PR. GEORGE'S SET TO RAZE MUCH OF DEADLY DRUG MARKET

Half the homes are boarded up, windows are cracked, mattresses and beer
cans litter the streets. The stories of the neighborhood are scrawled on
its homes: "Mario R.I.P."

The 4700 blocks of Homer, Hudson and Huron avenues in Suitland are a
thriving drug market, police say, an area so notorious that Prince George's
County plans to tear down all the apartment buildings there.

A major plan to revitalize the neighborhood has offered hope -- but also
has added to the danger, for now. As the county buys properties and boards
them up as part of the revitalization, the area has become more desolate,
Nealon said.

And officials fear that there could be more problems, particularly for the
neighborhood's youngest residents.

Several yards from the site of one of the killings, at the top of the block
on Homer Avenue, is a new school, standing out like fresh laces on a ragged
pair of sneakers. The $15.7 million Suitland Elementary School will open in
three weeks as part of the revitalization.

To get to the school, some of its 600 students would have to walk through
the violent stretch. The thought has prompted school administrators to
consider busing all students to the school, regardless of how close they live.

"Safety will be a huge factor over there," Nealon said.

The county's revitalization plan for the area, called the Suitland Manor
redevelopment, includes buying and demolishing all of the run-down
apartments in a 33-acre area that includes Homer, Hudson and Huron avenues.
Eventually, possibly by 2008, condominiums, apartments and retail will
replace the blight.

Officials said they hope to have purchased all the homes in six months to a
year. Then they will begin tearing them down. Within three years, they hope
to have upscale housing and community services there.

The county has torn down several crime- and drug-ridden apartment complexes
in the area in recent years, forcing drug dealers to relocate and battle
for new street corners to sell their goods, investigators said.

Police say the homicides on the three Suitland roads stem from turf wars or
drug deals. They have made arrests in three of the cases.

The county's first homicide of the year occurred on Hudson Avenue at 9 a.m.
Jan. 3, when Shawn Chambers, 24, was fatally shot in front of his home.
That case remains open. Chambers's neighbor, Wendy Clayborne, was killed
Feb. 11 in the same block when she did not pay a $40 drug debt, according
to police. Police have charged a man with first-degree murder.

"This neighborhood is terrible," London said, shaking away a friend's
comforting touch on her arm. "They have to do something about it."

County Board of Education Chairman Beatrice P. Tignor (Upper Marlboro) said
the school system is exploring whether to bus all students to the school.
Board policy says that students who live in a 1 1/2- mile radius of the
school are not eligible for bus service.

"If we have to bus them two blocks, we have to bus them two blocks," Tignor
said. "We can't subject our children to danger and crime. They don't need
to be exposed to needles and condoms."

"One of the biggest tools against crime is revitalization," Thompson said.
"Crime is on our radar. We want to make sure we get the bad guys out as
soon as we can.