Pubdate: Sat, 04 Oct 2003 Source: Herald-Dispatch, The (WV) Copyright: 2003 The Herald-Dispatch Contact: http://www.herald-dispatch.com/hdinfo/letters.html Website: http://www.hdonline.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1454 Author: Lee Arnold COMMUNITY, POLICE SEEKING SOLUTIONS TO DRUG PROBLEM HUNTINGTON -- The people of Fairfield West have had enough of the drugs, and crime that has become daily fodder for the newspaper police blotter. Brenda Brooks has lived on the 1700 block of Doulton Avenue for more than 20 years, and she has seen too much for one lifetime. She regularly sees drug transactions on her block and frequently witnesses other crimes in the neighborhood. "It's bad when you can't drive home without seeing people standing on the street corner," she said. She is ready for things to change, and she is not alone. Rev. Paul Willis, of First Baptist Church, 801 6th Ave., wants to see things in his former neighborhood change, too. Several weeks ago Willis preached to his congregation about the damage drugs and crime bring and the fear they instill in the community. The next day, a front page article about the problem of crack cocaine and the affect it has had on the lives of Artisan Avenue residents appeared in The Herald-Dispatch. He took the timing of the article with his sermon as a sign that it was time to do something. Willis is spearheading an effort to get black church leaders in the community to band together and try to clean things up through the power of God. He feels that the nearly one dozen historically black churches in the community need to assume more of a leadership role in the community than has been established in the past. According to statistics released by the Huntington Police Department, more than 10 percent of the 633 drug arrests made by the Huntington Police Department between January 2002 and the beginning of September, were made on the 1600 block of Artisan Avenue. The statistics are evidence of what the police and people in the community have known for several years -- Fairfield West is the place to go in Huntington to buy crack cocaine. Police have already began increasing undercover operations in the neighborhood in an attempt to pressure dealers into quitting the game, according to Sgt. Rocky Johnson of the Huntington Police Department Detective Bureau. The HPD drug unit worked three nights in a row on Artisan Avenue and surrounding streets this week and made seven arrests for selling crack cocaine, he said. Willis hopes his challenge to the local church community will be the first step toward convincing the community to follow suit and step up pressure from within the neighborhood. The plan devised through nostalgia Willis lived on the 1800 block of Doulton Avenue in the 1960s. "I had great neighbors, and I never even had to lock my car at night," he said. It was a warm friendly neighborhood, he said. A place where he enjoyed living. He left the area for about 30 years, but returned to live in a home on the 1700 block of Doulton Avenue in 2001 when he became interim pastor of the First Baptist Church. "It was obvious the community had deteriorated," he said. His second stint on Doulton Avenue put him in a position to witness crime occurring in the streets during daylight hours, he said. His wife once watched a man disassemble and steal an outdoor gym from an abandoned home next door. "He pulled his truck up to the backyard and stood there with tools taking it apart," he said. His wife tried unsuccessfully to notify the property owner until it was too late. Some of the neighbors that were so great 30 years earlier still lived in the same homes, but things had changed, he said. People once dedicated to the community are now allowing crime, especially drug dealing, to become commonplace, he said. The change indicated to Willis that a forum, one that would work in addition to the existing Fairfield West Improvement Council, is needed to address the problems, he said. He wants to create the kind of warm and friendly community he remembers. His first step is to send letters to pastors of local, historically black churches located on many of the street corners in the Fairfield neighborhood, he said. The letter lays down a challenge for the pastors to take the community back from the drug dealers, and quell the fear that many of the people in the neighborhood experience. The fear of retaliation is what Willis concludes has fostered a live-and-let-live attitude in many in the Fairfield community. A united group of neighborhood residents and church leaders could provide the foundation to alleviate the fear, he said. An alleviation of the fear could be the first step toward having the strength to combat the drug problem, he said. Residents optimistic, but not holding breath Little more than a year ago, Willis invited pastors from the Black Pastor's Association to a prayer breakfast to discuss the issues of drugs and crime in Huntington's communities. He sponsored two prayer breakfasts over the course of two weeks, and had exactly two people, of the approximately one dozen invited, attend. The results were disappointing, he said. This time he is not stopping with just the community's black church leaders, he said. "Whether it's the NAACP, the Boy Scouts or anybody else, I'm going to try to get something going," he said. Community leaders in Fairfield West will welcome any assistance that is offered, said Rebecca Glass, president of the Fairfield West Improvement Council. The group has been working for years to clean up the neighborhood and drive the criminals out. The Improvement Council has already developed a special crime and safety subcommittee to discuss such issues, Glass said. The group is responsible for urging the Huntington Police Department to compose its most wanted list. It has also worked closely with the Huntington Violent Crimes and Federal Drug Task Force gathering tips for fighting the problems the community has seen. The Fairfield West Improvement Council has made the effort, but the small group, with continually changing members, has not been able to get the full support it needs from the bulk of the community for their efforts to be successful, Glass said. The problem has been that many in the community claim to have developed a live-and-let-live attitude and don't become actively involved, Glass said. "People say that, but I really think everyone wants to see something happen," she said. "I'm optimistic that it will." Rev. Samuel Chambers is the pastor of the Young African Methodist Episcopal Church at the corner of Artisan Avenue and 18th Street. The church is situated just blocks from the hotspot of drug activity in Fairfield West. An effort that would bring everyone together, especially those in the church community, is exactly what is needed in the area, he said. "A unified church always makes a difference," he said. Chambers sees the drug problem as being more of a city-wide dilemma, rather than one that is concentrated in one area. The drugs might be sold on Artisan Avenue, but people from all over the city come there to buy them, he said. An effort to remove the problem from Fairfield West, would only displace the problem to another area of town, he said. "Artisan Avenue is no worse than any other part of town," he said. Chambers has lived next door to his church for the past seven years. In that time, neither his home nor the church has been vandalized or burglarized, he said. Brooks, who is desperately seeking a change in the community and who lives two blocks away, cannot say the same. Several years ago her home was burglarized. "It is something that you never forget," she said. Despite the burglary and the activity she sees on a regular basis, she does not plan to move from the neighborhood. "You can't allow them to force you out of your home," she said. While Brooks has attended only a few meetings of the improvement council, she said a new effort would likely spur her to become more involved once again. Meanwhile, it's still business as usual Wednesday night undercover officers pulled onto Artisan Avenue and within two minutes bought crack cocaine and made two arrests, Johnson said. It was the same scenario the night before, and a similar one Thursday night on 12th Avenue, he said. "I'm a familiar face in the neighborhood and I was able to buy drugs," he said. The HPD Drug Unit has gone into the neighborhood and made buys at least once a week for the past month, he said. This week, the results have been seven arrests. All of the other efforts have also resulted in at least two arrests per night. The past week also held another more disturbing arrest. Monday, police arrested a woman in her Artisan Avenue apartment for allegedly allowing drug dealers to use her home to sell drugs while her two children were present, according to an HPD report. The woman took crack cocaine as payment from the dealers in exchange for allowing them to use the home, the report said. She was charged with two counts of child neglect, according to the report. It is too early to tell whether the increased attention the area has received from his department, the community and the media has had an impact on the drug business, Johnson said he has noticed a change in the people being arrested. "We've cleaned up the local street-level people and now most of what we're seeing more people from out of town," he said. There have been instances where the police department has gone into the area, and it was unusually quiet, Johnson said. Then there are times when it takes only minutes to make a buy or witness a buy, he said. Brooks, who frequently goes through the area, claims to have seen some difference in the number of people she sees hanging out on the street corners. "There seems to be a difference in the past few weeks," she said. "The other day I didn't see as many people out hanging around as usual." Brooks is optimistic that a renewed focused effort could continue to make a difference. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom