‘Up With Hope! Down With Dope!’ : Pushers’ Rule of Streets Challenged in South L.A.

Four blocks west of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, an elderly man gives the thumbs-up sign as a suspected drug dealer is handcuffed and hustled into an unmarked police car.

On 112th Street, a handful of Bible-toting ministers march through a housing project, chanting “Up with hope! Down with dope!” A woman in curlers leans out of a window and cries, “Thank God you’ve come!”

In the window of a tiny Watts apartment, a hand-lettered sign reads: “Good people live here too!”

Across South-Central, the good people are frustrated. Some are fighting back.

At risk to their businesses, homes and themselves, a small but some say growing number of people are challenging the drug dealers and gangs who have claimed many neighborhoods as their private domains. Through intimidation and violence, the pushers and gang members have come to rule the streets and silence disapproving residents who retreat behind barred windows and triple-locked doors.

The result, say police and local leaders, is that many South-Central residents have reached the breaking point, and some are taking action.

Ministers are staging anti-drug rallies and prayer sessions in front of suspected rock houses. Police say increasing numbers of residents are tipping them about drug buys and dealers. Community groups are setting up telephone hot lines and distributing manuals to help people spot drug dealers or get their children out of gangs.

And some people, unwilling to keep quiet any longer, are simply standing up to tough-talking thugs. One longtime South-Central woman who lives two doors from a rock house recently ignored threats on her life and called police when her neighbor refused to quit dealing.

“I had already called the cops twice, and sure enough I called them again,” said the woman, who asked not to be identified. “I’m determined not to live in fear of those punks.”

The vast majority, however, are scared of those who peddle drugs and violence on the city’s Southside and choose not to get involved, according to police. “It’s like so many things: Unless it directly affects you, you let it go,” said Lt. Bob Ruchhoft of the Los Angeles Police Department’s gang detail. “Unless you get the gun in your face, you look the other way.”

The palpable fear is based on ugly trends. Gang killings in Los Angeles are setting a record pace, up nearly 22% citywide for the first nine months of this year. Nearly half of the 162 gang murders have occurred in South-Central. Homicides in general in South-Central are up 12.4% this year. One out of every three murders in Los Angeles occurs in the four police divisions that make up the South Bureau.

Drug sales and use, particularly of rock cocaine, have soared this year. Much of the contraband, police say, comes from South-Central, where crime in general has climbed 13.4% over last year. Police blame the rise in robberies, burglaries and aggravated assaults on gangs and drug addicts financing their habits. Adding to the fear is a string of 17 murders linked to a man known as the Southside Serial Slayer who has singled out black women, mostly prostitutes.

“These are mean streets,” said Mike A. Genelin, head of the district attorney’s hard-core gang unit. “You can compare it to a war zone because there are so many shootings, so many guns, that people have to be frightened anytime they walk the streets.”

“It was safer on the beaches of Normandy than it is some days here in Watts,” said Richard Goodman, a World War II veteran and board member of a senior citizen center on East 67th Street. Goodman sleeps with a shotgun at the foot of his bed.

‘More Heavily Armed’

On a recent radio talk show, gang expert Steve Valdivia noted that gangs “are more heavily armed” than in the past. “Absolutely, they are more violent than ever before,” said the executive director of the city-county Community Youth Gang Services. Many gangs, he added, are arming themselves to compete in the lucrative drug trade.

Police Lt. Mike Melton said drug dealing in South-Central is out of control. The reason, he said, is crack, a highly addictive, rock-hard form of cocaine. It is easy to manufacture, plentiful and relatively cheap, making it tough for police to stop.

Despite the presence of a special LAPD anti-drug task force, Melton said street sales of rock cocaine have continued unchecked. The task force, headed by Melton until it was recently disbanded so police could focus on other neighborhoods, made close to 2,000 arrests in the first nine months of this year. “We were out there 18 hours a day, making arrest after arrest after arrest,” he said, “and still it seemed like we were losing the battle.”

Near the offices of the Community Youth Sports and Arts Foundation in the 4800 block of Crenshaw Boulevard, several dealers continue selling rock cocaine despite several police raids, said Chilton Alphonse, the foundation’s director. “These people have no fear of the police,” Alphonse said, “because the money is so good, so easy.”

Drug Money

Gwen Cordova, co-chairperson of the church-based South-Central Organizing Committee, agreed: “When a kid can make $3,000 a week selling drugs, why would he take a job at McDonald’s for $3.50 an hour? In a capitalistic society they’re taught to go after the best deal--and unfortunately they do. These kids go in and buy a car in the blink of an eye when it takes their parents months or years to make such a purchase.”

Drugs are no longer a party tool or method of escape, but have become a life style, according to Darnell Bell, a drug and alcohol counselor at the Avalon Carver Community Center.

“It is everywhere,” he said. “Almost everybody knows somebody who’s either selling, using, or both. The other day six guys were playing basketball at a local auditorium for $1,000 a game. They were all dealers, and a thousand dollars a pop was like chicken feed to them.”

The best police can hope to achieve on their own, Melton said, is containment. To make progress, he said, they need help--particularly from those who live with the problems eye to eye.

“We need their ears and eyes to guide us. . . ,” Melton said. “But until a lot of people decide to get involved, it’s going to be near impossible to make real inroads.”

Churches Take the Lead

Sensing the frustration of the community and acknowledging their own failure to confront the problem sooner, a string of black churches have taken the most visible lead in the fight to reclaim the streets. In this part of the city the church is unquestionably the most powerful institution. The Rev. Charles Mims of Tabernacle Faith Baptist Church knows that, and he has enlisted other clergy to “erect a pulpit in the streets.”

“As ministers we have been remiss,” said Mims, whose 1,000-member church is on the edge of Nickerson Gardens housing project in Watts. “We preach about heaven on Sunday and let the world go to hell on Monday. . . . We decided if Christ was here today, he’d be where the action is, out there,” he said, pointing to the cinder-block complexes of apartments which police periodically assign a special task force to patrol.

On this day, Mims and four other ministers, wearing their Sunday robes, ventured into Nickerson Gardens, preaching and passing out Bibles. Mims, a former middleweight boxer with a deep, raspy voice, led the way.

“Up with hope!” he shouted.

“Down with dope!” the others replied in a cry that echoed between the buildings.

Songs and Prayers

Doors and curtains opened as people stared at the group shuffling along the trashy breezeway. At one point, the ministers broke into song, then knelt and prayed, asking the “Lord to stop by here.”

As they finished, a little girl ran over to Mims and handed him a daisy. He handed her a Bible and a dollar bill, then kissed her. Fifty yards away a pair of uniformed officers stood watch.

When Mims began his street preaching two years ago, he did so unprotected. But police objected, and Mims grudgingly acknowledges that the clergy is no longer immune to violence.

James Cleaver, a deputy to county Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, whose district includes much of South-Central, said Mims has no illusions about ending drug sales. “He’s just trying to make it uncomfortable for dealers,” said Cleaver, who called Mims a “new breed” of preacher. “The whole point is to spotlight the dealer so it gets so uncomfortable that he moves out of the neighborhood.”

The key to Mims’ approach is the media, particularly television. The animated preacher has routinely invited reporters and camera crews to follow him into the inner-city as he marches on rock houses. The publicity is not welcomed by dealers. The Rev. Louis Carter said he was threatened after escorting one TV crew to a suspected drug house near his church in the 8700 block of South Central Avenue.

‘We Made an Impact’

“When I came in and brought the TV cameras, the local dealer sent me a message,” Carter said. “They told me, ‘Rev, you better mind what you’re doing.’ That’s a threat. But you see, we made an impact. We scratched some surface.”

Not everyone approves of Mims and his approach.

One man, who only identified himself as Lionel, cheered as the preacher departed Nickerson Gardens. “They come, hand out books, generally make everybody feel good for a few minutes,” he said, sipping a beer from a brown sack. “But it don’t change anything. Their word don’t stand a chance against a dealer packing a gun.”

Estelle Van Meter, a well-known South-Central activist, said Mims and the ministers “are all show.” She contends all of this is an act to raise money to build new sanctuaries and a following.

“He wants to build a reputation, a name,” said Van Meter, who has lived in the area for nearly a half-century, most recently near 81st Street and Central Avenue. She said most people on her street lock up by 4 p.m. and rarely go out after dark. She said there are streets that she used to walk freely, but now is afraid to drive even in broad daylight.

People Turn Away

More police would help, she said, but that is not the sole answer. She said it is up to the people of South-Central to stand up to drug dealers and gang members. But all too often they turn away, she said, out of fear.

“They tell me they don’t want to get involved,” Van Meter said. “I tell those people, ‘You’re already involved if you’re breathing.’ ”

Virginia Taylor Hughes, founder of the 80-member South Central Merchants for Community Improvements, said too many people simply “bury their heads in the sand like an ostrich” when it comes to cleaning up neighborhoods. “They sit around in the beauty shop or coffee shop and complain that something must be done, and then look the other way.”

One reason, she said, is some families depend on income generated by drug sales and other crimes. To avoid arrest, drug dealers are increasingly employing young gang members to peddle their stuff, police say.

“If Johnny is dealing drugs and providing a major portion of the family’s income,” Hughes said, “chances are his parents are going to look away.”

In South-Central, getting involved can be difficult, said Leon Watkins, a counselor with the youth gang services. It is a vast area, he said, covering nearly 55 square miles. “It’s one thing to say, ‘I want to get involved.’ It’s another to actually do it.”

Family HelpLine

One way is to answer phones for the agency’s Family HelpLine, a 3-month-old, 24-hour hot line for parents of gang members. “A lot of parents are scared of the gangs, they feel powerless to deal with their kids,” Watkins said. “We’re trying to help parents stand up to their kids.”

Others, like the South-Central merchants group, have approached the problem from an economic angle, offering more than 200 jobs the last three summers to young people. And the South Central Organizing Committee, a coalition of 25 churches representing 45,000 families, is pushing for state and federal legislation to free up money to hire more police.

“I’ve lived in this community for 25 years, and the drug problem and crime problem has never been this bad, even during the Watts riots,” Cordova said. “The only thing that is going to turn this around is more police on the streets.”

Police have tried to spark interest by distributing thousands of copies of a flier entitled, “Rock Cocaine: what is it doing to your community.” The leaflet, which describes a typical rock house, includes police phone numbers in hopes people will tip authorities about drug activity.

Melton said it has produced dividends many times over. Many of the arrests by the anti-drug task force were the result of anonymous phone calls, he said.

People are cooperating because they trust the police more than they did a decade ago, said Genelin of the district attorney’s office. “That’s the result of improved community relations between residents and police,” he said. “But that trust has not come overnight. It has taken five or 10 years to get to this point.”

Big Difference

And, he noted, there is a big difference between alerting police anonymously about a rock house and testifying in open court against a drug dealer.

“It’s much more dangerous but necessary if we are really going to get anywhere,” Genelin said. “Unfortunately, not enough people have come forward.”

Still, phone tips are the key weapon for police. One such call recently led undercover detectives to a two-story apartment complex in the 4300 block of West 28th Street. Four men had rented an upstairs unit to stash and cut their cocaine before hawking it in the West Adams area. After a time, buyers came directly to the apartment, often at all hours of the night.

Disturbed by the noise and outsiders hanging around, another resident called Melton’s task force office. Undercover officers made a buy, and two days later police moved in. They confiscated a small amount of cocaine and several automatic weapons. As the men were led away in handcuffs, residents of the complex cheered.

“It was incredible,” Melton recalled. “They were on the balconies and in the doorways clapping.”

On another night, Melton’s team arrested two suspected dealers on 39th Street near Normandie Avenue. Nearby, an elderly man standing in his front yard said, “It’s about time we get those people out of here.” A sign in his yard read: “No drug sales on this block.”