THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, October 26, 1996 TAG: 9610260237
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY NANCY LEWIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 96 lines
When the bullets began to fly around his new Hillside Avenue home, Norman Strader did an about-face.
At first, he and his wife Evelyn had taken comfort in the fact that their two young children, whose bedrooms were on the front of the house, would probably be rescued first if there were a fire.
But it appeared that the children were first in the line of fire.
In two short weeks, the Straders had discovered that the Bayview neighborhood they had just moved into was a virtual war zone. Drug dealers operated what amounted to an open-air market just down the street, and the criminal element flourished while law-abiding citizens lived in fear.
Evelyn, 33, and Norman, 30, refused to knuckle under. They never flinched, except for the times they had to flatten themselves on the floor to avoid the random gunfire that ricocheted through their living room.
They remained steadfast when their van was doused with gasoline and when Norman became a real-life target for the disgruntled criminals.
The couple mobilized their community and fought back. They enlisted the help of police, the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority and a host of other city agencies in their counterattack. With the help of Bayview Civic League presidentJohn Roger, they made logs of illegal activity to help police in their investigations.
Today, the neighborhood is a safer place to live, say the Straders, who won the city's 1996 Crime Prevention Award for their efforts.
They'll be in a crowd of hundreds that will cheer Nov. 2, when a big mechanical claw opens and then crunches down on a corner of a brick apartment building that used to house drug dealers and users.
The demolition of 925 and 929 Hillside Ave. is the occasion of a community celebration and the culmination of a week of events marking the city's Red Ribbon Campaign. The campaign spotlights ways citizens can help rid their neighborhoods of illegal drug use and sales and the lawlessness that frequently accompanies those behaviors.
Evelyn Strader says it was her naivete that led her to take action.
``We were already living in fear,'' she recalled. ``It was like a Stop & Shop for drugs, an open-air market.''
Evelyn pointed to an open piece of land down the street.
``Four-year-olds were finding bags of crack,'' she said. ``Here, look at this.''
She stuck her right forefinger into a hole in the cinderblock of the house. A bullet, she said nonchalantly.
``We didn't start out to do any of this,'' Evelyn said. ``One moment you say, `I'm moving,' and the next, `I'm not going to let them chase me out.' ''
Theirs is the only single-family, owner-occupied home in the neighborhood. Apartment buildings are the rule.
Norman Strader says it wasn't ``courage so much as disgust and anger'' that motivated him.
``Eventually, neighbors started calling us,'' Evelyn said. ``I told them to report everything to us, that it might be part of a puzzle even if it didn't seem important to them.''
``We had a shotgun right by the front door at all times,'' Norman said.
For Norman, the ``clincher'' came when a visiting friend was ``propositioned by an eight-month-pregnant prostitute,'' he said.
Nowadays, the Straders keep an eye on 500 residences as part of the Block Watch they helped to initiate.
But two years of constant vigilance has taken its toll.
``It's not the same now,'' Evelyn says, relating a recent incident when her children heard ceremonial gunfire during a public event and automatically hit the ground.
Police responded to the many calls for help placed by the Straders and their neighbors by patrolling more often, and NRHA got into the act by purchasing the two 16-unit apartment buildings that will fall next Saturday.
NRHA used $140,000 in Community Development and Community Improvement funds to buy the properties. The owner cooperated by refusing to sell to the drug dealers for more money.
Eventually, the plots will be sold for development as single-family homes, and the city will recoup its investment, according to Rosalyn Wray, neighborhood consultant specialist for NRHA.
As for the criminals, ``If you make it uncomfortable, they'll go away,'' Wray says. ``Turn your back on them, and they'll flourish. But unless the neighborhood lets us know . . .''
Meanwhile, the Straders are reticent to draw attention to themselves because, they say, those who made their neighborhood unsafe are still at large.
``But if there's another family living out there under siege, I want them to know,'' Evelyn says. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
MIKE HEFFNER
The Virginian-Pilot
Evelyn and Norman Strader, with civic league president John Roger,
are working to shut down drug activity.
RED RIBBON EVENTS
Family March Against Drugs - today, noon, Janaf Shopping Center,
Military Highway.
Candlelight March - Monday, Oct. 28, 6:30 p.m. Norfolk State
University, Brown Hall.
Drug House Demolition - Saturday, Nov. 2, 2 p.m. 925-929 Hillside
Ave. by CNB