Pubdate: Wed, 27 Dec 2006
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA)
Copyright: 2006 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc
Contact:  http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/340
Author: Simone Weichselbaum, staff writer Christine Olley contributed 
to this report.

PHILLY'S DRUG DEALERS: YOUNGER ALL THE TIME

As Deadly Year Nears the End, a Look at 2 of the Hundreds of Teens 
Who Sell Dope

DRESSED IN A black Dickies suit and black Timberlands,  the 
chubby-faced 17-year-old crack dealer paced around  the desolate lot 
working another graveyard shift.

In the darkness, a steady stream of addicts ambled  toward him to 
make a buy. Then he saw a familiar face:  his close friend's mom. "I 
need a nick," she mumbled to  him. Without hesitation, he sold her a 
nickel bag - $5  worth of crack.

"I was surprised that she was a smoker," Mikey  recalled, months 
after that night. Today he calls it  "the deal I will never forget."

"I was thinking that a real friend wouldn't sell to his  mom," said 
Mikey. "If he found out, how would he feel?  But that is life. If she 
won't get it from me, she will  get it from somewhere else."

On the toughest, meanest streets of Philadelphia,  hundreds of 
youngsters like Mikey live by the rule that  money is thicker than 
anything - even loyalty.

It is one of the most appalling features of  Philadelphia's deadly 
year of crime: The youngest drug  dealers are getting younger.

Cops consider Mikey a veteran dealer. (It's not his  real name; he 
asked that his identity be obscured to  protect him from other 
dealers who don't want the  details of their business exposed.)

Drug dealing now attracts children as young as 10, and  top police 
brass admit they are only beginning to  scratch the surface of the 
kiddie drug world.

More children selling drugs means more children being  shot. Among 
the biggest increases in shooting victims  this year are 
14-year-olds, police said.

Sometimes, the innocent are caught in the crossfire:  The men behind 
the shooting death of 5-year-old Cashae  Rivers - who was killed in 
her family's car on a  Strawberry Mansion street in September - had 
drug  records that stretched back to their teens.

"Drug corners are every police officer's problem,"  Police 
Commissioner Sylvester Johnson said. "I am  holding everyone 
accountable. This is the new focus."

Seeking to understand why some Philadelphia kids risk  their lives to 
sell poison, the Daily News spent weeks  with a teenage drug dealer 
in the Abbotsford Homes  public-housing complex in North 
Philadelphia, and also  visited a busy drug corner in West Kensington 
filled  with high-school hustlers - and found that:

Kids are lured by cheap promises of cash and respect -  currency hard 
to find elsewhere in a city in which 40  percent of public-school 
kids drop out and the supply  of menial jobs for those without a 
diploma is shrinking.

All too frequently, the corner life is the entrance  door to violent 
crime. Young dealers often carry guns  and stand exposed to thugs 
twice their age, who are  quick to pull triggers and spill blood to win turf.

Mikey started selling at 12, the age when he also  bought a revolver 
from another kid in exchange for $50  worth of weed. He has sold 
marijuana and crack cocaine  off and on for five years. He has one gun arrest.

Mikey and other young drug dealers say they don't fear death.

"Most people don't stop hustling," Mikey said. "They  are scared of 
the real world. So they stay on the  streets."

Another dealer, "Donnie," 16, and his corner crew  laughed when asked 
about murder. Donnie is proud of  being a "corner boy." He said he 
and his pals sell  crack around Clearfield and Hartville streets in 
West Kensington, where the only open businesses are bodegas  and barbershops.

"I am not scared," Donnie said, his skinny frame hidden  under his 
tan Edison High School uniform and an  oversize black Rocawear jacket 
that reached his knees.

"I don't care," he shrugged. "You are going to die anyway."

Donnie excused himself. An emerald-green Oldsmobile  driven by a man 
in his 20s pulled up to the corner.  Donnie slinked into the back seat.

"That's his old head," said one of the boys, using  street slang for 
mentor. He was Donnie's boss.

The car sped off.

How to buy six pairs of white Nikes

A desire for designer clothes and shoes drove both  Mikey and Donnie 
to the street corners, or so they say.

Their families couldn't support their hunger for blue  jeans, Nike 
sneakers, Lacoste shirts. The boys said  they had no other choice but 
to find the easiest and  closest job available: hustling.

"I had to do me," said Donnie, explaining in street  slang that he 
had to survive. The lanky teen boasted  that he'd bought six pairs of 
$75 white Nike Air Force  sneakers after his first crack payday at 
age 14. That  way, he wouldn't have to clean his old pair.

Rule One of urban chic: Keep your sneakers spotless.

Those reasons seem superficial, but the truth is that  drug dealing 
can seem an appealing career in tough city  neighborhoods void of 
healthy businesses and jobs.

Forty percent of city residents over age 15 are out of  work and not 
collecting unemployment, according to U.S.  Census data. One-quarter 
of Philadelphians live in  poverty, which can be difficult to escape.

Computers have become central to most city businesses,  yet too many 
kids can barely read at the grade level  for their age group, said 
Elijah Anderson, an urban  sociologist at the University of 
Pennsylvania. Four of  10 public-school students never earn a 
diploma, according to a recent report on Philadelphia's dropout  epidemic.

"They feel alienated," Anderson said. They embrace the  street life 
because "it is functional. You rely on  yourself."

And so, in many tough neighborhoods, the economy is  made up of 
low-wage jobs, government-funded checks, and  an "idiosyncratic, 
irregular underground economy of  bartering, hustling, and begging," 
Anderson said.

Complicating that mix, single mothers and their  children have lost a 
legal source of income to welfare  reform that put five-year limits 
on assistance.

"In this distress, drug dealers are becoming younger  and younger," 
Anderson said.

One narcotics cop said recently that teen dealers  typically don't 
know their Social Security numbers.  Some mfay not have them.

Since 2004, more than 2,000 Philadelphia juveniles have  been 
arrested for selling cocaine-based drugs, the most  popular product 
among young dealers. The largest  increase in those arrests has been 
in the 10-to-12 age  group.

More than 800 children under 18 have been arrested in  Philadelphia 
for gun crimes since 2004, and kids are  being shot at a record rate. 
Fourteen-year-olds have  had one of the highest jumps, said Deputy 
Police  Commissioner Patricia Giorgio Fox. Cops counted 14  shooting 
victims in that age group during the first  eight months of 2006, 
compared with six victims during  the same time in 2005.

"This is our future," Fox said. "Something has to make  these kids 
see differently."

Yet Mikey thinks hustling leads to success faster than  a high-school diploma.

Mikey proudly cited one 30-something dealer he knows  who invested 
his drug money in several North  Philadelphia barbershops. Another 
dealer opened up a  recording studio.

"They went legit," Mikey said with a proud smile.

Andre Chin, 26, case manager in the probationary  program Don't Fall 
Down in the Hood, said Mikey is one  of 50 boys with whom he works 
who have been charged  with gun and drug crimes. The youngest, he 
said, is a  13-year-old boy charged with selling drugs.

Mikey told him how hard it is to turn his life around,  Chin said: 
His mother was too sick to chase after him,  his father was gone, and 
the streets were more  welcoming than his own house.

Mikey and the other boys in Don't Fall Down can save  themselves only 
if they stay away from older drug  dealers and focus on school, Chin warned.

"A lot of these kids need a father figure in their  lives," Chin 
said. "They only have a mother at home who  is busy raising four or 
five kids on below a minimum  wage. Then there is a man on the corner 
who can give  these boys the money that their mothers can't give  them."

Pre-teen and dealing

Mikey had a rough start in life.

His mom, relatives say, busted her knees as she escaped  from a West 
Philadelphia apartment fire with her two  young daughters, three 
years before Mikey's birth. His  mom told a Daily News reporter she's 
in too much pain  to talk about her son.

Mikey's father lives in the Midwest and never talks to  him. His two 
older sisters, ages 32 and 26, moved out  of Abbotsford years ago, 
leaving their baby brother to  fend for himself.

By 12, Mikey rarely went to class.

Instead, he spent his mornings hanging around  Abbotsford Homes with 
his role model - a drug dealer  with wads of cash.

The young man taught Mikey the fun side of being a  hustler. He 
bought Mikey a PlayStation and took him on  drives in his blue 
Pontiac and his orange Oldsmobile  Cutlass Supreme.

He introduced Mikey to the essence of being a man in  their 
neighborhood - hustling while armed.

"You can find an old head and he don't care that much  about you," 
Mikey said. "He knew I had potential to  stand on the block with a 
gun on my hip."

Mikey heeded the advice and started to sell weed.

"I didn't notice it at first," said Mikey's oldest  sister, Shirley, 
32. "My brother could do no wrong."  (Her name has been changed to 
protect Mikey's  identity.)

Shirley wanted to confront the older men in Abbotsford,  but she knew 
better than to get involved with hustlers.

"They would protect him," she said. "I guess they are  respected 
because of their quote-unquote power."

His family caught wind of his new job and sent him to  live near 
Harrisburg with one of his adult sisters.

But Mikey couldn't give up the fast money.

His Philadelphia connections set him up with a dealing  gig in his 
new housing project outside Harrisburg.

Mikey needed protection. He traded $50 worth of  marijuana for a 
stolen "cowboy gun," a .22-caliber  revolver.

"That is how it is in the drug game," Mikey said. "You  need a gun so 
nobody will mess with you."

During his trips back home, Mikey studied crack: how to  package it, 
how to make it, how to use gimmicks to  persuade addicts to come back.

At 14, he was ready for a promotion.

Mikey's Abbotsford contact handed him pre-packaged  baggies of crack 
to sell in Harrisburg. He had trouble  pricing it.

"I was selling big $20 rocks for $5," he said. "I was  messing my money up."

Still, Mikey became tough.

He broke juvenile curfew and cost his family a $375  fine. He pulled 
his cowboy gun on a group of boys who  shouted in his face. A warrant 
was issued for his  arrest.

Mikey moved back to Abbotsford and enrolled as a  freshman at 
Roxborough High School. But instead of  going to class, Mikey made 
money without a middleman.

He bought 8-balls, or 1/8-ounce bags of cocaine, from  various 
dealers across the city. He carried the white  powder back to 
Abbotsford and usually paid an addict  $10 worth of the finished 
product to use the addict's  kitchen.

The two mixed the concoction with baking soda, boiled  it down with 
water, cooled it off, and smashed the rock  into tiny pebbles.

Mikey hated the salty smell of the cooked drug, but his  helper liked 
to take deep breaths as the white paste  simmered on the stove.

At 15, Mikey had a routine. His workday began at 3  p.m., even after 
a typical morning of skipping school.  As users called his pre-paid 
cell phone with their  orders, Mikey raced around Abbotsford on a 
minibike with his crack baggies stuffed in his pockets.

When he got tired, he went to his usual spot.

"I would just walk down the strip or stand on top of  the hill," he 
said. "People know where I would be at."

In darkness, the tree-lined complex is hidden from the  city. It sits 
atop a nondescript hill where the grass  is always cut and children 
play tag in the streets.

Shiny new Mercedes and Cadillacs sit doubled-parked on  the complex's 
curvy roads. The SUVs belong to the older  dealers, who often return 
to Abbotsford to show off  their wealth, Mikey said.

He wanted to live like them and one day open a  business.

When Mikey worked hard, he made more than $1,400 a  night. He usually 
aimed to clock 15-hour shifts,  especially at the beginning of the 
month, when addicts  received their government checks.

He bought mostly clothes and fast food with the cash.  Not wanting to 
look like a thug, he typically dressed  in preppy clothes such as 
tapered blue jeans, Lacoste  shirts and white Adidas sneakers.

Mikey, whose chubby cheeks, bright eyes and wide smile  give him an 
innocent look, never seemed like a  criminal.

But, he said, "once money touches your hand, that is  all you think about."

Giving up freedom

In September 2004, cops nabbed Mikey near the old Budd  Co. building 
on Hunting Park Avenue in East Falls with  $200 worth of crack in his pockets.

Authorities learned of the outstanding warrant for his  gun charge. 
Mikey's decision to pull out his cowboy gun  had caught up with him.

Ten months later, Mikey was sentenced to Don't Fall  Down in the 
Hood, the juvenile probationary program.

He hated it. "I'd rather do my bid" - his jail sentence  - he always said.

Mikey left Roxborough for De La Salle Vocational School  in Bensalem. 
The school gave him the chance to graduate  with a high-school 
diploma and earn a certificate in  general carpentry. Teachers told 
Mikey that carpenters  can earn more than $90,000 a year. But Mikey 
didn't  care. He rarely went to class and continued to sell  drugs 
for another six months.

This past March, Mikey's mother found a pile of crack  baggies in her 
daughter's old bedroom. Mikey admitted  he sold drugs despite being 
on probation. Still, Chin  pushed for Mikey to stay in the program 
and asked Mikey  to promise to quit.

"He needs a male figure who is constantly there," said  Chin, who 
believed in Mikey.

When Mikey ditched Don't Fall Down classes at Temple  University, 
Chin drove around Abbotsford to find him.

When Mikey complained that he didn't have enough money  to ride SEPTA 
to the university, Chin gave him tokens.

Still, Mikey became broke and frustrated.

He managed to save $4,200 during the winter, but loaned  his last 
$800 to a friend for bail money. He was  tempted to hustle. Mikey 
struggled to avoid the  streets. He even contemplated working at a 
Bensalem McDonald's that paid about $7.50 an hour.

"If I got a job, I would want to hustle again," he  said, explaining 
that he'd use hard-earned money to buy  drugs and sell the dope for more.

Donnie, meanwhile, disappeared. By the end of the  summer, he had 
left his West Kensington corner and  couldn't be reached again.

In September, Mikey gave up. He saved himself the only  way he knew 
how. He turned over his freedom, telling a  judge at a scheduled 
hearing that he didn't want to be  part of his probationary program 
anymore and was  willing to enter a juvenile institution. Mikey knew 
that he didn't have the family support or the will to  stay off the streets.

Mikey is now serving a minimum six-month sentence at  Saint Gabriel's 
Hall in Audubon, Montgomery County, a  boarding school for young criminals.

"I always say that a kid who asked to be placed is  showing signs of 
maturity and is also a cry for help,"  Chin said. "Maybe things will 
work out for him."
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MAP posted-by: Elaine