Pubdate: Thu, 03 Nov 2005
Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Copyright: 2005 Globe Newspaper Company
Contact:  http://www.boston.com/globe/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/52
Author: Maria Cramer, Globe Staff

S. BOSTON LEADERS PROPOSE STAKEOUTS

They would descend on the house of the alleged drug dealer, equipped 
with video cameras and dressed in shirts advertising exactly who they 
are: the South Boston Community-Wide Crime Watch.

Day and night, they would sit outside the home, recording the face of 
every client who went inside for his fix and, if possible, his dealer.

It is a scenario that state Representative Brian P. Wallace envisions 
as he and other South Boston community leaders try to organize a 
crime watch to halt the rising drug use they believe is hurting a 
neighborhood still reeling from the fatal attack last month on a 
68-year-old woman. A big part of the group's mission would be to 
stake out the addresses of known drug dealers, Wallace, a South 
Boston Democrat, said yesterday.

He already knows where to go. "People . . . know who the drug dealers 
are," he said. "I have a list right now of 10 places people have given me."

Wallace is expected to discuss the proposal at a meeting tentatively 
scheduled later this month, when he and other officials hope to 
enlist volunteers for the crime watch. They are hoping to recruit 
people with computer skills, knowledge of film equipment, and brawn 
to keep an eye out for street criminals. Residents with a police or 
military background are more than welcome, he said.

"We would like to have some people who know what they are doing," Wallace said.

The idea of molding volunteers into an alert force that would stand 
guard outside a dealer's house is one of many proposals South Boston 
politicians have pitched since the death of Jean Lampron on Oct. 13. 
Police and family say she was walking to catch a bus to work early 
that morning when a man on a bicycle dragged her down the street, 
beat her, and stole her purse. She suffered a heart attack and died 
later that night.

The community has been galvanized by the death. Neighborhood leaders 
held a well-attended meeting last month in hope of finding 
information that might lead to the capture of the mugger. Councilor 
James Kelly has proposed installing cameras around South Boston and 
setting curfews for young teenagers. Next week, a billboard with 
Lampron's face and an offer of $10,000 for anyone with information 
leading to the capture of the assailant is expected to go up on D and 
West 7th streets, three blocks from the scene of the attack.

Wallace said that by standing guard at a dealer's house, the group 
would meet two goals: informing neighbors about what is happening 
next door and shutting down the business.

The proposal appealed to Lampron's daughter, Barbara Delaney. "It's a 
good idea to know where the drug dealers are," she said. "If I knew 
somebody who was dealing, I'd drop a dime."

Boston police have made no arrests in the Lampron case, a department 
spokesman said.

But many in the community, including Lampron's family, believe that 
the attacker, described as a white male wearing a black overcoat and 
tan baseball hat, was an addict who attacked Lampron for drug money.

Drug activity in South Boston is on the rise, many residents and 
politicians say. According to police statistics, the number of 
arrests on drug-trafficking and distribution charges increased from 
150 in 2003 to 181 last year.

Deputy Superintendent Paul Fitzgerald acknowledged there was drug 
activity in the neighborhood and named heroin, cocaine, and 
prescription medicine such as OxyContin as typical drugs found during arrests.

He attributed the increase in arrests to a "focused effort" by 
district police on drug activity.

"We deploy according to intelligence that we're getting, tips that 
we're getting," he said.

Such tips often come from active crime watch groups, but he said 
residents should be careful not to put themselves in harm's way to 
stop a perceived drug dealer.

"Communities when they unite are very powerful," Fitzgerald said. "I 
would never encourage vigilantism or community members trying to take 
the law into their own hands. . . . They have to leave the 
enforcement end to the Police Department."

Many drug dealers in South Boston appear to be people trying to earn 
enough money to feed their own habit, not sophisticated criminals, 
said Karen MacDonald, assistant director of the South Boston Family 
Resource Center.

"I'm not in favor of watching people in front of their houses," she 
said. "I think that should be left to the police."

Activists have occupied streets before to fight crime. In August, the 
Rev. Bruce Wall and several followers spent a week on Lyndhurst 
Street in Dorchester in an effort to stymie drug dealers, 
prostitutes, and loiterers.

Wallace said he would not deploy the group to a house without first 
investigating whether a drug dealer actually lived there.

He recently learned his lesson when he followed a tip that a dealer 
was selling drugs from her house. When he knocked on her door, a 
sweet woman in her 60s holding a newspaper answered.

"I felt like an idiot," Wallace said.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman