Pubdate: Sun, 13 Feb 2005
Source: Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL)
Copyright: 2005 Sun-Sentinel Company
Contact:  http://www.sun-sentinel.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/159
Author: Akilah Johnson

COMMUNITY TARGETED IN CRACKDOWN COMPLAINS ABOUT POLICE HOUNDING

West Palm Beach - This is the plan: Push out drug dealers, close down
crack houses and in the process, reassure a mistrustful community that
the Police Department cares.

But there have been side effects. The increased police presence; the
blocked-off streets along Tamarind Avenue, the requests for ID and
inquiries as to why people are in the neighborhood have begun to make
some feel imprisoned in the city's north side.

It's not that residents don't welcome the effort to quell the violence
and the drugs, but some say they don't want to be hounded in the
process. Everyone's seen as a suspect now, they say.

"They turned this place into a prison camp," Eddie Anderson said as he
cut up yard debris.

"They got us in a jail without bars."

Anderson, 54, lives on 17th Street and said he's leery of the law. He
ran from police after a recent argument with his girlfriend and was
arrested on obstruction of justice charges.

Police insist that the only people being targeted are those up to no
good, but acknowledge that not everyone's been receptive to their
attempt to clean up the neighborhood.

In the two months since Project Utopia began, police have made nearly
200 arrests, confiscated 24 guns, identified 67 dilapidated houses and
another 18 that need to be brought before the nuisance-abatement board
for drug activity.

"It's not an easy situation to deal with," said Capt. Dennis Crispo.
"There are, I guess you call them, the good people and the bad people,
and it's hard to differentiate between the two unless the officers get
out and learn who's who."

Up to 80 percent of drug dealers don't live in the neighborhood where
they sell drugs, so officers approach people, ask their names, why
they're in the area and run warrant checks, Crispo said.

The inquiries and police flooding the streets only seem to be a
marginal point of contention. The lack of respect some say is present
in encounters with police seems more the issue.

"You're not people when you're asked," Bernice Simpson said. "It's not
like, 'What are you doing?' It's like, 'No. Get up! Get out!' They
come and talk to you any kind of way."

Simpson, 33, lives in the 1900 block of Grant Street and understands
that in order to make the community she describes as a battleground
better it has to be "on lock down."

Still, she wishes police would at least explain their actions.

No explanation was provided to Carlos Suarez when he was ordered
against the wall and searched. It wasn't until police realized his
identity that they let him go, said the owner of the Starrship
Sundries convenience store.

"Utopia is OK if you're sitting downtown, if you leave here every
night," said Suarez, 44, who recently bought and redeveloped the
building at 1813 Tamarind Ave. "If I wasn't here, I would consider
Utopia to be a big success."

While Suarez understands officers' predicament, he worries about the
working men getting caught up.

"Just because you have dreds you're not a drug dealer," Suarez
said.

West Palm Beach Commissioner Ike Robinson Jr., whose district is
within the project's boundaries, supports the project but is concerned
because Utopia's not eradicating drugs but simply moving them from one
neighborhood to the next.

"We're running the dope dealers out of this area, across the tracks
out west," Robinson said of the neighborhoods west of Australian Avenue.

He understands the strong reaction to the project, saying,
"Unfortunately, these people who are being arrested are residents;
they are the sons and daughter and nieces and nephews."

But he worries about what happens when the deployment is over. The
quick-response unit of about 35 officers responding to what are
usually considered low-priority crimes, such as drug dealing or
prostitution, within the area of Banyan Boulevard to 25th Street and
Australian Avenue to Dixie Highway, will only be in effect for up to
12 months.

"Once the Police Department is gone are you going to allow the
decadence to return?" he asked. "I need jobs and programs to get my
people out of whatever marred clay this is," he said of the blighted
neighborhood.

Restoring the residents' confidence in the Police Department was an
immediate goal of the project, officials said

"I don't know how to make them comfortable other than to let them know
we're responding quickly to their calls," Crispo said.

So far, the message seems to have fallen on deaf ears. Of eight
killings within 11-day period in November, only one has been solved.

Tremayne King, 26, was charged Friday in the slaying of Stacy Daniels,
29, of Mangonia Park. Daniels was shot several times Nov. 22 as he
left a friend's apartment

Deborah Barnett, 32, said she doesn't know who shot her Oct. 28, but
if she did, she still wouldn't go to the police. In Barnett's eyes,
police disregard her life because of her drug use. "They probably
think just another smoker was in the way," she said.

The drive-by cost her a kidney, damaged the other and required skin to
be grafted from her stomach to cover the wound. The last time she
spoke with police was at the corner of Sixth Street and Division
Avenue, as she lay on the ground bleeding.