THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, January 2, 1996 TAG: 9601020052
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON FRANK, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH LENGTH: Long : 113 lines
When the Portsmouth undercover narcotics detective answered the telephone on Sept. 26, he realized the information was solid and could lead to an arrest. After all, his informant had been right at least twice before.
The tipster said that a man dressed in white was selling smack on a corner in Lincoln Park, a public housing community well-known as the center of the city's heroin market.
Five minutes later, the detective and two other officers drove onto Lexington Drive, a poorly lighted street that cuts through Lincoln Park, to make one of the 78 drug arrests he helped complete during 1995.
It was a busy year for him and others on the 12-officer narcotics squad. They made more then 600 arrests, but that didn't slow this city's thriving drug trade significantly, police say.
Three months after the arrest, the detective testified that he saw the man in white standing with two other people in a grassy area between the road and the Lincoln Park apartments. As the unmarked police car pulled up to the curb, he said, the man turned and threw what looked like a white, paper napkin into the air.
``It was very obvious,'' the detective quietly told General District Judge S. Lee Morris on Dec. 27. ``It was an underhand throw.''
When the officers recovered the white napkin, they found 10 individually packaged ``decks'' of heroin, the officer testified. Omar Sharif Atkins, 22, was placed under arrest.
Judge Morris ruled that Atkins should be charged with possession with intent to distribute heroin. The suspect was returned to a cell in the City Jail.
The narcotics cop who testified that day was in on 12 percent of the city's drug arrests last year. He asked not to be identified in this story for fear that he and his family might be put in danger. The exposure, he said, might also jeopardize his ability to continue undercover work.
Of the suspects the undercover agent helped arrest during the year, 38 were in their 20s. Twenty-six were in their teens and 10 were in their 30s. The ages of four were not known.
In all, the agent and his fellow drug officers made 657 drug arrests in 1995 through part of December, the Police Department reported.
Still, the illegal drug trade continued to flourish while helping to fuel Portsmouth's violent-crime rate - the region's highest.
``The problem that we tend to run into is that when we remove a drug dealer from the street, there is always someone to take his place,'' said Amber Whittaker, spokeswoman for the Portsmouth Police Department. ``Then you have to go back and focus on them, too.''
It also makes solving drug-related murders and robberies as well as solving aggravated assaults difficult because witnesses and victims are frequently afraid to testify.
This year, the problem got worse. The murder rate soared when the city set a one-year record of 37 before the end of November. Half the murders in 1994 occurred in the city's six public housing communities, and almost one-third of 1995's murders occurred there. Many of these neighborhoods, like Lincoln Park, are infested with drug dealers, police say.
Police estimate that almost half of the murders in 1995 were associated in some way with the drug trade. They are sure that 10 were directly tied to drugs.
The difficulty of stamping out the drug dealers was highlighted in May when Portsmouth police made possibly the most dramatic drug arrest of the year.
Nathaniel Richardson, who police claim to be one of the city's biggest crack cocaine dealers, was arrested in an apartment at Southside Gardens on Fifth Street. They said they found crack cocaine valued at $72,000 in the apartment. At the time, Richardson was out on bail in connection with the March death of his girlfriend, 19-year-old Telisha Johnson.
At a bail revocation hearing for Richardson in May, police testified that even with two serious felony charges against him, Richardson was still operating his profitable crack cocaine business.
Though prosecutors argued that the only way to keep Richardson from continuing to sell crack cocaine in Portsmouth was to keep him in jail, Judge Robert Babb refused to revoke his bail. Richardson remains free awaiting trial.
Richardson's neighborhood of Southside Gardens was one of several mentioned by police as having the most drug activity in 1995. Also mentioned by police were the neighborhoods of Park View, Ebony Heights, Fairwood Homes and Cavalier Manor. The public housing communities with the most drug arrests were Lincoln Park and Ida Barbour.
Often arrests were made through telephone tips like the one that led to the heroin arrest in Lincoln Park. Other methods included undercover purchases, routine traffic stops and search warrants.
The drug most often found during arrests was crack cocaine, police said. Following crack in frequency were heroin and marijuana.
Once police analyze the totals, the number of drug arrests this year is expected to be similar to that of last year, when police made 707 arrests, Whittaker said.
The drug problem and its associated violence has gotten so persistent in Portsmouth that both the FBI and the DEA have come in to help. The FBI started a task force last fall aimed at the city's most violent drug dealers. The DEA is working with two of Portsmouth's narcotics detectives.
The federal assistance is helping, Whittaker said, but no miracle cures should be expected.
``The drug trade is ever-changing,'' Whittaker said. ``When it changes, we also have to change. . . . We continue our efforts to make progress, but it may not be reflected in the statistics.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff graphic by Robert D. Voros
One man's war on drugs: In 1995, a Portsmouth narcotics officer made
78 arrests - which accounted for 12 percent of all drug arrests made
in the city. Numbers in circles indicate numbers of arrests made in
that area.
for copy of graphic, see microfilm.
KEYWORDS: CRIME PORTSMOUTH DRUG ARRESTS by CNB