Roanoke Times Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc. DATE: SUNDAY, April 9, 1995 TAG: 9504100049 SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO SOURCE: DIANE STRUZZI STAFF WRITER DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
For days she was at home, alone with her two children and the desire. The mere thought of it could almost make her taste the numbing, sweet high from the rock of crack cocaine.
"Cocaine is like a candy bar," said the 38-year-old woman, who agreed to be interviewed only if her name were not used. "I wanted a $20 piece."
It got so bad the afternoon of March 31, she drove to the house on Moss Street - directly across from the Martinsville Police Department - where a friend of hers had once bought some crack. With her 15-month-old baby seated beside her, she asked for a rock from a man standing near the back of the house.
For a moment, time almost seemed to stop as she cradled the tiny, candy-like piece in her hand.
Then it rushed uncontrollably forward. Two cars rolled up, barricading her in the driveway. She heard someone tell her to get her hands above her head. In the background, her baby screamed.
"I just froze," she said. "One officer jerked my hands on top of my head. ... I was scared to death. All I was worried about was that they were going to take my baby. They read me my rights. Then I told them I bought the crack for myself. My pipe was at home. I told them I was going home to do this."
The woman became one of 10 suspects stopped during a reverse drug sting in Martinsville, where undercover agents sold a state-manufactured crack-like product that contained a trace of cocaine. The next grand jury will consider formal charges of possession of cocaine against each suspect.
"If we can curb it and make it harder for them to get the crack, we can keep that paranoia factor up" and stymie the drug business in that area, said Steve Burton, special drug investigator with the Martinsville Police Department.
Addicts are not usually a high priority for drug investigators, who often are more concerned with working their way up the hierarchy to the supplier. But in a reverse drug sting, the user is targeted - an effective way, police say, of getting at the other end of the drug market and directly cutting off a dealer's profit margin.
"Without the drug users, there would be no need for dealers to peddle their poison," said Lt. Ron Carlisle of the Roanoke vice bureau.
The practice, however, has come under scrutiny by those who question whether the government should be in the business of creating drugs, then selling them, to make an arrest.
In Florida, the state Supreme Court ordered the release of suspects arrested between 1989 and 1991 in Broward County during a reverse operation run by the sheriff's office. The court declared the practice - in which undercover officers sold crack cocaine cooked up in the state's crime lab - "outrageous" and unconstitutional.
In February, a federal court reversed that decision, saying the tactics did not violate the U.S. Constitution.
In Virginia, the legality or constitutionality of reverse sting operations is not an issue, said Kent Willis, executive director of the Virginia branch of the American Civil Liberties Union.
"Police are given broad powers," he said. "And the courts have upheld the right of a police officer to work undercover. It may bring up an ethical question, but it generally doesn't bring up a constitutional one."
Investigators say the idea is similar to undercover officers posing as prostitutes. In each case, to avoid the appearance of entrapment, officers are instructed not to flag down potential suspects but wait until the officers are approached.
The last time Roanoke vice officers set up a reverse drug operation was during the summer of 1993. Undercover investigators posed as dealers on known drug corners in Northwest Roanoke. Within the first four hours of the operation, officers had made close to 20 arrests.
"It is just another method of combating cocaine dealing," said Roanoke Lt. Steve Lugar, who was supervisor of the vice bureau during that operation. "You put pressure on the source, then you go after the users."
The material sold as crack in the Roanoke operation was similar to that sold in Martinsville. Chemists in the state forensic sciences lab in Roanoke create the crack-like substance by using something that looks like crack nuggets, then placing a small amount of diluted cocaine on it, according to Steven Sigel, the lab's director.
Each year, his laboratory receives two to four requests to make drug-like substances for reverse stings, he said. The materials and any controlled substances are supplied by the requesting agency.
In Martinsville's case, about 3 grams of cocaine - confiscated during a drug seizure and scheduled to be incinerated - was given to the lab. From that, chemists made about 25 crack-like rocks.
While creating a simulated sample takes only a few hours, some question whether that is an efficient use of the lab's resources, particularly at a time when there is a case backlog in Roanoke.
"When I was prosecuting, I had a hard time accepting the notion that that was the only alternative available to eradicate crack houses," said Jeff Rudd, a former regional drug prosecutor in Roanoke who now is in private practice as a defense lawyer. "
In Martinsville, the opportunity to do reverse stings came up five years ago, but Commonwealth's Attorney J. Randolph Smith Jr. said he was against the suggestion because he thought it looked bad in court for police to be selling drugs.
When the idea arose again a couple of years ago, however, Smith was persuaded. The drug market in the city had changed. It had become more violent, and some neighborhoods were drowning under the drug trafficking.
"There was such an outcry from the neighbors," he said. "I don't think we should be doing it every night in every neighborhood, but you just can't let the drug dealers have the whole city."
The drug trade in Southside Virginia is increasing, according to police. And 8 and 10 Moss Street became nagging reminders of just how bad the problem had become in Martinsville.
Police made 17 arrests at the houses during an 18-month undercover operation called Curbside III, which culminated last week with more than 100 drug arrests. What investigators uncovered during that operation, in part, led police to set up the reverse sting March 31. The only thing that shut down the operation that day was that undercover officers ran out of drugs.
That area was like a 24-hour drive-through for crack, said drug investigator Burton.
It was all supposed to be so easy, said the 38-year-old woman who tried to score a rock that March afternoon. Being caught, she said, "was like a smack in the face."
"I thanked [Burton] for that happening," said the woman, who still has custody of her children and has applied for a drug rehabilitation program.
"I needed somebody to make me realize what I do have," she said. "I'm not looking forward to what's going to happen to me, because I could pull some time. But I'm just going to take it a day at a time and think of what I've got instead of what I want."
by CNB