Pubdate: Wed, 11 Jun 2003 Source: Buffalo News (NY) Copyright: 2003 The Buffalo News Contact: http://www.buffalonews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/61 Author: Donn Esmonde DRUG WAR COMES IN BACK WINDOW John and May Shepard learned the price of speaking out. They found out what it costs to obey the law, to try to make their street a better place. The bill crashed through their back window late Friday night, three bottles filled with gasoline and stuffed with flaming rags. The bottles exploded, igniting small fires in the living room. The smoke alarm squealed. May Shepard woke up, ran downstairs through choking black smoke and smothered the fires with pillows. John was working late to get his new antique store ready to open. He came home to soot-covered walls, a shell-shocked wife and a new understanding of life among the drug houses on 10th Street. They bought the place on the Lower West Side at auction 15 years ago. John, a carpenter, resurrected it with $30,000 and a river of sweat. They hoped the neighborhood, within walking distance of City Hall, would recover. New housing was blooming, most of the local drug addicts were harmless, they were barely a block from an elementary school and Hutch-Tech High. Recovery never came. Most of the new housing went to other blocks. Drug gangs, pushing cocaine and heroin, replaced the addicts a few years ago. The big Drug Enforcement Agency bust this winter - targeting 10th Street's Del Loiza Boys - barely slowed the traffic. And now this. The Shepards (and police familiar with the case) think the firebombing is payback. The couple complained about vacant crack houses until the shells were razed. May and a neighbor planted community gardens in the vacant lots. The Shepards headed a block club, until folks got too scared to belong. Dealers have been surly since the late winter bust, and they didn't appreciate John's recent complaints about the shape of their properties. "It's like reverse discrimination," said John. "We're demonized, we stick out, because we're law-abiding." He's 47, lean, with laser-beam eyes and long dark hair. He won't give up easily and says they're not leaving. But the odds are stacked. Downtown is filled with vacant storefronts, but business is booming on the 10th Street Drug Mall. On a recent afternoon, young men and women - - one holding an infant - sat on porches in the middle of the block. One man wore an ankle monitoring bracelet, the jewelry of the convicted. Neighbors - all too afraid to have their names used - say cars come as early as 6 a.m., stopping to pick up a pick-me-up. Customers include kids as young as 13 or 14 from nearby schools. "They do more business than the Rite-Aid," said one neighbor. The drug trail ending on the Shepards' block starts in Colombia, runs through Puerto Rico and winds through New York City. Addict or weekend user, they don't care about folks like the Shepards. But the toll on these neighborhoods is as obvious as daylight: Scary streets, worthless houses and decent people trapped. Solutions? Bust the dealers, others come in. Evict them, they move and terrify new neighbors. If we legalized the stuff for adults, like alcohol, it would instantly put street dealers out of business and resurrect neighborhoods. But in George Bush's America, there's not even a discussion. Shepard just bought an Allentown building for his antiques store. He doesn't have the money to move, and the street's drug trade makes his house nearly worthless. Like other decent folks on the street, some of them living on a Social Security check, the Shepards are stuck. Oddly, the attack made the Shepards dig in deeper. "I want whoever did this put in jail," said John. "There's some danger in coming forward, but after they (try to) burn your (bleeping) house, the fear dissipates." I admire their guts, and I hate to be pessimistic, but the bad guys usually win these battles. Decent people stand up and risk their lives, or cower behind closed doors. After a while, either tactic gets tiresome and the For Sale sign goes up. I hope this story has a happier ending. But there's a war on drugs, and the enemy - as the Shepards found out - is armed. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake