Security force ‘lifts up’ NW neighborhood

Ellis 2X walked through the alleys of Sursum Corda on a cold, crisp day last month, pointing out shadowy spaces where drug dealers once held court in the crime-ridden D.C. community.

“You might go to one place and find people shooting up, and you might go to another place and find people selling drugs,” said Ellis 2X, a member of the Nation of Islam and a lieutenant in its security force, the Fruit of Islam. “The drugs were the biggest problem when we first got here.”

Times have changed in Sursum Corda since June, when directors of the low-income Northwest housing cooperative, just 10 blocks from the U.S. Capitol, contracted with the Fruit of Islam to patrol the grounds 24 hours a day.

Dressed in crisp suits — some with patches proclaiming “In the name of Allah” — and always wearing ties, six guards in four separate shifts now walk where vagrants and junkies once slept.

“You always see them,” said Lula Jackson, a licensed day care operator who has lived in Sursum Corda for nine years. “They always have a pleasant smile or a pleasant look on their face.”

The change has been gradual in Sursum Corda, a U-shaped maze of tan town houses long known as one of the District’s most dangerous neighborhoods, with drug dealers and transients taking up what seemed like permanent residence in the project’s narrow nooks and crannies.

“That area’s like a castle,” said Metropolitan Police Department Capt. Ralph McLean of the First District, which patrols the complex. “It’s almost fortified against you doing anything in there … Sursum Corda is the worst apartment complex for trying to do police work that I’ve ever seen.”

Sursum Corda, which is Latin for “lift up your hearts,” is also where 14-year-old Jahkema Princess Hansen was fatally shot after she witnessed a homicide in 2004. City officials designated the neighborhood the first of 14 crime hot spots in the District soon after the shooting.

After hundreds of arrests and the addition of overtime police patrols, crime in Sursum Corda decreased by 38 percent from 2003 to 2004, statistics show, but drugs and dealers still saturated the area.

“Once the police officers left, the drug dealers came out,” said David Chestnut, chief operating officer of the housing cooperative, which is owned by its nearly 170 residents. “They were effective to a point, but we needed to move to the next level, and we needed around-the-clock security.”

Enter the Fruit of Islam. The group is a wing of Minister Louis Farrakhan’s controversial Nation of Islam, though not all of its “courtesy guards” are members. Those who have the last name ‘X,’ which represents their unknown African last name, are members.

Since police have cracked down on Sursum Corda and the security force has been in place, drug arrests in the neighborhood have increased by 267 percent — from 46 arrests in 2003 to 169 last year, statistics show.

Mr. Chestnut said that Fruit of Islam receives about $60,000 a month for its services from a deal struck last year with Vienna, Va.-based KSI Services Inc. to renovate the neighborhood’s housing.

Joseph Ricci, executive director of the Alexandria-based National Association of Security Companies, said the contract “is probably pretty comparable” to other security agreements in the District.

The Fruit of Islam guards are trained in conflict resolution and martial arts, and they carry walkie-talkies but no weapons. They perform camera surveillance as needed and call D.C. police to handle the most dangerous situations.

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