Drugs in Columbus: It’s ‘like having a hurricane offshore,’ whipping up violent crime

The $1 million worth of cocaine seized by local, state and federal law enforcement officials earlier this week is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to drugs flowing through the streets of Columbus.

The sale and use of drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and prescription drugs continue to fuel the economic engine in sections of some of the city’s most impoverished neighborhoods.

And that leads to violent crime, such as the city experienced this summer with the murders of more than two dozen citizens, most of them young black men in their teens to mid-30s.

So far, there have been 27 Columbus murders in 2017, according to the Columbus Police Department, and many of the incidents are drug-related.

“In Columbus, the last six months, 35 percent of the shootings that we’ve had have been documented to have a direct correlation to drugs,” said Maj. Gil Slouchick, who heads the Bureau of Investigative Services at the CPD. “Now, that’s just the ones that say it, OK? If we were to look at what really happened I think the number is going to be a lot higher than that, probably in the 60 to 70 percentile.

“If there’s a message to put out there to young people,” he added emphatically, “it would be: ‘Don’t get involved in the drug culture. Don’t get involved in a gang and don’t hang around with people who are.’”

This year, for Red Ribbon Week, the Ledger-Enquirer will focus on the connection between drugs and violent crime in Columbus and what can be done to address the problem. The series will include voices from the law enforcement, judicial, social service, educational and business sectors of the community, as well as those most impacted by drugs and crime.

‘Distinct patterns of injury’

Nationally, 85 percent of offenders in prison are there for the abuse of drugs or alcohol, according to the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence. Nearly 50 percent of jail and prison inmates are clinically addicted. Approximately 60 percent of individuals arrested for most types of crimes test positive for illegal drugs at arrest.

“The use of alcohol and drugs can negatively affect all aspects of a person’s life,” according to information on the NCADD website. “One of the most significant areas of risk with the use of alcohol and drugs is the connection between alcohol, drugs and crime. Our nation’s prison population has exploded beyond capacity and most inmates are in prison, in large part, because of substance abuse.”

The deleterious impact of drugs on inner-city neighborhoods across the nation has been a growing problem for decades. In 1990, the National Institute on Drug Abuse Research published a series of studies entitled “Drugs and Violence: Causes, Correlates and Consequences,” which explored the issue.

Prior to the 1980s, alcohol was the primary substance most connected to violent crimes, according to one article in the series. But the emergence of crack in the mid-1980s changed the dynamics of many urban communities. The epidemic hit at a time when inner-city neighborhoods were at their weakest, having lost manufacturing jobs and other employment opportunities.

“The 1980s have seen a growing number of apparently ‘random’ or ‘impersonal’ homicides — that is homicides of persons unknown or hardly known to their assailants,” researchers wrote at the time. “These ‘so-called’ hit men style slayings have been linked to the crack trade, with drug dealers competing against other dealers to corner the market or preserve their territories. Victims are typically young boys or men and are often minorities living in inner cities.

“Occasionally, distinct patterns of injury can be recognized: drug runners, young teenagers who carry drugs and money between sellers and buyers, are being seen in emergency rooms more frequently with gunshot wounds to the legs and knees.”

Today, such violence still exists on the streets of Columbus, not just with competing gangs, but even among friends. Slouchick pointed to the 2016 Peachtree Mall murder case as one example.

In that case, Anthony Meredith, 24, was gunned down while shopping for an Easter dress for his 3-year-old daughter. The three people convicted of his murder were friends from Hardaway High School: Xzavaien Trevon Jones, 19; his sister, Tekoa Chantrell Young, 24; and Terell Raquez McFarland, 26.

Young was the best friend of Shanna Douglas, Meredith’s girlfriend and the mother of his child. Meredith and Young’s boyfriend, Christopher Twitty, worked together as drug dealers prior the shooting. But the relationship deteriorated after Twitty failed to pay Meredith $3,000 for marijuana that Meredith had given him to sell.

Twitty, 23, was fatally shot Nov. 21, 2015, in his home on Columbus’ Wickham Drive.

Jones, Young and McFarland blamed Meredith for Twitty’s death, and killed him at the mall in retaliation, according to authorities. Police have said Twitty, Jones, Young and McFarland were all members of the Crips street gang.

Screening for addiction

Superior Court Chief Judge Gil McBride said drugs are the catalyst for a variety of violent crimes in the community, not just homicides.

“Drugs and drug distribution and sale and addiction all are sort of lurking in the background of many, many cases that do not actually come into court as ‘drug cases,’” he said. “The classic example is residential burglary. That’s a crime of violence. It’s a property crime, but it’s often not identified as being a drug crime. Instead, it’s classified separately.”

But many burglaries, when they wind up in court, are actually about feeding addictions, he said.

“It’s not just murders; it’s not just the drug deal that’s gone bad,” he said. “The influence of drugs across the dockets in other types of cases is very, very strong. It’s sort of like having a hurricane offshore, and it may never entirely come ashore, but yet you feel it in the tides. You feel it in the weather. You feel it in the surf, and in the waves.

“It’s the same with drugs,” he said. “The influence, even when it’s not directly brought to bear, it’s still there, always sort of lurking beneath the surface. It’s overwhelming and it’s really undeniable that much of the crime that we see is drug-related or drug-caused in some form or fashion.”

McBride said the drug court in Muscogee County, and others like it across the state, were established to address the issue.

“We call it a treatment court because addiction is treated,” he said. “They have a team of screeners and intake specialists who actually look at the burglary, look at the shoplifter, look at a case that may on its face superficially not appear to be what we would think of as a drug case.

“They try to identify if the underlying problem is one of addiction, and if so, get them into drug court,” he explained. “And they’ve had a tremendous success rate with preventing re-offending. The problem is there, it’s being addressed, but there are no silver bullets. There’s always a need for more and new approaches, because the problem is sort of a shape-shifter. It’s ever-changing in terms of where it’s popping up and how it affects us.”

Guns + drug dealers = violence

Slouchick said tackling the issue isn’t easy. He estimates that 33 percent of the murders in Columbus so far in 2017 are drug-related, and the statistic would be higher if police had more information.

“You know, a lot of times we’ll have people that report, ‘I got shot. I don’t know what happened,’” he said. “... Or, ‘I was walking down the street and a bullet came out of nowhere and hit me.’”

“ ... We hear through the street and through informants that a lot of these cases involve drugs, where the people, they don’t want the police involved in it,” he said.

Slouchick said drugs are pouring into the community by all modes of transportation, and police are doing their best to curtail it.

“We’ve seen them come in through the U.S. Post Office; we’ve seen them come in through FedEx; we’ve seen them come in cars during a highway interdiction,” he said. “I think a lot of ours probably originate in Atlanta. Atlanta is a very, very large hub in the Southeastern United States for drug trafficking. .... We also have some that come in from Florida, and we’ve got a lot of packages shipped from California that come this way.”

Slouchick made the comments sitting in his office at the Columbus Public Safety Building on 10th Street. Two hours later, he and other police officials gathered for a news conference. That’s when Police Chief Ricky Boren announced the seizure of $1 million worth of cocaine, one of the biggest busts ever made by the department.

Police also seized $24,000 in cash, a 2001 Mercedes Benz S-5Z, a 2011 BMW X-5 and four guns. The weapons included a semi-automatic assault-type rifle, 12-gauge shotgun and two pistols. The cash and guns were found in a house but no location was disclosed.

Boren said the investigation began Sept. 20 in a joint effort with the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to buy 10 kilograms of cocaine. On Monday, the CPD Special Operations Unit, along with the GBI and other law enforcement, arrested two suspects.

Those arrested were Kenneth James, 49, of Phenix City, and Marcus Terrell Marshall, 33, of Columbus. James is charged with trafficking in cocaine while Marshall also is charged with trafficking, fleeing to elude police, obstruction of a police officer and a convicted felon in possession of a firearm.

Slouchick said it’s just another example of the strong correlation between drugs, guns and violence.

“I was in charge of the Special Operations Unit for about four and half years, and we would do two to three search warrants a week, probably somewhere around there,” he said. “And I could remember in the four and half years going to two places where there weren’t guns.

“So, we find when we have drug dealers that we usually have guns,” he added. “When you have guns and drug dealers together, you usually have violence. I mean, they don’t have them there for snakes and such.”

This story was originally published October 22, 2017 at 3:11 AM with the headline "Drugs in Columbus: It’s ‘like having a hurricane offshore,’ whipping up violent crime."