‘Drug War’ Has No Ammunition, Front-Line Troops Complain

In Yakima, Wash., klieg lights are trained on crack houses to discourage drug deals after dark. Traffickers’ havens are torched in El Dorado, Ark. Helmeted Philadelphians foil pushers with dusk-to-dawn street vigils.

America’s streets have become battlefields in a way far different than Bunker Hill or Bull Run. This enemy is drugs, and the weapons include special telephone lines for informers in Columbus, Ohio, to newspaper coupons for anonymous accusers in Clinton, Iowa, and 1960s-style activism in Shreveport, La.

“It’s a grass-roots war,” said Randy Arndt, spokesman for the national League of Cities. “Drugs is far and away the No. 1 issue for our cities--ahead of poverty, homelessness, affordable housing and trash disposal.”

Images of war are beamed nightly by television into the nation’s living rooms. Police commandos sport flak jackets and the number of body bags rival Beirut. Killings erupt from gang wars in Los Angeles to the “murder capital” of Washington, D. C.

President Bush declared this war in September when he said the issue of drug trafficking would be fought “block by block, child by child.”

Soldiers in the fight applauded Bush’s rallying cry but criticized the plan’s limited federal dollars, which puts the burden on cities.

“You can declare war all you want. We ain’t got the ammunition,” said Sheriff Doug Bair of Yakima County, Wash.

“The front line is asked to supply the rear. It’s like the Normandy invasion financing itself by holding a rummage sale,” said Phoenix Mayor Terry Goddard, president of the League of Cities. “Is that any way to win a war?”

The League of Cities is pushing this week as a national “Fight Back Against Drugs Week.”

Citizens who have had enough have formed an underground army, but criminologist Lawrence Sherman of the University of Maryland cautioned that the fighting should be left to professionals.

“Rather than encouraging open combat, officials could ask citizens to keep their heads down. Not even Smokey the Bear wants us to rush into forest fires with a garden hose,” Sherman said.

The number of bystanders shot and killed in drug-related confrontations has tripled in the last three years in New York, Los Angeles, Washington and Boston, Sherman said. From 1986 through 1988, New York City had 128 bystander deaths, Los Angeles 105.

Police would like to see better national strategies, such as a nationwide telephone tip line and stiff fines to make the drug trade less profitable.

“What we are doing is fighting a war. We have not gotten into a mind-set of winning the war,” said Sevrin Sorensen of the National Assn. of Chiefs of Police.

In the meantime, the fight goes on.

Yakima, a city of 50,000 in Washington’s apple country, has become a cocaine distribution point for the Northwest, police say. The drug is smuggled in from Mexico by couriers posing as migrant farm workers.

To make the trade conspicuous, police train four 500-watt lights on houses suspected of being outlets. Police said they have reduced traffic to the buildings by 95% since September.

“We want to create a strong sense of paranoia among dealers and users,” Police Chief Pleas Green said. “We’re forcing people out of their comfort zone.”

An American Civil Liberties Union official in Seattle is unimpressed. “It sounds like a Hollywood approach to the war on drugs,” Jerry Sheehan said.

The southern Arkansas town of El Dorado, population 26,000, condemned three suspected crack houses and set them on fire this spring.

“It was really interesting to see people in the neighborhood standing on the porches, cheering and applauding when the houses were burning,” said Mayor Larry Combs.

In Inglewood, Calif., police have infiltrated suspected crack houses with sting operations. When customers show up, they are busted.

In the last 15 months, Philadelphia has sealed 600 abandoned houses with cinder blocks and stucco to keep them from being used by dealers.

A network of community anti-drug groups has spread across Philadelphia in the last two years. Wearing white plastic helmets, residents hold all-night vigils to push dealers off street corners.

“We all have to get out there and roll our sleeves up. It’s the worst crisis to hit America since Pearl Harbor,” said Herman Wrice, a Drexel University professor and community leader.

The heartland, too, has been mobilized.

In Columbus, Ohio, police opened a telephone line to receive tips. It averages about 65 calls a week from neighborhood informers.

“Nothing will frighten the pushers so much as to know that apathy is officially dead in central Ohio, and we’re on the march,” Mayor Dana Rinehart said.

Community activists also joined the battle with a block-watch program.

“The only way we’re going to eliminate the drug problem is to pitch in and do some of the dirty work. The police can’t be everywhere all the time,” said Mark Goodman, a member of the Olde Towne East Neighborhood Assn.

Baseball is an ally in Kansas City, Mo. Ewing Kauffman, the billionaire owner of the Kansas City Royals, pledged free college tuition for 500 students at one of the city’s most neglected high schools if they avoid drugs.

Under the $10-million experiment, the entire 9th and 10th grades at Westport High School will go to college free if they pass random drug tests.

“You give them hope, you give them opportunity, you show them that somebody cares about them, and they’ll stand up to other people. They’ll turn out good,” Kaufman said.

The passions of war can overwhelm even anti-tax sentiments. Voters in the Kansas City area recently approved a quarter-cent increase in the sales tax to raise $98 million for drug enforcement over the next seven years.

“The people are fighting back,” said Joe Serviss, treasurer of Citizens Against Drugs. “They are sick and tired of being locked in their homes and intimidated by drug dealers.”

The black community of Cedar Grove in Shreveport, La., which was terrified by an all-night riot 14 months ago, is the chosen battleground of activist and former comedian Dick Gregory.

Gregory arrived in June in the northwestern Louisiana city of 200,000. He converted A. B. Palmer Park, once overrun with dealers, into a joyful, child-filled bunker. And he has recruited Coretta Scott King, her son, Martin Luther King III, and dancer Ben Vereen.

“I’m here to protect my America and my children. I’m here for the same reason people go to war,” Gregory said. “We want our neighborhoods back. We want people who’d be willing to die, but not willing to kill.”

In the Iowa community of Clinton, police worked with the Clinton Herald to come up with a newspaper coupon so that readers could anonymously inform on anyone they suspected of using or selling drugs.

“I’m quite sure we’re going to be able to achieve some arrests through this,” said Police Chief Gene Bienke.

Clinton Councilman John Rowland criticized that campaign as part of a “Big Brother syndrome.” He said: “Apparently, it’s drugs today. What is it next week, political subversives?”

The battle lines stretch from Phoenix, Ariz., to Phoenixville, Pa.

Authorities in Phoenix go after casual users, who can avoid jail by seeking treatment at their own expense (which saves on prosecution costs).

Phoenixville, a Philadelphia suburb of 17,000, hired its first undercover cop this year. Vince Pacifico, a 25-year-old former prison guard, is credited with 31 arrests.

New York City set up tactical narcotics teams last year, after a rookie policeman guarding a witness in a drug case was killed. The teams infiltrate drug areas for 30 to 90 days, then begin arresting dealers and buyers.

In its first year, the undercover teams made 7,000 arrests. Critics of the $116-million, two-year program say that the dealers return when the team moves on.

Police are encouraged by their successes, but they concede that the enemy is entrenched.

“This must be the longest war in history. It’s going to be like the Thousand Year War,” said Francis Hall, retired head of New York City’s narcotics division.