Pubdate: Thu, 08 Nov 2001
Source: The Post and Courier (SC)
Copyright: 2001 Evening Post Publishing Co.
Contact:   http://www.charleston.net/index.html
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/567
Authors: Jason Hardin, Glenn Smith

RESIDENTS SAYS STING JUST MOVED DRUG DEALERS

Six months ago, heavily armed law enforcement officers swept through 
Charleston's East Side neighborhood in a dramatic sting operation 
designed to crush the area's rampant heroin trade.

The precisely plotted sweep, dubbed Operation Mayday, thrilled many 
East Side residents. They saw it as a chance to reclaim their 
neighborhood from the swarms of dealers who regularly operated on 
street corners.

But six months later, many of the same residents say that the bust 
hasn't brought about the kind of thorough and lasting changes they 
had hoped to see. In fact, some say that Operation Mayday did little 
more than shift much of the area's drug activity to a new location, 
as dealers have simply reopened shop a few blocks away from what used 
to be the heart of the city's drug trade.

Specifically, the action has moved from the area between Amherst and 
South streets a few blocks north to Sheppard Street, several East 
Side residents say.

"Whenever they clean up the street, it just moves to another street. 
It's just like spraying for roaches," said the Rev. Warren Murdock, 
pastor at Mount Carmel United Methodist Church on Cooper Street. 
"Truly, something needs to be done."

Murdock and other church members say dealers have been lurking near 
the church, leaving trash in the streets and even hassling 
parishioners on Sundays.

Several brought up the issue at a recent Charleston City Council 
meeting, asking for help from the city and the police department.

Charleston City Councilman Kwadjo Campbell said the neighborhood 
needs regular police foot patrols and, perhaps, more stings.

No one is calling Operation Mayday a failure.

But as it stands now, it can't be considered a complete success 
either, he said.

"It's just in a different area, and it's just as bad if not worse. 
You see a lot of people just hanging _out," Campbell said. "They need 
to concentrate on the whole area."

It's a situation that attests to the difficulty of eradicating the 
drug trade - particularly when the demand still exists, law 
enforcement officials say.

Operation Mayday combined the efforts of federal, state and local 
police agencies in an 18-month investigation of a heroin distribution 
network in Charleston and led to 44 arrests of alleged dealers and 
suppliers. The investigation targeted people involved in the heroin 
trade in the area of America, Hanover and Reid streets.

So far, 21 of those arrested have pleaded guilty to federal charges. 
Another 13 suspects still await trial and seven more are fugitives on 
the run, according to Mary Gordon Baker, first assistant U.S. 
attorney for South Carolina.

Authorities still consider the operation an unqualified success that 
put a noticeable dent in the city's heroin trade.

But they also acknowledge that heroin sales remain a nagging problem 
on Charleston's streets.

Acting U.S. Attorney Scott Schools said as long as a demand for the 
drug exists, dealers will move from one location to the next in 
search of a suitable market to move their product.

"Our job is to stay ahead of it," he said. "But it's sort of a 
never-ending task."

Lt. Richard Vance, head of the Charleston police narcotics unit, said 
drug sales have dropped significantly in the area targeted by Mayday, 
but dealers seem to have staked out new territory in the area of 
Sheppard and Hanover streets. He said police are well aware of the 
problem and attempting to attack it with increased patrols and other 
tactics.

"It's kind of naive to think we are going to stop drugs completely if 
the federal government can't do it with 50,000 FBI and DEA agents," 
he said. "But, we can't give up. We're not going to slow down our 
efforts one bit."

East Side resident Joseph Watson, who played a major role in 
encouraging Operation Mayday, said the high-profile sweep has had 
positive effects. It did clean up much of the neighborhood, and some 
changes appear to be permanent. But some might have been fleeting.

At first, drug activity in the entire area seemed to grind to a halt, 
he said. But as time went on, it seemed to pick back up again, just 
in a new location.

"Since Operation Mayday, which was a great operation, it has left a 
stigma around America Street, South Street and Reid Street. And quite 
naturally, the drug activity there is going to go down," he said. 
"But right now, these drug dealers feel comfortable around Sheppard 
Street and Aiken Street."

In a way, the new spot is even more convenient for dealers - and 
their customers, Murdock said.

"People can scoot in off the bridge, make their buys and scoot out," 
he said. "White and black folks both. You say, 'My God.'"

The resurgent drug trade has Murdock worried for several reasons, not 
the least of which is the effect it's having on his church.

It's at the point where some find it intimidating to show up on 
Sundays, he said.

"When people see a bunch of thugs looking tough, and you have to park 
your car and come near to where they're at, you say, well, I'll find 
another church to go to," Murdock said. A no-loitering law, if 
aggressively enforced, might make a difference, he said.

In fact, the area's sidewalks are, at times, lined with people 
selling or using drugs. Users slouch in doorways or on porches or 
front steps of the area's deteriorating housing stock.

Vance suspects the dealers in the Sheppard street area are a new crop 
of heroin slingers who saw opportunity in the Mayday arrests.

"They probably saw a void in the market," he said. "Charleston has a 
lot of heroin addicts."

Other anecdotal evidence also supports claims that a vibrant heroin 
trade persists. At two of the area's main drug treatment centers, 
officials say they have seen little change in the number of addicts 
seeking help after Operation Mayday, a sign that heroin is still 
available.

"We haven't seen anything from that," said Rich Oliver, inpatient 
services director at Charleston Center, a county-run substance abuse 
program, "Zilch."

The Center for Behavioral Health in North Charleston, the region's 
only private methadone clinic, hasn't "really seen any change at all" 
in the number of heroin addicts seeking help, said Rebecca Hassell, 
the agency's director.

Charleston Center closely monitored the number of addicts seeking 
treatment so the facility would be prepared for a large of influx of 
heroin users. It never came, Oliver said.

"The word on the street is that it's because other people have taken 
over the supply," he said.

Some users have also claimed that heroin has become cheaper in recent 
weeks because large suppliers in Afghanistan are unloading their 
product in mass quantities as a result of the war under way there, 
Oliver said. Local authorities say they have seen no evidence of that 
being the case.

Vance said it actually appears that heroin is somewhat harder to find 
in the days since Mayday, though the price has remained fairly 
constant.

J. Mitchell Miller, a professor at the University of South Carolina's 
College of Criminal Justice, said a steady price for drugs generally 
means a steady supply. He said he is not surprised, given the 
popularity of the drug across the social gamut. Initiatives such as 
Operation Mayday help, but it will be difficult to eradicate the 
heroin trade while a ready market for the drug exists, he said.

"On the positive side, at least you are disrupting and directly 
addressing a certain amount of heroin activity," said Miller, editor 
of the quarterly Journal of Crime and Justice. "But that is not a 
long-term solution. As long as the supply and the demand remain, the 
market will correlate."

Vance said police need the public's help if they hope to rid the 
community of drugs. A few people have come forward to help police, 
but the majority of residents have remained silent, either afraid of 
reprisals from the dealers or apathetic to the problem, he said.

"It's a whole mentality, and it's not just a few people," he said. 
"People tolerate it. And until they get to the point where they have 
a 'we're mad as hell and won't take it anymore' attitude, we're just 
spinning our wheels."

Watson said the resurgent drug trade has been a major topic at recent 
meetings of the East Side Neighborhood Council.

While police patrols, particularly foot patrols, are part of the 
solution, the group also agrees with Vance that citizens have to help.

"Operation Mayday can never be a complete success unless you have 
full and ongoing participation by the citizens," Watson said. "It 
won't just go away. It's on ongoing challenge."
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