Pubdate: Sun, 25 Mar 2001 Source: The Southeast Missourian (MO) Copyright: 2001 2001 Southeast Missourian Contact: (573) 334-7288 Website: http://www.semissourian.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1322 Note: Letters of up to 250 words on topics of current interest are welcomed - - All letters will be edited - Names and hometowns of letter writers will be published. Author: The Associated Press LAS VEGAS POLICE STRUGGLE TO CONTAIN GANG-AREA CRIME LAS VEGAS -- If the gunshots come, 15-year-old Arthur Tolliver will be ready. He plans to run fast through the park, hoping he can dodge the bullets or that the trees will shield him from the violence that has overtaken his neighborhood. "I got enough room to run somewhere," Arthur says. But for eight people in this west Las Vegas neighborhood far removed from the glitter of the Las Vegas Strip, there was no escape. They were killed - -- all in a 30-day period -- because two gangs are rivaling over drug territory, police say. Two victims -- a church deacon and a teen-age girl - -- were unintended targets. The Las Vegas New Black Panther Party is threatening to organize a march down the Las Vegas Strip if authorities don't calm the violence and improve living conditions in the neighborhood, on the Las Vegas-North Las Vegas line. A task force has been formed and mediators summoned, and the county plans focus groups with neighbors. Shootings Unsolved None of the shootings has been solved -- mostly, police say, because neighbors are refusing to talk. "They fear telling the police more than they fear random shootings in their neighborhoods. They need to trust the police," North Las Vegas Lt. Art Redcay says. Police have added officers to the area and are patrolling more, looking for gang activity and witnesses willing to talk. But residents say if they snitch, the police can't protect them. "You can't even pass by without fear of being shot," says west Las Vegas resident Jessica Martinez, 31. The neighborhood, about six miles north of the Strip, has long been infested by gang activity and forgotten amid the explosive growth that defines the gambling city. Poverty is high, and unemployment ranges from 18 percent to 22 percent compared with a state rate of around 4 percent, according to Nevada Partners, a nonprofit group in the area that provides job training and placement. "A future drug-free neighborhood," reads the marquis outside Ebenezer Church of God in Christ. Just a half-block down the street a young man pulls out a bag of marijuana to share with two friends. They attended a funeral this day for one of the shooting victims. Caught In Cross-Fire Inside the True Love Missionary Baptist Church, a white cloth with a black lace cross has been placed where 61-year-old deacon Floyd Wilson used to sit every Sunday. His father founded the congregation 27 years ago. On Feb. 15, Wilson was caught in the cross-fire of stray bullets and became the first of the eight recent victims. "Nobody knows how bad it hurts," Wilson's 84-year-old father, the Rev. Ivory Wilson, says from his home on Rev. Wilson Avenue. "Why is this happening to us?" Police say another victim, 18-year-old Latasha Washington, also was an unintended target. She was standing with friends on a corner near her home when a car drove by March 6 and bullets sprayed the group. Washington was shot in the head and died before paramedics arrived. Police believe the other victims, who ranged in age from 17 to 39, were gang members or associates. Ron Current, chairman of the Las Vegas New Black Panther Party, says other black groups and the cities of North Las Vegas and Las Vegas haven't done enough to help the neighborhood. The party is demanding the cities create 1,500 jobs in the area, repave the streets and rebuild a community center. If they don't respond soon, the party says, it will march down the Strip. Hesitant To Talk Current says he understands neighbors' hesitance to talk to police. "We don't encourage people to snitch on their neighbors," he says. "Police can't protect anybody. We're talking about organized gangs." Erik Pappa, spokesman for the city of Las Vegas, says the city already plans a new community center and is speeding up the timetable of street paving. "Marching down the Strip isn't going to solve the problem," says Clark County Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates, whose district includes the neighborhood. She plans focus groups with children and teen-agers to get some insight into the violence. "I feel that this is not only a police problem, but it is a societal problem," she says. But the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People isn't sure meeting and talking about the problem will do any good. "We've had meetings, many meetings," says Sheila Davis-Collins, executive director of the chapter. "We say what we're going to do, but no one has actually gone in the streets to a disturbed youth and asked: 'Why do you have so much hatred?' " - --- MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager