgeois High School, it was rumored that he had been arrested.

He had not, but Charles said Twiggs had already made plans to turn himself
in on Thursday.

Charles, the man who spearheaded a grass-roots movement called "Save Our
Children" designed to cut crime and drugs in the Smithridge community, said
he has known Twiggs since August when the teen-ager came to him for help.

The basketball standout made several bad choices, Charles said, and wanted
to turn his life around following a year marked by several run-ins with the
law.

In Terrebonne Parish, he was arrested twice: in April for aggravated
assault and in August on two counts of carnal knowledge of a juvenile,
unauthorized entry of an inhabited dwelling and contributing to the
delinquency of a minor.

He also was arrested in nearby Jefferson Parish for felony possession of
stolen goods.

Twiggs is scheduled to be arraigned Dec. 14 on the August Terrebonne
charges and is on probation for the other two arrests.

Charles said Twiggs wanted to get his life back on track and graduate from
high school when he came to talk to him.

"He turned his life completely around," Charles said, and was working hard
at school when he found out he was wanted for the April drug transaction.

"I told him that whatever he is accused of, he has to face that," Charles
said. "The lesson here is the sheriff had had a warrant for him and he had
to respond to that warrant."

Charles said Twiggs' parents, who did not accompany him to the Sheriff's
Office Thursday, are devastated about their son's drug arrest.

Twiggs was taken to the parish jail were he remained Thursday night in lieu
of $40,000 bond.

Anyone convicted of selling crack cocaine within 1,000 feet of a school
faces 45 years in jail without the possibility of probation or parole
within the first 10 years.

Dee Dee Thurston is a staff writer at The Courier. She can be reached at
(985) 850-1149 or by e-mail at news@houmatoday.com.