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Miami Boys Export Terror Drugs, Death Come With Territory For Gang In Atlanta - Orlando Sentinel
ATLANTA — Among the poor of Atlanta's sprawling housing projects, they are conspicuous in their gold chains and diamond jewelry. In a city of Falcons, Hawks and Yellow Jackets fans, they wear Dolphins and Hurricanes clothing.
They call themselves the Miami Boys. And they deal in death.
''They use force; they use violence. They intimidate the devil out of people,'' said Lt. LaSalle Smith, intelligence commander for the Atlanta Police Department.
From South Florida, the Miami Boys have transported a more lethal brand of drug dealing to Atlanta. Their crack cocaine is more potent and more plentiful. Their weapons are a higher caliber. They are the most ruthless gang of drug dealers Atlanta has ever known.
''They use automatic weapons -- some more powerful than anything the police have,'' said Cynthia Hoke, Atlanta Housing Authority spokeswoman. ''It's a lot more dangerous, a lot more sophisticated and a lot more deadly.''
Housing project managers report seeing Miami Boys gang members loitering on street corners with walkie-talkies and guns in full view. The Miami Boys are brazen in their solicitations, said Margie Smith, 33, president of the Techwood Homes/Clark Howell Tenants Association.
''It's very out in the open,'' Smith said. ''You can't walk down the street without people approaching you and saying they got them rocks of crack cocaine.''
Across town, at the Grady Homes project, community activist Susie LaBord, 77, says elderly residents are being terrorized by drug-related crimes such as robberies, purse snatchings and break-ins.
''All of us are afraid of the gang activities,'' LaBord said. ''I fear going off and leaving my apartment. You're just not safe.''
Police say the Miami Boys more closely resemble an organized-crime family than a youth gang. Although Miami Boys have been found operating out of privately owned apartments in Atlanta, their primary concentration has been in the projects.
Police say the Miami Boys moved into Atlanta's low-income neighborhoods in 1986 because they provided an untapped market for organized drug dealings. Before the Miami Boys' arrival, the drug trade largely was small-time and run by independent dealers. Gang members also have taken advantage of the size of Atlanta's housing projects, where they can disappear into doorways and commandeer any of the city's 1,300 vacant units for their drug activities.
In the projects the Miami Boys also found a ready-made clientele willing to pay top dollar high-quality cocaine. An ounce of cocaine that brings $500 in Miami sells for $1,400 to $1,800 in Atlanta, said Lt. John Woodward, vice and narcotics commander for the Atlanta Police Department.
The migration of Miami Boys from South Florida to Atlanta also is partly the result of tougher law enforcement efforts in Florida, state police say. The South Florida Vice Presidential Task Force, formed during Miami's cocaine wars, has driven some dealers northward.
The Miami Boys, who also call themselves the Untouchables in South Florida, have spread to other Southeast cities, as well. Law enforcement officials in Orlando, Tampa, Pensacola, Jacksonville, Montgomery, Ala., and Savannah, Ga., have reported the intrusion of Miami Boys.
Nowhere, though, have the Miami Boys moved in and effectively taken over a territory with such force as in Atlanta.
''We had not seen that level of violence before,'' Lt. Smith said.
To introduce themselves to local drug dealers in Atlanta, the Miami gang kidnapped a 22-year-old pusher from the Techwood Homes housing project, shot him in the head several times and dumped his body in another county.
Another independent drug dealer was shot 12 times as he stood on a housing-project street corner.
A 60-year-old woman was killed when she was caught in the crossfire of a gun battle between Miami Boys and a rival gang over a territorial dispute. The opposing gang members who were arrested and charged with the shooting were acquitted when a jury could not determine who fired the shots that killed the woman.
Thirteen Atlanta homicides in 1987 were linked to the Miami Boys, police say. The increased violence and high-volume drug dealing have made the Miami Boys the top priority of police.
''We see this as being the most serious problem we have right now,'' said Maj. Julius Derico, commander of special investigations for the police department.
Although the Miami Boys largely have limited their drug peddling to the housing projects, crimes related to drug addiction ripple throughout the city. ''The entire community should be concerned, because where you have narcotics, you have burglaries, robberies, auto theft and shoplifting to support the addiction,'' said Maj. Herman Griner of the Atlanta Police Department.
Redding and Hider outlined plans to beef up surveillance of crack houses, enforce truancy laws to get the gang's underaged lookouts off the streets, and meet with housing project tenants to rally community support.
The Housing Authority has promised to fill the vacant units where drug dealers take refuge. It also intends to ban sidewalk vendors -- some of whom are believed to be selling dope in addition to ice cream and trinkets.
Police are encouraged by the recent conviction of a Miami Boys ringleader, Winston Theodore Brown, 25, in the Techwood Homes murder of a fellow gang member. In addition, Woodward said, the gang's reputed leader has been sent to jail in Florida.
Brown, sentenced to 30 years in prison, was the first gang member convicted of drug-related racketeering charges. Police hope to use federal racketeering convictions as a tool in breaking up the Miami Boys gang by confiscating its cars, cash and possessions.
Police have been frustrated by the revolving door of new gang members arriving from Florida to replace those who had been arrested. Miami Boys released on bond often board a plane for Florida as soon as they get out of jail.
The Atlanta Department of Parks and Recreation also has stepped in to provide activities for the young people of the housing projects. For the first time in its 52-year history, Techwood Homes has a Little League baseball team, a community football team and a teen support group -- all aimed at offering an alternative to drug use and gang membership.
The tidy rows of Techwood's barrackslike apartment buildings are separated by expanses of lawn. Where the bare earth hasn't been worn through, the grass is kept clipped. During the day the project appears tranquil, but beneath the surface exists an edginess imported by the Miami Boys.
''It used to be that the neighbors got out more. We sat on the porch; our kids were able to play without worrying about anything,'' Margie Smith said. ''Now, after 8 p.m., everybody goes inside and locks up.''
Although police at first estimated the size of the Miami Boys as being from 30 to 40 members, the gang's notoriety has fostered so many copycats that it is difficult to tell a geninue Miami Boy from an imitation.
''They all want to be Miami Boys,'' Lt. Smith said. ''It makes them feel macho.''
You do realize they murk gays in the Caribbean right?
Why didn't they kill gays in Greece then?
Cotdamn between you and 
And why do you nikkaz insist on derailing threads?