The Index-Journal from Greenwood, South Carolina • Page 3

-V Saturday; January 19, 2002 StateRegion The Index-Journal, Greenwood, S.C 3A JUSTICE: Many still suspicious of a system that once offered justice at the end of a rope I JAMES MURRAY remembers the anger he felt when arrested for distributing cocaine. He had more than a kilogram, so the college graduate, whose only other arrest was a shoplifting charge, faced 20 years in prison. "Here I was. selling to all these white kids in the suburbs, and they come after me," says Murray, who at the rime worked delivering flowers or pizzas to cover his drug dealings. His high school and college days were spent at mostly white schools, so he learned how to operate in the white and black cultures.

He served three years in prison and says racial tensions aren't as high behind bars as one might think. "I think the whites are the most scared," Murray says. "They are a minority in there, and they aren't used to it." AP photo James Murray, a prison minister who served three years for dealing drugs a decade ago, chats with Nik! Richburg, who is a member of his church, God's Church of Deli verancein Columbia. STATE DIGEST By The Associated Press Prison guard charged with assault COLUMBIA A guard at a juvenile prison has been arrested after police say he sprayed a youth in the face with pepper spray without warning. James Dixon, 51, was arrested Friday.

The incident occurred on Nov. 12 at the Department of Juvenile Justice's special management unit, the State Law Enforcement Division said. The guard sprayed the juvenile without warning when the youth lunged at the officer, according to an arrest warrant. Man found not guilty by reason of insanity LANCASTER A judge has found a man not guilty by reason of insanity in the 1998 stabbing death of his 77-year-old father. The ruling by Circuit Court Judge Kenneth Goode came after two days of testimony in the murder trial of Steven Miner, 51.

A state psychiatrist testified that Miner suffers from a severe form of paranoid schizophrenia and has symptoms that include delusions in which he hears voices. Miner never denied killing his father. The insanity ruling means Miner will return to a state mental institution, where doctors will decide if he needs further treatment. Police say man altered lottery ticket SPARTANBURG A man used scissors and glue to change his losing lottery ticket into a $5,000 winner, police say. But he never saw a dime of the money because officials quickly spotted the fraud, authorities said.

They told him they would mail him a check, but arrested Carl D. Stevenson, 32, a few days later instead. Stevenson is the second person to be charged with passing an altered South Carolina Education Lottery ticket since the games began earlier this month. Pair charged with kidnapping NORTH CHARLESTON Two men have been charged with kidnapping a Charlottesville, woman, who hasn't been seen for more than nine months. Edwina Sims was kidnapped from a motel room on April 21, police said.

She was last seen visiting her boyfriend, Ronald Coulter, authorities said. Witnesses told police they saw Continued from page I A Fighting crime seems at times all about fighting drugs. Robberies are easy to link to drugs, but all too often crimes from murder to domestic violence and child neglect stem from addicts whose chief goal in life is getting another fix. Staten said. 3 As South Carolina enters a new century, many blacks are as suspicious of the system as were their ancestors who sometimes found justice at the end of a rope or the barrel of a gun toted by white mobs.

"We're angry. Black men know they have never got a fair shake and wonder if we ever will," says James Murray, a prison minister who served three years for dealing drugs a decade ago. But it's not just men with rap sheets or frustrated family members left to raise children while a parent serves time who are upset with the system. The first black president of the South Carolina Bar says unfair drug laws have robbed a generation of black men of their futures. And Staten wonders what would have happened to the young blacks hanging out on the corner if society put as much effort into education and job opportunities as into law enforcement "These guys know they can make $200 or $300 real easy any time they want without much effort," Staten says.

"Are they going to sweat for eight hours a day to make less than what they make right now?" Race has always been an issue in Chester old-timers recall white officers wouldn't patrol in black neighborhoods because they knew their cars would be pelted by rocks. Staten is the town's second black police chief taking the job after the first lasted just 10 days and has had to fight for his job at times with white officials who were angry white officers were overlooked and with black councilmen angry their neighbors had to put mattresses on the floor so they wouldn't be hit by stray bullets. Much of the violence was drug-related, so Staten cracked down. There were 13 drug arrests in 1995, a number that Increased to 131 four years later when he became chief. BLACK MALES make up less than 15 percent of the state's population, but committed 36.2 percent of the crime in 2000, according to arrest statistics gathered by the State Law Enforcement Division.

Those numbers follow all the way to the prison walls. Blacks males make up 68 percent of the approximately 22,000 inmates in South Carolina prisons, the highest concentration of black inmates in the nation. That means one in every 60 black males in the state is in prison. The biggest problem, many say, is drugs. In 2000, about 6,700 South Carolinians were arrested for selling, manufactur ing, growing or distributing drugs more than 70 percent CHANGES: Should Continued from page I A Airport manager Mike Flack said he doesn't expect passengers to be affected by the new regulations.

"From the traveler's point of view, there shouldn't be any delays," Flack said. "It's a regular day." Most passengers said they don't mind extra searches as long as they provide more security. "I think it's necessary," said Anna Fishkin, who works in Manhattan and travels to South Carolina for business. She said she was in New York City during the Sept. 1 1 terrorist attacks.

Fishkin said she would like to see even more security on flights. "It's still very lax, espe But with so many blacks in prison, there are a lot of black children without fathers. Murray, now a prison minister, runs a program where volunteers buy toys for children with a parent in prison. He got 17,000 applications at Christmas, about 70 percent of them on behalf of black children. Murray's Prison Fellowship groups are integrated purposely to try to breach the racial divide.

"When you get that low, you look for God. And you don't care what color the Lord's messenger is," he said. BUT CULTURAL differences account for a lot when it comes to enforcing drug laws, Staten said. Blacks who use drugs tend to congregate outside in groups, making them easier to arrest. White users will abuse drugs inside their homes, invisible to police.

"African Americans are doing it in the streets. White Americans are doing it in the country clubs," says Johnson, who recalls how, when a young lawyer back in the 1960s, judges made a point of excluding him from informal chitchats with white lawyers in chambers. One judge, who, after hearing how smart one of his clients was, asked "Why are you selling drugs on Reid Street, when you could be working on Main Street?" Johnson recalls. "He just didn't get it," Johnson says. "The doors that are open to white children aren't open to him.

He used his talent in the best way he could see fit." Part of the problem is role models, he says. "Everybody imitates somebody," Johnson says. "When you live in a culture where the persons who have the best things are the persons who do illegal acts to get them, and the ones that don't work in the plants or warehouses, who are these young people going to imitate?" The drug problem and its effect on crime and on race relations is not easily solved. Carter said. "Everybody wants one easy explanation for the whole problem or one easy solution, and there's not one," the USC pro- were black in a state of 4 million where the population is less than 30 percent black.

Those numbers are even more surprising considering a 1997 survey that found 31 percent of white males and 25 percent of black males in the 12th grade use drugs on a monthly basis. "There are hardly any African Americans who don't know someone in his own family or at least someone close to his family that hasn't been impacted by drugs," says Columbia lawyer I.S. Leevy Johnson, the first black to lead the South Carolina Bar. RACE AND JUSTICE is a tough issue. Those who work within the system often see themselves walking a tightrope: Defend law and order, and you're branded a racist; point out the system may be biased against blacks, and you're called soft on crime.

That's why Staten squirms in his seat and sighs when asked whether the highest-crime areas in town are black neighborhoods. "In Chester, the areas more prone for selling drugs are the areas. hesaysr pausing to measure his words. "They are the areas we have more calls," he says, sounding almost apologetic. "And the facts show we have more calls in the areas where there are more blacks." Staten, who carries a Bible in the back of his patrol car, says religion and jobs can help an area with more than 10 percent unemployment.

But he knows God and jobs by themselves aren't the whole answer. He has seen a softening of black attitudes toward police since he was a rookie cop in Rock Hill a quarter century ago. But he knows many blacks still see police as the enemy. "You can't blame them. Look at what happened to blacks just in my lifetime," Staten says.

"It was bad in the big cities, but a whole lot worse in the little towns like this where just a few guys were the law." IN THE PAST, for many blacks, the only justice in South Carolina was mob justice. The Tuskegee Institute estimates 156 blacks were lynched by mobs in South Carolina between 1882 and 1968. In 1904, a black was shot dozens of times by a mob in Kingstree after a jury couldn't decide whether to convict him of murder or manslaughter in the slaying of a white farmer. Eight blacks accused of killing a white landowner were shot and killed in 1889 when a mob stormed the Barnwell County jail. As a U.S.

senator, "Pitchfork" Ben Tillman justified South Carolina's lynchings before Congress. "I have three daughters," he said, "but so help me God, I had rather find either one of them killed by a tiger or a bear and gather up her bones and bury them, conscious that she had died in the purity of her maidenhood, than to have her crawl to me and tell me the horrid story that she had been robbed of the jewel of her womanhood by a black fiend." BUT WHITE LEADERS often used rape allegations to incite mobs when the real problem was more trivial, land dispute or a fist fight. University of South Carolina history professor Dan Carter says. And lynching was sometimes a political tool. In one of the state's most infamous incidents, Lake City postmaster Frazier Baker and his 2-year-old daughter were shot and killed trying to escape a fire set in their house in 1898.

Whites were angry the federal government had assigned a black postmaster and when complaints didn't work, turned to violence. A century ago the white Legislature also passed laws like today's drug laws that seemed to affect blacks more than whites. The so-called "pig laws" gave 20-year sentences to people convicted of stealing just one pig or other small amount of livestock. "If you've been considered someone else's property for a long time, you probably aren't too concerned with the nuances of property rights," Carter says. "This law wasn't targeted at blacks, it just turned out to hurt them the most." the year.

South Carolina airports also are taking additional security measures. Greenville, like the nation's other airports, will have an explosive-detection machine by the end of the year. Charleston International is spending $26,000 on a fingerprint identification system to speed up employee background checks. Race and Justice Here are a tew highlights of South Carolina Justice system relation to race: 35 ot South Carolina's 73 death row inmates are black. Blacks were arrested lor 106,153 of the 220,442 crimes reported in the state in 2000.

72 percent of the people arrested for murder in 2000 were black. Whites accounted for more than 67 percent of the arrests for drunken driving, liquor law violations and drunkenness in 2000. More than 70 percent of the people arrested for selling, manufacturing, growing or distributing drugs in 2000 were black. That arrest rate for blacks falls to 53 percent when simple possession and other lesser drugs crimes are included. South Carolina has one black judge on the Court of Appeals and no black justices on the Supreme Court.

Retired Chief Justice Emest Finney Jr. was the first and only black on the high court serving from 1965-2000. There are at least five black Circuit Court I Iges among the 46 judges apr ed statewide. None of South Carolina's 16 elected solicitors is black. The Tuskegee Institute estimates 160 people were lynched in South Carolina from 1892-1968.

Only four victims were white. Souicm: Stat Law Enforcement DM- sion. South Carolina Bar, ttata Corracltona Department, luakegee Inatitul fessor said. Johnson says the nation needs to seal its borders to drugs. Staten its more jobs.

Murray drug treatment should be more widely available. But all agree the problem has to be dealt with if race relations are to improve. "This affects everybody," Murray said. "And it's going to take everybody's help to clean the communities up and get us back on the right path," Next month: Race and Sports. PASSPORT PHOTOS 7 i plus photos immigration visa concealed weapons permit diver's certification and RUDD'S 318 Main St.

'Uptown 223-0697 Unbeatable LOW PRICES! 1302 Bypass 72 NE 223-7227 S3 QTQ oro S3 65 oro 6s 3 sr 5 Health Ministry not cause passengers major problems' ESTABLISHED 1904 If ff HOME FURNISHING CENTERS TT cially on domestic flights. When I flew down here, I had a large portfolio with me. They didn't even look at it. I could have put anything in there," she said. Airlines hope the policy implemented Friday will help change that while not inconveniencing passengers.

Airport officials reported a drop in airline traffic in South Carolina since Sept. 11. Overall passenger volume at Columbia Metropolitan fell 1 1 .4 percent last year compared with 2000, officials say. After Sept 11. passenger volume at Charleston International decreased about 20 percent.

Greenville-Spartanburg International reported its passenger traffic dropped about 11 percent for Congregational Nursing and Health Ministry 13 '2 Storm" Coulter and an accomplice, Ivory Croker, place a large, black plastic bag inside the trunk of a car. Then one of the men punched the bag when it moved, according to a sworn statement. Police charge three with killing man CHARLESTON Three men have been charged with killing a man here, but police say they can't link that crime with the slaying of a 17-year-old woman police sought as a witness in the case. Police have charged Anthony Mann, 22, of North Charleston; Peter John Davies, 26, of West Ashley; and Eric Zack, 17, of North Charleston, with killing and robbing Dante Craig Tobias II, 28. Investigators said Tobias was shot once in the back on Jan.

7 and drugs, guns and money were stolen from him 892-acre plantation to be protected BEAUFORT Diane Terni doesn't want anyone putting a shopping center on the 892-acre Brewton Plantation just south of Yemassee. So she put a conservation easement on the plantation with The Nature Conservancy as part of the ACE Basin Project Terni still owns the land and can continue to use it for hunting, fishing, forestry and fanning. But she can never develop it, which is the way she wants it The plantation, which Terni has owned for almost 20 years; includes several habitat types ranging from forested uplands and wetlands to agricultural fields, wildlife food patches and extensive freshwater managed wetlands, a conservancy release said. You are cordially invited to Cambridge Academy's lift) A Program for Youth presented by Meg's House oa? and Mathews UMC Speaker: Dr. Becky Grigg A look at domestic violence In a dating situation.

Learn the signs of domestic violencel SUNDAY JANUARY 20, 2002 PM SELEREGIONAL at C-B li.il. C3 cs 3 "e3 mm ct a tt A I I Open Mouse for Tarents ofX-4 andX-5 students Tuesday, January 22, 2002 7:00 pm Jot More Information Contact: jamit Lyks 229-2875 103 Eastman Drive Greenwood, South Carolina www.cambridgeacademy.or; check out our new Links A rviainews umi Call 227-2963 for more information Congregational Nursing and.