COUPLE JOINS FIGHT AGAINST DRUG CULTURE

Three Officers Trace Flow Of Drugs In County

Bill and Carol thought Astoria looked like the perfect small-town
environment to raise their children.

But when a new acquaintance of Ken's asked if he'd like to get ahold of
some pot - or cocaine or heroin, if he liked - and began introducing him to
others who made similar offers, the couple began having second thoughts
about the "little piece of heaven" where they'd made their new home.

The two went to the police - but not just to report the offer of drugs.
They offered their services as undercover buyers for the Clatsop County
Interagency Narcotics Task Force.

Posing as drug users, the husband and wife, together and separately, made a
dozen purchases for the task force, part of a sting operation that resulted
in the arrests of 16 people last month and the seizure of thousands of
dollars worth of marijuana, cocaine, heroin, mushrooms and prescription
medications.

The two had never done anything like it before, but they said the flagrant
drug trafficking they saw, and the many children they saw involved in it,
prompted them to take a direct role in catching at least some of the people
involved in the local drug trade.

Their work with the task force completed, "Bill" and "Carol" - not their
real names - have left Astoria for good, saying the things they witnessed
during their brief stint as undercover buyers has soured them on the community.

"We thought this was a little piece of heaven out here. We felt this would
be a great environment for us and our kids - a small, close-knit
community," Bill said.

Within two weeks of moving to town early this fall, Bill, a former
professional baseball player, met a person who knew of his career. One day
Bill gave the man a ride to his apartment, and on walking in saw people
inside buying and selling a variety of drugs. One man said he could sell
Bill the drug in rock or powder form.

"My first question was what kind of quantities, and he said 'depends on how
much money you have and how much you want,'" he said.

The experience, he said, drove him to contact the police.

"What angered me, pushed me in this direction was, in this particular
apartment complex, it wasn't just adults. I was seeing junior high kids in
there, buying and smoking marijuana. There was mushrooms, heroin, crank - I
called it a buffet of madness."

From that first encounter, Bill was introduced to more people who said
they would be able to provide him with drugs - any type of drugs - and many
became targets in the task force sting.

Bill, and later Carol, began contacting sellers and, with cash provided by
the task force, made drug purchases ranging from $20 to $3,000. The buys
all took place in and near Astoria.

What shocked the pair was not just the quantity of drugs but the variety
available from so many local different sources.

"I've been all over the world and in big cities, and I have never seen the
kind of concentration, such a large amount of different dope all in one
place," Bill said.

"After getting together with the task force and researching and
investigating further, I realized this covered all four corners of the
county. People would come from Seaside to deliver, people would come from
Clatskanie to deliver, and here in Astoria there were more than enough
individuals - there was never a day that went by where I couldn't purchase
cocaine."

If one dealer didn't have a particular drug, he or she knew another person
who could deliver it, he said. He learned of at least 10 individuals who
could supply heroin, and twice that many dealing cocaine. A dozen could
sell him marijuana.

But what most disturbed the couple was the many children they saw who are
part of the drug culture.

"I'm glad I saw the epidemic in this town before my own kids got to that
age," Bill said.

Children "that age" are already getting involved, according to what the
couple saw. They spoke of seeing middle-school-age childern at many of the
homes buying and smoking marijuana, while younger children and toddlers
were in the room or nearby while transactions took place. One of their
children said his friend's 13-year-old brother was buying marijuana from
his uncle, Carol said, and at one residence Bill bought drugs from a young
woman who babysat for another of his son's classmates.

"I doesn't matter the age of the kids. If they have five bucks, these
people are going to sell them some dope," Carol said.

Once they became familiar to many of the local drug-sellers, they began
getting people knocking on their door at all hours of the day and night
offering to sell to them, they said.

Bill also learned firsthand how many local drug users financed their habits
by shoplifting from local stores, which he was told are easy targets for
thieves.

"On at least five occasions I was offered brand-new jackets out of the
store in exchange for $10 or $20 just so these people could get their high
for the day," he said.

Bill himself became of victim of this drug-fueled theft, spotting a tape
measure and knife stolen from his car at two drug houses. The thieves had
traded them to the dealers for drugs.

Some of their suppliers suspected the couple were working for the police -
one asked where Bill got his money - but didn't let those worries stop them
from selling drugs to the two anyway. Most of the people they dealt with
had already been through the criminal justice system and didn't seem to
fear the consequences if they were caught, they said.

And as he grew more familiar with the players in the local drug trade
through his task force work, Bill said he began to understand just how
pervasive the problem is here.

"I could take you right now, we could drive in your car and I could point
them out to you on the street," he said. "I can take you to 20 different
areas here in Astoria and say 'that house, that person, those people, that
house, those kids you see there' - I can do that for you."

That knowledge, the two said, made them realize Astoria was not a place
they could raise their children.

"We thought this would be a great community, a small community, everybody
knows everybody," Carol said. "But when you're not wanting your kids to go
out because you don't know what they're going to get into or who's going to
approach them..."