A killing puts new light on Raleigh street

Shootings, drug crimes prompt latest effort to clean up North Tarboro Street

RALEIGH -- In the past three years, three men have died of gunshot wounds on the same block of North Tarboro Street -- a gritty emporium of drugs and fortified wine less than a mile from the Executive Mansion.

The 300 block claimed a teenage boy late last month, a homeless handyman last year and a 22-year-old man in 2005.

Those are just the people who died. Raleigh police reports show an aggravated assault, a robbery, a weapons violation and four drug possessions in November alone.

Hand-wringing over the 300 block dates back more than a decade, and neighbors, including St. Augustine's College, cite little progress. Now, concern about crime on North Tarboro has found its way into City Hall, where council members, police and St. Aug's officials will try to stem violence on a few hundred yards of asphalt.

"We have to bring this to a higher level of attention," Councilman James West said after attending the funeral for Adarius Monquell Fowler, 16. "If we don't, and this economy getting the way it is, this situation is likely to get worse."

Police spokesman Jim Sughrue said nothing suggests a connection among the killings. Fowler was shot only about a week ago and no arrests have been made.

Last year, Ricky High, 48, was shot late on an October night. He was a popular fix-it man who sometimes slept under a truck behind the strip of businesses on the 300 block. The man charged with killing him, Samuel Cooper, is also charged with several slayings around the city.

The third man, Clyde Bunch III, died in 2005 after a long-standing argument with Kevin Lewis Sorrell, 26, whom U.S. marshals arrested in Florida.

But talk to the neighbors, or even some of the business owners along the 300 block's strip, and they point to a common problem: loitering.

Drifting in, hanging out

Crowds start to wander over early in the morning. Men in heavy-hooded coats lean up against Papa's Pizza and Subs or linger outside H & K Convenience Store; haggard-looking women beg quarters.

They stay for hours without buying anything, sometimes disappearing behind the stores or jumping into cars that pull up, bass pounding from speakers.

This is the habit nobody can seem to cure. Loitering isn't illegal, neighbors admit, just irksome.

Inside his barber shop, Grip's, Michael Griffin posts a sign meant to keep the drug culture off-premises: "Leave the game at home."

Griffin is a big man with an Obama button on his chest, and he promises to defend himself should anyone ignore the sign.

"Stand in front of your mama's house, the one that lets you sell drugs," he warns. "You don't need to be standing in front of anybody's business."

Neighbors wish the council luck, but they note that theirs isn't the first attempt at chasing off riffraff.

St. Augustine's has tried to buy the strip of businesses that draws crime, said President Dianne Boardley Suber.

But the college has had no luck reaching the owner, Willie Haywood. Property records list only a post office address, though a Willie M. Haywood Jr., 75, with that same box as an address, is also listed in Fort Washington, Md. He could not be reached Tuesday.

"We would love to get that property to the point that it is productive," Suber said. "We've had students accosted. We've had students in frightening situations. It's difficult to say to a group of students who are 18 to 26 years old, 'This area is off-limits.' "

Octavia Rainey is chairwoman of the Citizens Advisory Council that includes North Tarboro Street, and she has often invited the businesses for a sit-down.

She said the H & K Market draws the biggest crowds and causes the most problems.

"You can't buy groceries in there," she said, noting that beer and malt liquor are big sellers. "You ain't never seen no grocery carts around there."

The store's permits for malt beverages and fortified wine are issued to Ghassan Hassan Issa, whom Rainey said resists her invitations.

Attempts to reach Issa were unsuccessful Monday and Tuesday.

Earlier efforts fell flat

Over the years, Rainey and others have suggested police foot patrols, condemning the block's businesses as a public nuisance and even roundabouts to calm the traffic.

All have been met with cost concerns.

West said condemnation is a time-consuming and expensive route, but it isn't out of the question.

Down the street at the corner of East Lane Street, Alpha Howze feels like he has seen everything tried.

"Community activists have written down license plates," Howze said, "and it doesn't seem to have any effect."

Maybe, the neighborhood hopes, this time will be different.