Pubdate: Sun, 07 Jul 2002
Source: News & Observer (NC)
Copyright: 2002 The News and Observer Publishing Company
Contact:  http://www.news-observer.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/304
Author: Thomasi Mcdonald, of the News & Observer

SMALL TOWN NO REFUGE FROM CRIME

TROY - To outsiders, it may have seemed like a shocking departure from 
small-town life recently when a man was shot at close range, then pumped 
with bullets as he lay on the ground.

But police and residents of Troy, a town of about 3,400 in southwestern 
North Carolina, say the homicide -- which police said was drug-related -- 
was hardly shocking. In fact, it came a week after another shooting on the 
same street, Faduma Street.

The crimes are an indication, law enforcement officials say, of just how 
much drugs and the problems they bring have spread to small communities 
that were once refuges from such big city ills.

"The influx of drugs has absolutely created a totally different ballgame," 
said E.J. Phillips, Troy's police chief for the past 18 years. "The small 
town atmosphere has disintegrated."

Drug-related crime now accounts for 85 percent of all crime in Troy, law 
enforcement officials say. In Montgomery County, for which Troy is the 
county seat, drug-related offenses account for 70 percent of all crime, 
authorities say. That includes both of the county's homicides over the past 
six months, 75 percent of its robberies and larcenies and 60 percent of 
aggravated assaults.

"Anything to get the money to buy more drugs," Phillips said.

Montgomery County authorities say a souring economy from floods, 
hurricanes, tobacco lawsuits, along with the exodus of textiles and 
cutbacks in surrounding industries, has produced a downward spiral and 
created drug breeding grounds in Troy.

The county's unemployment rate, 8.1 percent, is well above the state's 6.5 
percent and Wake County's 5.3 percent, according to state figures.

Unemployment "is slowly rising every month," said Troy Mayor Roy Maness. 
"It's up 3 percent from a year ago and it doesn't seem to be turning around."

Other small towns in North Carolina, and elsewhere, are seeing more 
problems with drugs in recent years. In Robbins, a town of less than 2,000 
not far from Troy, a woman lost her husband, brother and a neighbor last 
month in a triple homicide. Police say those killings came during a robbery 
in which home invaders stole cocaine.

But the impact of drugs is particularly severe in Troy. Although the crime 
rate for major crimes has dropped over the past decade statewide, drugs 
have fueled a sharp increase in crime in Troy in recent years. The rate of 
major crimes in Troy jumped from a little more than 5,780 per 100,000 
persons in 1997, to just more than 6,109 per 100,000 in 2001.

'Snuff Street'

The impact of drugs on Troy is starkly evident on Faduma Street. Residents 
fondly remember when people used to call the little enclave just outside of 
town "Snuff Street," because so many women who lived there routinely kept a 
hefty pinch tucked between their gums and lower lips.

Residents and police say cocaine sales have consumed the street like weeds 
overtaking a garden. They say drug dealers have taken over the 
working-class street with a large elderly population and are holding it 
hostage.

The impact of drugs on Faduma Street has been "terrifying," said Dorothy 
Horne, a school bus driver who lives with her grandson and 87-year-old 
mother on Horne Street, which intersects with Faduma Street.

"You mind your own business," Horne said. "You hear gunshots, you go in the 
house."

A narrow, dead-end street, Faduma Street is a hodge-podge collection of 
about 23 mobile homes and rickety, pre-urban renewal houses -- a few 
without indoor plumbing. The street is marked by abandoned houses overgrown 
with vegetation, burned-out hulls of rusted cars and trucks and 
rough-looking characters.

Nurse's aides from a local home health care agency that provides services 
for the elderly refuse to visit the area because they fear for their 
safety. Blighted houses are being used to conduct drug sales. Prostitution, 
once nonexistent, is now a growing problem on Faduma Street and throughout 
the county, authorities say.

"We've probably made 100 arrests over the last three years," said 
Montgomery County Sheriff Jeff Jordan.

On April 4, Steven Dunn, 31, of Troy, was injured by a gunshot from a 
passing 1994 Lexus as he sat on the front porch of an abandoned house 
that's often used as a base by drug dealers and users, according to 
investigators with the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office.

Drug house killing

The problems reached a deadly peak April 11. It was about 7:30 p.m., and 
Naomi Drake had just arrived home from a class at the local community 
college. She stepped inside the front door of her doublewide trailer when 
she heard a gunshot from across the street.

"I told my husband, 'Larry they're out there shooting again,'" said Drake, 
a 45-year-old school bus driver and teacher's assistant who's trying to 
earn an associate's degree by attending night classes at Montgomery 
Community College.

More shots rang out, then a woman's screams arched across the sky as a car 
backed into Drake's driveway and sped away.

When it was over, Stacey Terrell "Big Poppa" Atkins was dead. Atkins, of 
Troy, was gunned down in the driveway of a known drug and liquor house at 
195 Faduma Street, authorities said. He had a "pocket full of dope" and 
sheriff's deputies found guns and liquor in the trunk of his car, said Jordan.

Authorities charged William Garfield Little Jr., 22, of 198 Springdale 
Road, Troy, with the crime. Little is Atkins' brother in-law.

Charges against Little were dropped last month during an arraignment in 
Montgomery County District Court when three state witnesses retracted 
written statements identifying Little as the killer.

"They [the witnesses] were shaking, trembling and sweating," said Jordan, 
who added that they are investigating whether Little had any contact with 
the witnesses prior to their testimony.

Jordan said the sheriff's office is waiting for the State Bureau of 
Investigation in Raleigh to finish forensic tests on evidence obtained at 
the crime scene and may seek another indictment of Little.

Little was also charged in the triple homicide in Robbins, along with 
another suspect, Kevin Nicholas Brower, 22, of Eagle Springs. The two men 
are currently sharing a cell at Raleigh's Central Prison while awaiting trial.

Little could not be reached for comment, but his mother, Wanda Little, said 
she asked her youngest child if he killed Atkins and he denied it. She said 
he admitted discharging his gun in the Robbins homicides but said he told 
her he got off only one shot and didn't think he killed anyone.

Little and Brower were arrested June 4 in a Rockingham motel. A kilo of 
cocaine, which authorities believe was stolen from the three victims in 
Robbins, was found in the motel room.

If Little were indicted and convicted of the Faduma Street killing, it 
would be an eerie coincidence: His father was fatally stabbed by his 
brother-in-law on Faduma Street in January of 1983, Little's mother said.

No place for families

The drug dealers scattered for awhile from Faduma Street after the April 11 
shooting. But they returned.

"It got so bad, when you turned onto the road to go home, you had to stop 
your car until they got out of the road," Drake said. "And they look at you 
like, 'I dare you to say something.' "

The dealers eventually set up shop across the street from her home and 
plunked a wooden bench at the end of the driveway of a house that was 
condemned shortly after the shooting.

"I would even see them out there on Sunday mornings before I went to 
church," Drake said.

The 45-year-old married mother of seven children stopped letting her 
7-year-old ride his bike on the street. She's thankful that her two oldest 
boys have left home.

Her 19-year-old son Derrick, a freshman at Fayetteville State University, 
is spending the summer with his uncle in Spring Lake. Her 21-year-old, 
Larry Jr., was inducted into the Army in early June.

Noting the irony, Drake said she thinks her oldest son has a greater chance 
of surviving as an infantryman than in the neighborhood where he grew up.

Budget cuts

Authorities aren't expecting improvements on Faduma Street in the 
forseeable future. In fact, law officials say cutbacks to public safety 
budgets are giving criminals the upper hand.

A countywide drug task force, for example, was dismantled in March when 
Gov. Mike Easley announced he would withhold more than $200 million in 
state-shared revenue.

"We have many, many, many investigations on hold right now, all over the 
county," said former task force member, Lt. V.E. Higgins with the Troy 
Police Department.

Police have undertaken a number of steps, including beefed-up patrols and 
community meetings to encourage neighborhood watch groups. One alternative 
being considered, Jordan said, is burning down the abandoned houses on 
Faduma Street.

Naomi Drake, who helped organize the community meeting, said she realizes 
the sheriff's office is doing all it can. But she said it's not enough.

"We need so much more down here," Drake said. "We need help."
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