Pubdate: Sun, 18 May 2003 Source: Washington Post (DC) Copyright: 2003 The Washington Post Company Contact: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491 Author: Michael Amon, Washington Post Staff Writer VIOLENCE ATTENDS A DRUG'S RISE Just before dusk Wednesday evening, Jim Ross jumped out of his pickup truck and walked hurriedly up to an old friend on Holly Lane in Waldorf. Smoking a cigarette, he asked the friend to hang out that night. "We'll get the 'Three Amigos' together again," Ross said, pointing to another man waiting in the pickup truck. But the friend, who spoke to a reporter on condition of anonymity, declined. What happened next, authorities and drug experts say, is an extreme example of the violence associated with a drug that is on the rise in Southern Maryland: phencyclidine hydrochloride, or PCP. The reluctant friend said Ross grabbed him by the throat and yelled, "You think you're better than me. I'll kill you." The friend escaped, but Ross then ran inside a house and stabbed another friend, Larry R. Matthews, 47, several times with a switchblade, critically wounding him, according to the Charles County sheriff's office. Then Ross walked across Holly Lane to three strangers sitting and talking on a porch and stabbed them, authorities said. Seriously injured were Samuel Lewis, a 79-year-old Alzheimer's patient; his caretaker, Frances A. Ford, 55; and George Williams, 53. When sheriff's officers arrived at the scene, they found Ross beating Ford over the head with a flower pot, according to court records. Ross ran at the officers with a stick, but police were able to subdue him, said Capt. Joseph C. Montminy. James A. Ross Jr., 54, of Waldorf was charged with four counts of attempted first-degree murder and four counts of first-degree assault. On Friday, a judge ordered him held without bond. According to witnesses and authorities, the cigarette Ross smoked before the attacks was laced with PCP. And the violence that resulted is becoming more prevalent as the drug comes to rural areas from Washington and Prince George's County, authorities said. "I just brought it up at a meeting last month -- we've had more cases of PCP," said Detective Sgt. Randy Stephens of the Maryland State Police barrack in La Plata. "And the cases we've had . . . have been violent cases." No statistics were available on the drug's prevalence in Southern Maryland. It still lags behind crack cocaine and marijuana, investigators said. PCP users like the drug for its long, intense high -- up to six hours -- and because it is not physiologically addictive, said Vince Fighera, director of treatment and clinical service at Jude House Inc., a residential drug and alcohol treatment center in Bel Alton. The drug was developed in the 1950s as a tranquilizer and is snorted, smoked or eaten. It was popular in the Washington area in the 1970s and '80s, but usage after that was on a decline until two or three years ago, narcotics investigators said. The drug causes intense hallucinations that its users will act on -- often violently and with a high tolerance for pain, said Fighera. During a stretch of eight hours last month, Stephens said, troopers in Charles County had two unusual and dangerous encounters with suspects allegedly on PCP. On April 11 about 5:50 p.m., Jerome L. Silver II, who police said had been smoking PCP, tried to punch a trooper who had pulled him over for allegedly speeding. The trooper sprayed Silver, 27, with Mace but to no effect, police said. Silver then punched an officer and a police dog before running across a busy Route 301, police said. Silver shouted, "Kill me, kill me, I want to die," when officers finally apprehended him, according to charging documents in District Court. Then, about 2:20 a.m. April 12, a driver who police said was smoking PCP led two state troopers on a 90 mph chase north on Route 301, according to court records. When Bryant A. West, 23, was arrested, troopers found crack cocaine and a small jar of PCP, according to court records. On May 7, state police in Leonardtown charged John L. Abell IV, 39, with attempted kidnapping when, high on PCP, he tried to force a woman into his van after asking her if she believed in God, Lt. Brian Cedar said. Later, when police found him, he was drawing figures in the roadside gravel on Route 243, Cedar said. While in custody, Abell shouted racial epithets at black troopers and had to be restrained by several officers, Cedar said. PCP can be purchased in Southern Maryland, but it is produced mostly in Washington, said Lt. Scott Whitcraft of the Charles County sheriff's office narcotics enforcement section. The drug can cause brain damage, Fighera said, adding that habitual users "stand out in a crowd." He tells patients to think of their brain as an old-fashioned switchboard. "If you take PCP . . . you are haphazardly rerouting the whole circuit board," Fighera said. "When you're done, you'll be left with something you like or something you don't like." - --- MAP posted-by: Jackl