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Drug Crime Goes Country
By Aaron Gifford | The Post-Standard | January 29, 2006

The log cabin on Olmstead Road near a wooded, winding stretch of Chittenango Creek seems an unlikely place for a drug-related shooting.

But on Dec. 28 Aundre Young was there on business, police said, when he entered Nick Damanski's house in Sullivan, held a loaded revolver to his head and threatened to pull the trigger if a $1,500 marijuana debt went unpaid.

As Young walked off the front porch toward the quiet street, Damanski grabbed a 12-gauge shotgun and fired two slugs, police said, breaking Young's leg.

A week earlier, on Dec. 20, an Oswego County family was terrorized when two armed men invaded and ransacked their Granby home in an unsuccessful search for cash and drugs. The suspects tied up the victims and wielded a sawed-off shotgun and a machete.

In March, three men were arrested on robbery charges after they barged into an Auburn apartment with a handgun, demanding money and drugs. Police said one victim was pistol-whipped.

Each incident involved at least one suspect from Syracuse, but took place in a rural/suburban area or small city outside of Onondaga County. Local law enforcement officials say these cases, though anecdotal, are part of what experts have identified as a national trend: Urban drug violence is going country.

In Central New York, authorities say, that means the crimes and drug trade once viewed as an issue in Syracuse and larger cities are showing up in smaller jurisdictions.

Increased police pressure in the larger cities, competition from other drug dealers, demand for narcotics in smaller towns and a natural trafficking pipeline - the state Thruway - all play a role in the migration, police say.

"Nationally, lots of jurisdictions are seeing urban kinds of crime increasing in rural areas," said David Kennedy, director of the Center for Crime Prevention and Control at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. "It's a relatively recent phenomena. In the last five years, the fastest growth has been in smaller areas, while urban violent crime is slowing down."

According to the most recent FBI statistics:

• Violent crime in Syracuse dropped almost 7 percent from 2003 to 2004, but rose a little more than 1 percent in Auburn, 43 percent in Oneida and 24 percent in Oswego. Officials are unable to specify how much of that is linked to drugs.

• Robberies, which often are linked to the drug trade, were up in Auburn, Oneida and Oswego in 2004, even as the number of robberies dropped in Syracuse.

• Nationwide, from 2003 to 2004, violent crime rose as much as 1.4 percent in counties outside of metropolitan areas, while it dropped 1.4 percent in cities of 100,000 to 250,000 people.

Home invasions are almost always linked to drug activity, officials said, and police agencies in smaller towns have noticed an increase in daytime burglaries, which they believe probably are linked to drugs.

"My experience is whatever is stolen is for drugs, not money," said Madison County Undersheriff Doug Bailey.

Beefed-up law enforcement in Syracuse, Rochester and Utica has forced drug dealers to branch out into smaller cities and towns, local law enforcement officials say.

Take the case of Alexander Cammacho, the accused kingpin of what federal prosecutors called Central New York's largest marijuana trafficking operation. Cammacho is originally from Syracuse but was living in Oneida when federal drug agents and local police arrested him in July. His lieutenant in the multimillion-dollar drug operation lived in Fulton, prosecutors said, and the ring set up "stash" houses throughout Oswego County. That case is pending in U.S. District Court.

Cammacho's past record includes felony weapons and misdemeanor drug arrests in Syracuse in 1996. In 2000, when he was living in Fulton, drug agents arrested him after seizing 70 pounds of marijuana in Syracuse.

Increased drug-related crime in small cities has prompted the state to create a new grant program to cover additional police, overtime or software to track crime patterns and suspects. None has been awarded yet.

"The coke we're coming up with tells us it's coming from New York City to the Syracuse area and then here," said Jack Doyle, coordinator of the Oswego County Drug Task Force. He estimates that 40 percent of all drug possession arrests in his county in the past three years involve suspects from Onondaga County. "There's an awful lot of heat in the cities with so many police agencies. (Dealers) expand in the rural counties thinking the police don't have the expertise."

Syracuse Police Department spokesman Sgt. Tom Connellan acknowledged the trend.

"The problems (rural police departments are) seeing now are the problems we've been seeing for a while," he said. "The natural progression is (drug dealers) might move out to the other counties."

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency found in a 2005 report on New York state that some drug traffickers from New York City have moved Upstate not just to elude larger, better-equipped police agencies, but also to avoid competition from rivals. Over time, drug operations from Thruway cities like Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Utica have expanded to smaller towns far outside metro areas.

Consider:

• In 2003, Utica drug dealer Earl Wright was convicted for killing a 16-year-old prostitute. Prosecutors said he came to Utica from New York City to sell crack and killed the girl after she stole drugs from him.

• A month later, an Oneida woman and two Canastota residents were among those charged after authorities busted a huge crack ring based in Utica and Rome that also involved a Syracuse suspect.

There has been a huge upswing in the number of young people using heroin, crack and powder cocaine in the suburbs, said Capt. Tim Murphy of the Lancaster Police Department.

Curtis Sliwa, founder of the New York City-based Guardian Angels' citizen patrol program, can attest to the rural migration of drug traffic. He's started Guardian Angels franchises in small towns across the nation to keep up with the changing demographics of drug-related crime. Some of his former New York City foes moved Upstate a long time ago, he said.

At the time, Sliwa said, "Syracuse had an unchecked and spiraling drugs, gangs and guns problem." He thinks 90 percent of those who buy drugs on the street aren't addicts, but "recreational users" who don't live in the same neighborhood as the dealers.

"Your customer base, used to be, mostly came to the (inner-city neighborhoods) to buy drugs. But why take all the risk of getting shot or robbed, beaten up or buying fake drugs? There is no such thing as an inner-city drug problem without a suburban and rural feeder system. The drug dealers are saying, 'Let's outsource and go to them.' "

With new turf comes violence or the potential for violence, said Jon Budelmann, Cayuga County chief assistant district attorney.

"We've done a good job getting rid of the local dealers, but out-of-town suppliers come when you take out the local dealer," he said, adding that drugs from both Syracuse and Rochester are coming into Auburn. "The demand is up. It drives up the price, creates an incentive to come here, and that culture of violence comes with them."
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Staff writers Douglass Dowty, John Stith and staff researcher Jan Dempsey contributed to this report.

Aaron Gifford can be reached at 470-3254 or agifford@syracuse.com

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Buzzby

These aren't drug problems. They're drug prohibition problems. Get rid of prohibition and there's no black market, no gangs supplying the black market, no reason for people to steal drugs, no large caches of illegal money to steal, and legitimate means of collecting debts.

As long as there are huge profits to be made in illegal drugs, these problems are inevitable: there will always be people willing to hurt other people for the big bucks.

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thegreatbeyond

One month I forgot to pay my credit card. I owed almost as much as the man in this story, yet nobody came to my house with a loaded pistol demanding the money. Instead, I got a letter that said "We have yet to receive your payment."

Imagine how this would have gone down if bud was legal. I guarantee no shots would be fired, though someone's credit rating may suffer.

Also, I'd be able to smoke a J on my deck. Word

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teufelfisch

Claims that violence is increasing are usually dubious, since federal funds to local PD's are often allocated based on crime distribution. The logic is simple: if we say we have more crime, we get more money. For this reason, reporting methods and the resulting statistics of violent crime are usually seriously flawed.

The best studies we have indicate that crime has been decreasing since the 1970's, with the exception of a small spike in the early 80's among ethnic youth.

On a related note, most "crime waves" are total myths, including the current one-- methamphetamine.

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troublemaker_42

heh, I gotta disagree with that one. Meth was basically unheard of when I entered high school. By the time I was in colege, it had become an epidemic around this area. I've personally witnessed the popularity burst meth has recieved, and the resulting crime. By crime, i'm not talking about possession arrests, either. i'm talking about violent crimes and whatnot brought on by meth psychosis, which I have also personally witnessed. of course, i may have just dreamed all theis, and meth isn't really a problem.....but its been a very long, detailed dream involving many people close to me.....people serving years in prison directly as a result of meth use, people who beat the addiction (my wife being one of them) and those still on the streets, merely a shadow of the people they once were, people that I would once trust with my life that I can no longer trust as far as I could throw them. I agree many times, things are blown out of porportion, but I disagree that meth has been exaggerated. if anything, it hasn't recieved enough attention until lately. Aside from that, its destroyed what I'd call the "drug scene" in the area. Even weed is harder to get my hands on than meth is.

 

PotShot

Whatever the statistics, I think it is safe to say that legalizing drugs would lower crime. The decrease in crime would come directly from the fact that recreational drug use would no longer be a crime, as well as the concept that criminal organizations would no longer have an obscene souce of untraceable income.

oneluv4boognish

It's that way here in Phoenix....totally tragic state of affairs.

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troublemaker_42

Yup, gives you a whole lot of confidence in the War on Drugs, huh? If they wanted to go after meth, maybe they should have started in the mid to late 80's. At that point it was primarily being produced by Motorcycle "clubs" (you know how they hate that "gang" label!) in Southern California. instead, they wait until its worked itself all across American and labs started showing up on the east Coast before they decided maybe they should pay it some attention. Governemnt Intelligence at its finest.

I stand firm in my assertion meth is a serious problem, and I for one, don't believe legalizing it will ease the problems associated with it. The drug itself causes odd, irrational behavior, and few people manage to use it recreationally for any period of time. I've seen too many cases of complete psychosis caused by meth, and have seen what its capable of. I know inert susbtances cannot, by nature be "good" or "bad" but I cannot help but feel meth is somehow inherently evil. I've yet to see a substance that could so utterly and completely change a person in such short amounts of time. I've been around drugs and drug users of al types, but nothing scares me as bad as meth. Its not an illogical, irrational fear.....the stuff is dangerous, and oftentimes, so are the people using it

oneluv4boognish

I completely agree with you there Troublemaker....not sure if this is 'kosher' considering it's an "off topic drug"...but i wonder what the stance is on those who favor legalizing all drugs. We talk about prohibition here all the time...and we talk about how they should legalize everything vs just legalizing MJ. Where does meth fall into everyone's viewpoints? Personally i think the last thing this country needs is to say that meth is okay....and legalizing it is (in my mind atleast) doing just that. I also have seen what it does to people, and it's...i could list atleast a hundred negative adjectives...but we know what it does.

Chron

Yes, meth is dangerous and addictive. But it would be better for society if it were legalized. At least that would put an end to people getting murdered in drug deals gone bad, the purity and potency of the meth would be known, and neighborhoods would be safer and lives would be spared from meth lab explosions. Meth is going to be problematic no matter what. But if it were legal, we wouldn't have to deal with the issues I just mentioned.