Detroit vs. Crack
“It used to be so beautiful here, but crack ravaged this block,” he explained. “It was just an epidemic. There used to be eleven-old dope fiends in every house.” Embattled cops seeking to halt the spread of the virus started torching homes. “If it wasn’t the police it was the people living there, or the drug dealers,” he added. In his estimation, the crack epidemic—and the fires that raged because of it—peaked in the early nineties, then began to decline. In the mid-nineties, a whole generation of sick, tired people, “started to go to the rehabs” that had become more prevalent by then."
-Franklin Gaudy
-Franklin Gaudy
The Beginning
Detroit consistently ranks as one of the highest cities for cocaine-related deaths since the 1980s. Crack dealers with Detroit connections have turned up in communities of all sizes throughout Michigan, and in scores of small- to medium-sized cities in Ohio and Indiana. Police in Cleveland blamed Detroit for the crack epidemic that hit their city in the 1980s.
Law enforcement authorities cite two main factors for the flood of crack from Detroit. One is the Detroit Police Department`s stepped-up war against drug traffickers. During the 1980s, it averaged seven raids and 26 arrests daily, more than double the previous year`s figures.
The other factor was the glut of crack in the city. Authorities say the saturation of the Detroit market reduced the street price of crack by half-to less than $10 for a ``rock,`` the basic unit with a weight of a gram or less-causing dealers to seek out new markets.
Law enforcement authorities cite two main factors for the flood of crack from Detroit. One is the Detroit Police Department`s stepped-up war against drug traffickers. During the 1980s, it averaged seven raids and 26 arrests daily, more than double the previous year`s figures.
The other factor was the glut of crack in the city. Authorities say the saturation of the Detroit market reduced the street price of crack by half-to less than $10 for a ``rock,`` the basic unit with a weight of a gram or less-causing dealers to seek out new markets.
The Chambers Brothers Organization
In the 1980s, a huge market for crack cocaine formed in the slums of Detroit, Michigan. Rising to exploit the accessibility of cocaine and its growing popularity among Detroiters of all classes and ages, The Chambers Brothers came to control half the crackhouses in Detroit. The Chambers Brothers Organization ran like a Fortune 500 company. The brothers used discount coupons and two-for-one sales to lure buyers to the highly addictive drug. They had as many as 500 employees, so many that they issued identification cards with snapshots to keep track of them, law-enforcement officials said. To motivate workers, there were sales competitions among the hundreds of crack houses run or franchised by the group.Supervisors, conscious of the need for quality control, would go to the crack houses posing as buyers. The organization amassed great wealth in its brief reign before the brothers were arrested in February after an 18-month investigation. Officials from the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Detroit Police Department seized $1 million in cash and jewelry, 68 automobiles and 250 weapons. The authorities also confiscated six kilograms of cocaine. As the empire grew, the brothers bought vacation property in Jamaica and were planning to expand the business to Flint, Mich.; Toledo, Ohio, and elsewhere in the Middle West.
The brothers came here in 1983 after the eldest, Willie Lee, got a job as a mail carrier. From legitimate jobs they moved into their first venture in the drug trade: selling marijuana out of a convenience store. They were originally from Marianna, Arkansas, and convinced many young people to come with them to Detroit with the promise of riches beyond what they could obtain working in the cotton fields.
Brutal demands were made of the employees, many of them high school students who were paid $100 a day. They were expected to be available around the clock. Many of them skipped school to work 12-hour shifts selling or making crack. They were docked, dismissed or beaten for being late or for coming up short in either crack or cash.
One former employee, Felicia Gilchrist, who is 19 years old, testified that she took her week-old baby with her to the crack house where she sold crack through a hole in a wall. She sat at her post 24 hours a day, sleeping ''when the traffic would slow down,'' she said, and taking turns on busy days with her 14-year-old sister, Alicia.
''They were like slave traders, bringing kids up from the South and locking them in these crack houses,'' Dr. Taylor said. ''They had kids out there almost auditioning for them. It's like an alternative to Little League.'' The Chambers Gang made a mockery of the Great Migration; coercing other blacks in Marianna to join their gang.
Everyone in Marianna knew when the brothers were in town recruiting. ''The Chambers brothers came down here with fancy cars and fancy clothes and girlfriends and drugs and jewelry and offered these kids a life style they couldn't get in Marianna,'' said Police Chief Mark Birchler of Marianna.
One of those who responded to the lure was Terry Colbert. At 17, he was on a fast track in the organization, making $3,000 a week selling crack on the east side of Detroit. But the good times quickly turned ugly when he was beaten and shot in a quarrel with Otis Chambers over money.
''I was standing in the corner,'' Mr. Colbert recalled, ''and Otis and my uncle was arguing and Otis looked at me and said, 'You know, I don't like you no way,' and that's when the guy, Karate, started swinging the bat on me.''
A shoot-out began. Mr. Colbert testified that he jumped out of a window, followed by Otis Chambers, who told his security men: '' 'There he goes, right there - shoot him.' ''
Rivalries often developed between the Southern recruits and the Detroit workers, bickering over favoritism and turf. It led to shootings and at least four murders, officials said. The brothers themselves were brutal in their dealings with competitors. One witness testified that he saw a gang leader put the body of a rival drug dealer into a trash bin.
Some of the killings were not part of the the Federal trial and are still under investigation. ''We couldn't prove who did the murders,'' Mr. Bunting said. ''It was hard to sort things out because so many people did so many things.'' 'Money, Money, Money' In Some Family Videos
In time, the brothers became so arrogant that they made home videotapes of themselves, counting stacks of money and showing off the gold faucets in their bathrooms and other trappings of their wealth. The videotapes were confiscated by Detroit police officers in a raid of one of the organization's crack houses and later broadcast on Detroit television stations.
In a key tape, a high officer of the organization who is still at large is seen surveying stacks of bills in the kitchen. ''Money, money, money,'' he says, gleefully. ''Fifty thousand here. Ain't no telling how much is up there. I'm going to buy me three cars tomorrow - and a Jeep.''
Someone else on the tape asks, in jest, what should be done with all the money.
''I tell you what we can do,'' Larry Chambers says wryly. ''We can give it to the poor.''
The prosecution chose not to use the tapes at the trial, saying the case could be made without them. But jurors were questioned about whether they had seen them.
''Those tapes really hurt,'' said Anthony Chambers, who is Larry Chambers's lawyer but is not related to his client. ''How often is it that you get home videotapes made by the defendants?''
The brothers came here in 1983 after the eldest, Willie Lee, got a job as a mail carrier. From legitimate jobs they moved into their first venture in the drug trade: selling marijuana out of a convenience store. They were originally from Marianna, Arkansas, and convinced many young people to come with them to Detroit with the promise of riches beyond what they could obtain working in the cotton fields.
Brutal demands were made of the employees, many of them high school students who were paid $100 a day. They were expected to be available around the clock. Many of them skipped school to work 12-hour shifts selling or making crack. They were docked, dismissed or beaten for being late or for coming up short in either crack or cash.
One former employee, Felicia Gilchrist, who is 19 years old, testified that she took her week-old baby with her to the crack house where she sold crack through a hole in a wall. She sat at her post 24 hours a day, sleeping ''when the traffic would slow down,'' she said, and taking turns on busy days with her 14-year-old sister, Alicia.
''They were like slave traders, bringing kids up from the South and locking them in these crack houses,'' Dr. Taylor said. ''They had kids out there almost auditioning for them. It's like an alternative to Little League.'' The Chambers Gang made a mockery of the Great Migration; coercing other blacks in Marianna to join their gang.
Everyone in Marianna knew when the brothers were in town recruiting. ''The Chambers brothers came down here with fancy cars and fancy clothes and girlfriends and drugs and jewelry and offered these kids a life style they couldn't get in Marianna,'' said Police Chief Mark Birchler of Marianna.
One of those who responded to the lure was Terry Colbert. At 17, he was on a fast track in the organization, making $3,000 a week selling crack on the east side of Detroit. But the good times quickly turned ugly when he was beaten and shot in a quarrel with Otis Chambers over money.
''I was standing in the corner,'' Mr. Colbert recalled, ''and Otis and my uncle was arguing and Otis looked at me and said, 'You know, I don't like you no way,' and that's when the guy, Karate, started swinging the bat on me.''
A shoot-out began. Mr. Colbert testified that he jumped out of a window, followed by Otis Chambers, who told his security men: '' 'There he goes, right there - shoot him.' ''
Rivalries often developed between the Southern recruits and the Detroit workers, bickering over favoritism and turf. It led to shootings and at least four murders, officials said. The brothers themselves were brutal in their dealings with competitors. One witness testified that he saw a gang leader put the body of a rival drug dealer into a trash bin.
Some of the killings were not part of the the Federal trial and are still under investigation. ''We couldn't prove who did the murders,'' Mr. Bunting said. ''It was hard to sort things out because so many people did so many things.'' 'Money, Money, Money' In Some Family Videos
In time, the brothers became so arrogant that they made home videotapes of themselves, counting stacks of money and showing off the gold faucets in their bathrooms and other trappings of their wealth. The videotapes were confiscated by Detroit police officers in a raid of one of the organization's crack houses and later broadcast on Detroit television stations.
In a key tape, a high officer of the organization who is still at large is seen surveying stacks of bills in the kitchen. ''Money, money, money,'' he says, gleefully. ''Fifty thousand here. Ain't no telling how much is up there. I'm going to buy me three cars tomorrow - and a Jeep.''
Someone else on the tape asks, in jest, what should be done with all the money.
''I tell you what we can do,'' Larry Chambers says wryly. ''We can give it to the poor.''
The prosecution chose not to use the tapes at the trial, saying the case could be made without them. But jurors were questioned about whether they had seen them.
''Those tapes really hurt,'' said Anthony Chambers, who is Larry Chambers's lawyer but is not related to his client. ''How often is it that you get home videotapes made by the defendants?''
Crack-den-ality in Detroit Architecture
"In case you, like the Rabbi, think Angela has crack-den-ality, we present warning signs that your building is using the freebase form of cocaine (base, cavvy, hard, iron, or rock).
Does she have a lack of meeting important obligations at work, school, or home the neighborhood association meeting ?
Does she appear to have dilated pupils windows, red eyes trim, rapidweight brick loss, profuse sweating, and a overall lack of personal hygiene?
Have you seen her with paraphernalia such as baking soda, burnt spoons, crack pipes ect…?Does she always have a steady source of the drug or have a steady supply on hand? [Ed note: we did not go inside, but found no paraphernalia outside]
Moral of the story: As Milton said, the mind can make a "heaven of hell, a hell of heaven." As Curbed said, a man looking for his car can make a crack den out of a development opportunity, a development opportunity of a crack den."
-Sarah Cox Looking for Crack-Den-ality in Detroit Architecture
Does she have a lack of meeting important obligations at work, school, or home the neighborhood association meeting ?
Does she appear to have dilated pupils windows, red eyes trim, rapidweight brick loss, profuse sweating, and a overall lack of personal hygiene?
Have you seen her with paraphernalia such as baking soda, burnt spoons, crack pipes ect…?Does she always have a steady source of the drug or have a steady supply on hand? [Ed note: we did not go inside, but found no paraphernalia outside]
Moral of the story: As Milton said, the mind can make a "heaven of hell, a hell of heaven." As Curbed said, a man looking for his car can make a crack den out of a development opportunity, a development opportunity of a crack den."
-Sarah Cox Looking for Crack-Den-ality in Detroit Architecture