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Desperate drug war fought all over West Virginia
Torsten Ove | Post-Gazette.Com | May 21, 2006

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Joe Ciccarelli grew up in West Virginia and became a cop, then left for an FBI career taking down narcotics traffickers in St. Louis and south Florida.

He spent the 1990s in Miami, working to cut off America's cocaine supply from South America. But in 1998, weary of the city, he transferred back to the Mountain State.

Now he sees where that cocaine ends up, on the small-town streets of home.

"You see what 15 or 20 years ago was a nice community and now it's not so nice," said Agent Ciccarelli, who heads the FBI in southern West Virginia under the supervision of the Pittsburgh office.

"It's the end of the supply line. We don't have multiple kilos coming in here the way I saw in Miami. But I think you see the impact here. You see the human toll it takes."

West Virginia is fighting a desperate drug war on every front.

Crack dealers are flooding the state from all sides, especially from Columbus and Detroit, where many people trace their roots to Appalachia, but also from Atlanta, Charlotte, Washington and other cities.

Homegrown cocaine rings have killed federal informants. Methamphetamine labs dot the backwoods. An epidemic of prescription pill abuse rages in the impoverished southern coalfields, where a podiatrist was recently accused of doling out prescriptions for cash.

Out-of-state crack dealers take advantage of the wide-open gun culture to buy weapons cheap and resell them back home, setting up lucrative import-export enterprises.

"They're doubling or tripling their money on either end," said Paul Cross, of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

The drugs and guns often move along traditional migration routes, such as U.S. Route 23 between Columbus and Charleston.

Fifty years ago, thousands of West Virginians began moving to Columbus and Detroit in search of better opportunities. Many left family behind. When crack exploded in the late 1980s, some dealers began moving back to Appalachia and word got out that the state was a good market. Since then, the drug trade has flourished.

Even in once-isolated Logan County, near the Kentucky border, Columbus dealers traveling U.S. Highway 119 out of Charleston have invaded the tiny neighborhood of Cora, which locals call "Cora Alley."

"The world is coming to rural southern West Virginia," said Charlie Brown, the head of an anti-drug community group and the chief probation officer in Logan. "We're no longer insulated by our mountains."

User state
Dealers come for the simplest of reasons: there's little competition so the money is good, and the law, sometimes derided as "Barney Fife," is perceived as less effective than in metro areas.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration classifies West Virginia as a "user state," where dealers can charge higher prices because the supply is low and the demand high.

"I've had them tell me in interviews that they come here because they can make more money than they can in Cleveland and there's less risk," said Sgt. Matt Moore, of the Ohio Valley Drug Task Force in Wheeling.

As for homegrown meth, some authorities see it as the latest phase in a tradition of Appalachian backwoods alchemy that began with moonshine. In the Charleston area alone, police raided 171 meth labs last year and more than 40 this year.

Part of West Virginia, along with Tennessee and Kentucky, is designated as a "High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area," or HIDTA, one of 28 where the Office of National Drug Control Policy helps coordinate anti-drug efforts.

The Appalachia HIDTA was created in 1998 to eradicate marijuana because an estimated 40 percent of the nation's pot crop is grown in the region. But its mission has expanded to include other illicit drugs.

The national program has been criticized as ineffective and President Bush has proposed cutting its budget, but those on the front lines say it works in rural areas such as West Virginia where local and state police work closely with the FBI, the Criminal Investigation Division of the IRS and other federal agencies.

"We're a poor state. The local departments would be sorely handicapped if they didn't have these resources," said Kenny Burner, a former state police officer who heads the West Virginia HIDTA. "We need to get a handle on this violence. We're fighting as hard as we can."

Mr. Burner has seen the problem firsthand. Last year, his teenage son was carjacked at knife-point in Huntington. The suspect? A career criminal from Detroit now under indictment on a federal carjacking charge.

"He tries not to let it affect him, but he's lost some of his innocence," Mr. Burner said of his son. "The violence is more prevalent than it used to be. I think it's getting worse."

Killing informants
West Virginia remains one of the safest places in the nation, but it's not as safe as it once was. According to the FBI, the violent crime rate in the state rose 16.4 percent between 2002 and 2004 while dropping 5.7 percent nationwide.

The 2004 rate of 271 per 100,000 people is still lower than in 1999 and far below the national figure of 465. But pockets of the state are every bit as nasty as some big cities.

Charleston's rate of 1,555 violent crimes per 100,000 people was higher than Pittsburgh's 1,118 in 2004. And in Huntington, where the Detroit influence is strongest, there were 13 murders last year compared with the usual four or five.

More shootings this year have heightened public fears, especially when gunmen sprayed a house with bullets in the affluent Fairfax neighborhood.

FBI Agent Matt Hoke, coordinator of the Huntington Violent Crimes/Drug Task Force, points to a map of the region on his wall. Each pin marks a drug complaint.

"I'm going to have that map filled with pins," he said. "We'll get four or five drug tips a day. We just don't have enough people to chase them all down."

The killing of informants in federal drug cases is relatively rare, and, some say, stupid because it generates relentless pressure from federal authorities, but it's been happening in West Virginia.

"They think this will solve the problem," Agent Hoke said.

In Mingo County, Carla Collins, 33, was tortured and shot last year while working with agents investigating a cocaine ring run out of a pizza shop in the town of Red Jacket. Several defendants have pleaded guilty; the ringleader is awaiting trial and could face the federal death penalty.

"Tattoo" Mike White, 44, a DEA informant in a case against a gang that sold cocaine, oxycodone and hydromorphone, was shot to death last year outside his tattoo shop in rural Mercer County.

Maurice T. Gibson, 33, of Bluefield, has been convicted of leading the group, and his airplane, rental properties, a motor home and two SUVs were seized after the IRS pieced together his money-laundering trail, but the killing remains unsolved.

The Iron Pipeline
In many southern states, including West Virginia, guns are sold at stores, roadside pawn shops or out of the back of pickup trucks.

"It's part of the culture," Agent Ciccarelli said.

When Charleston enacted an ordinance limiting purchases to one a month, a restriction that several states have imposed, the Legislature passed a law that said cities couldn't regulate gun sales.

"Buying a gun in West Virginia is a lot easier than buying a gun in New York City," said Jon Kott, spokesman for the Americans for Gun Safety Foundation in Washington, D.C.

As a result, firearms from West Virginia feed the so-called Iron Pipeline, a gun-dealing network that runs from Ohio to New York and from Alabama to Chicago.

According to Mr. Kott's group and the ATF, drug dealers come to West Virginia and either exchange drugs for guns or use straw purchasers to buy weapons. Then they go where guns are harder to buy and sell them at a huge profit.

Ron Fluharty, an IRS agent in Parkersburg, investigated one group of marijuana dealers from Texas who transported 150 pounds of pot in a horse trailer equipped with hidden compartments. They sold it for pistols and rifles, all destined for a drug dealer in Mexico.

Because guns were in such demand south of the border, the group could get $2,000 for a gun worth $500. "They would rather have the guns than the drugs," said the agent.

The Justice Department has long prosecuted straw purchasers, but many West Virginia guns still land on the streets of New York, Detroit and other cities.

No one knows how many because ATF no longer disseminates gun trace information to the public. But Americans for Gun Safety said in 2001 that 1,183 guns used in crimes in other states had been traced to West Virginia.

Reaching the 'gonnabes'
Despite the grim statistics, hope remains.

Charleston, at least, may be turning the corner.

Murder isn't always the best barometer of trends, but there has been one this year compared with 11 in 2004, and other crimes are down, too.

Police credit a beefed-up force, increased patrols and an FBI task force that works with prosecutors to pursue gun and drug cases in federal court, where the penalties are stiffer than in state court.

"Man, they get down here, they get banged up," said Detective Errol Randle, a task force gang expert who lives in a once-rough public housing project where violence has recently declined. "We have a good relationship with the U.S. attorney's office and they take a lot of cases. 'Cause the one thing these guys don't want is to go federal."

On a drive through town, he points out the hot spots, the graffiti, the West Side shooting scenes. He rattles off the names of gangs that police have identified.

About 20 members comprise the "22nd Street Bloods" and "218," all from Columbus. Homegrown or hybrid gangs include "LPT" in the Littlepage Terrace public housing project and the "304 Boys," who take their name from the state's area code.

Most of the gangs are black and urban. But a group calling itself the Latin Kings has set up in Belle, a town of 1,200 south of Charleston. About five years ago, an all-white gang was active there, too, calling itself "T.O.B." for "town of Belle." They marked their turf by painting over the "S" on stop signs and changing the "P" to a "B".

"We don't consider them 'wannabes,'" said Detective Randle of the local gangs. "We use the term 'gonnabes.' "

Part of the police approach is to understand the street mentality and to educate young people who often have had no parental influence in their lives.

"You have to reach the parents and teach them that they are responsible for their kids," said Detective Randle, who has a baby girl.

He said putting dealers in prison and moving aggressively to seize their assets is critical. For some young toughs who need to be taught a lesson, he said, "going to jail ain't so bad."

Police Chief Brent Webster credits the mayor with tearing down drug dens and targeting slumlords "who will rent to anyone."

"Charleston has been successful in cracking down on drug dealing, although maybe we're forcing it out into other areas," he said. "You know you can't win that drug war. But we are controlling it."

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dedbr

of the Ohio river valley he talks about embrace the drug trade so heartily because they have no economy. These are areas so poor that they can't support theirselves and must live on welfare.

It is a different mentality, and they have no respect for the government or the law. This is not just a select few, but the majority.

The best part is that the meth problem has brought corruption with it, and local law enforcement is now taking money for their participation in covering up the activities of the cookers.

The war is truly lost when the watchers are working for the wrong side, huh?

This is truly sad when you read about the war and them fighting us.

In the words of Pogo....."We have met the enemy and he is us!"


Somewhere in Ded Land....

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reggie_the_dog

"The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration classifies West Virginia as a "user state," where dealers can charge higher prices because the supply is low and the demand high."



ok, so there is some kind of SHORTAGE of marijuana and meth in West Virginia??? yeah right, they grow a shitload of cannabis, cook a bunch of meth, and STILL make lots of moonshine.



"As for homegrown meth, some authorities see it as the latest phase in a tradition of Appalachian backwoods alchemy that began with moonshine. In the Charleston area alone, police raided 171 meth labs last year and more than 40 this year."


Since when was meth grown???? really, one can have home PRODUCED meth, but HOMEGROWN????

They are confused, see, the big industry in this area of the hills, IS HOMEGROWN CANNABIS.


Lets see, the mines closed, the ground is not too fertile, WHAT DO THEY HAVE LEFT BESIDES CANNABIS, METH, OR MOONSHINE?

dedbr

I can testify that they raise a lot of river rats, ridge runners and hillbillies. and not necessarily in that order....

Cause I is one.....