
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, January 22, 1995                   TAG: 9501230029
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: DIANE STRUZZI STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

MEAN STREETS CLEAN STREETS

IN ROANOKE, a neighborhood once overrun by crack dealers raises itself from the ruins. Residents walk the streets, children play in a renovated park, and families see the neighborhood as a place of hope.

Sixty miles to the east, several Lynchburg neighborhoods find themselves in the early stages of decay. A man packs a gun to take out the trash. Open-air crack markets thrive within walking distance of the city's police station. Dealers brazenly sell to neighborhood children on their way home from school.

These street stories tell the tale of crime in Roanoke and Lynchburg - the business of dealing drugs, the challenge confronted by neighborhoods, the police response.

Community leaders in Roanoke talk of coming far - and of the need to go further. Serious crime in the city has dropped dramatically over the past three years. In some neighborhoods, the drug trade has been moved off the streets; the dealers forced to conduct business behind closed doors.

But the struggle continues in some neighborhoods where drug dealing, and the violence it brings, remain. And activists talk of the need to reach the children if the decline in the city's crime is to continue.

That goal will take work to achieve, some say. In Roanoke, one out of every 16 high school students does not graduate. In Roanoke, police routinely arrest juveniles more frequently than in the rest of the state.

In Lynchburg the crime and the violence are flagrant. Gunfights have become increasingly familiar, and crack isn't hard to find. One night, Lynchburg officers do a routine walk-through of a rooming house and find 40 grams of crack hidden in a false ceiling. Several weeks earlier, they had found 96 grams of crack, two pistols, a digital scale and $1,409 hidden in the same place.

But at least one crack-infested neighborhood has taken a bold stand. Each week residents face down the dealers by walking the community's streets. Their battle has just begun.

To see its recent past, Roanoke needs only to look at Lynchburg's present.

by CNB