The 16-year-old boy told police he tried to sell crack on a recent summer night so he could buy new clothes, and maybe, one day, a shiny new car.
He sat in the police station with his head down, wearing a blue baseball cap, blue sweatpants and expensive new basketball shoes.
”I had no money and I thought I could get some,” the youngster explained.
His mother stood over him, crying.
”You cannot do this to yourself or to me,” she pleaded. ”I know your goals. I talk to you about it every day. Your association with those dealers is going to be your hell hole.”
The boy is luckier than most crack dealers working on the streets of south suburban Robbins, which could be any of the dozens of cities and towns in the United States where the drug has devoured users and sellers with equal ferocity. In most cases, there is no one to beg them to stop.
On Tuesday, President Bush will attempt to turn up the volume on the fight against drug abuse when he announces an antidrug strategy that includes provisions for foreign aid,
See Drugs, pg. 12
more prisons and additional funds for local drug enforcement.
The obstacles to success are clearly formidable.
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In Robbins, an impoverished town of 13,000 about 16 miles south of the Loop, the war against drugs has yet to be fought.
Crack first surfaced about a year and a half ago, according to police. Public housing projects and low-rent districts were prime targets for dealers who quickly learned that the cash-strapped, 26-member police force would have a hard time keeping up with them. Within months, the crack trade mushroomed. Today, dozens of dealers work the town.
”Every little son-of-a-gun wants to deal a bag of crack,” said Sgt. Charles Harris, of the Robbins Police Department. ”We had a 9-year-old holding the stuff.
”They deal 24 hours a day,” said Harris. ”They`re doing what they want to do-sell crack, hang around and get stupid. As long as it`s not raining, it`s peak selling time.”
Robbins is one of a group of poor suburbs being inundated with the drug and its tragic consequences. In Robbins or nearby Harvey, according to police, dealers can be seen selling crack on the street, in dimly lighted alleys and parking lots.
On a recent night, Harris, 32, sat in the back of a car watching through binoculars as dealers worked at a steady pace.
Occasionally, Harris said, he must borrow a friend`s van for surveillance because dealers and their spotters have identified the department`s undercover vehicles.
Cars flowed through a parking lot of the housing projects at 135th Street and Woodlawn Avenue to buy crack. Young men approached the cars and handed over small packages. Within one five-minute span, 15 cars pulled through the lot.
Many of the buyers are teenagers from more affluent suburbs such as Alsip and Orland Park, according to police.
Like others in law enforcement, Harris has learned the frustrations of combating the dealers.
Typically, a seller will carry only small amounts of crack, keeping the remainder in various hiding places. Most arrests generate mounds of paperwork and have little effect on the crack trade, Harris said. Sometimes when taking suspects into custody, he imparts a simple message:
”I try to emphasize to them, `What kind of future is this? You want to sell drugs and look over your shoulder for me all the time?` ”
Police insist that at some point, young people will have to heed that message, or be forced to, if they are to have any success fighting drug abuse. Even if a few of the dollars from Bush`s plan find their way to Chicago`s south suburbs, police will still be greatly outnumbered.
Currently, seemingly simple problems, such as coordinating antidrug activities among police departments, cause trouble. In one instance, according to sources, two agencies made plans to raid the same crack house at the same time-an action that could have imperiled officers` lives-and missed each other only by luck.
”There is no clearinghouse for information,” said Harvey Police Chief Nick Graves. ”We`re so busy here, and other departments are so busy, they don`t take the time to tell us what`s going on, or they`re afraid to. Then it just keeps going, and it moves from spot to spot. It`s got to be a joint effort. What are you going to do with 10 undercover agents in 10
communities?”
The fight against crack in Robbins, for example, is carried out by Harris and two other plainclothes investigators. Although the suburb is known to be a source of crack for other communities, organizing drug raids with other police agencies is not easy, Harris said.
The Northeastern Metropolitan Enforcement Group, a regional antidrug task force staffed by state, local and county police, is partly funded by more affluent suburbs, which by agreement receive most of the task force`s attention. Robbins and some of its neighbors can`t afford to contribute and thus must rely on their own minimal resources.
The crack trade in the suburbs has led to violence and murder.
Last March 22, according to Inspector Benjamin Evans of the Harvey police, James Weltmeyer, 32, of Hazel Crest, and a friend, drove to a liquor store at 159th Street and Park Avenue in Harvey to pick up a six-pack of beer during a work break.
While the friend went into the store, Weltmeyer drove the car about 50 yards into an adjacent alley, police reports said. He approached four men who were selling crack, police said.
Weltmeyer ”asked me if I had a rock,” one of the four men, Lionel Mitchel, 20, later said in a statement to police.
”I said, `yes.` Then I sold him a rock for $20,” Mitchel said. ”He asked me if I had more. I showed him two more rocks.”
Mitchel said Weltmeyer grabbed the crack and tried to flee, according to police.
Mitchel and Bobby Anderson, 17, allegedly opened fire with handguns. Weltmeyer was hit six times. Mitchel and Anderson were charged with murder.
Police quoted Anderson as saying he was dealing crack for a Chicago man who dealt drugs in Harvey and was known by police to have ties with a large, Chicago-based street gang. For every $100 of crack Mitchel and Anderson sold, according to Anderson`s statement, they were paid a $20 commission.
The crack problem is so severe that even bright teenagers like the 16-year-old arrested in Robbins, who wants to go away to college, are unable to resist the lure of selling and using the highly potent, smokable form of cocaine.
Police officers wearily concede the futility of persuading young people to work in fast-food restaurants for the minimum wage instead of earning hundreds of dollars selling crack. And they say they are ill-equipped and understaffed to deal effectively with the rapid spread of the drug.
Some are skeptical that the Bush plan will have much of an effect.
”I don`t think the money will trickle down to the local police departments,” said Chicago Police Supt. LeRoy Martin. ”The money out there on the streets for drugs and the appetite Americans have for it is so great that we`ll be hard pressed to remove the dealers from the streets. When you arrest them, there are two guys on the street applauding because they can take over his turf.
”We`re going to do just like the fat lady does when she wants to lose weight,” Martin added. ”We`re going to have to consume less. We`re going to have to get tough on our people. Then the drug dealers will move out because they won`t have a market.”
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Crack houses, where the drug is sold or consumed, frequently are barricaded with wooden shutters and reinforced doors, allowing dealers to destroy the narcotics before police can break in.
Last month, Harris was able to walk through the front door of an abandoned building on 140th Street west of Lawndale Avenue that was occupied by crack users.
In a second-floor apartment, three people sat around a soiled mattress on the floor. The windows were covered with shades tacked into the wall. The ceiling was falling apart. Kittens roamed the garbage-filled house. A radio on the floor played a talk show.
A search uncovered no crack. But Harris insisted that the occupants had been smoking the drug, and he demanded their pipes.
”We threw them out the window,” one of the men finally admitted.
From there, Harris headed to the public housing projects near 139th and Grace Streets to disrupt the dealing there.
As Harris watched from a distance, the 16-year-old in the new basketball shoes approached two men in a car and appeared to offer them crack. Harris ran toward the boy, arrested him and found six $10 bags of crack in his pocket.
Harris, who has arrested dozens of residents for involvement in the crack trade, was stunned that this boy was dealing drugs. He knew him from the neighborhood, knew that he had been a good student who wanted to attend Georgetown University.
”This would have been the last person I would have searched,” Harris said. ”I would have searched everyone before him.”
Back at the police station, the 16-year-old listened to his mother and Harris reprimand his actions.
”Everybody can see the good side to selling drugs,” said the boy`s mother, who admitted to once having a drug problem herself. ”But then you got court and all those continuances, and you pay lawyers for the rest of your life and you still go to the penitentiary.
”They saved you tonight. You`ve got hope and dreams, and some of those kids don`t have hopes or dreams. They just got tomorrow.”
