MR. KOJO NNAMDIFrom WAMU 88.5 at American University in Washington, welcome to "The Kojo Nnamdi Show," connecting your neighborhood with the world. Later in the broadcast, Alcatraz Eleven, how one story of American POWs in the Vietnam War continues to shape who we are. But, first, a drug epidemic that ripped Washington D.C. apart, and the scars the city still bears from the days of crack cocaine ruling the nation's capital.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIDuring the past two decades, D.C. enjoyed somewhat of a renaissance as new residents poured into the District, businesses boomed and crime plummeted in neighborhoods across the city. But it was not long before that when D.C. was synonymous with open-air drug markets and the violence that came with them. WAMU 88.5 recently explored this era of the city's history in the documentary, "Crack, The Drug That Consumed The Nation's Capital." You can listen to that documentary in its entirety tonight at 9:00 here on WAMU 88.5.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIYou can also listen to individual chapters of it, view photo galleries, timelines, watch interviews we've reported and produced online at WAMU.org. Joining us now in the studio are two men who lived through very particular pieces of that history. Ruben Castaneda is a former reporter for The Washington Post. He's also author of the book, "S Street Rising: Crack, Murder, and Redemption in Washington D.C." which chronicles his time covering crime for the paper as well as his own personal struggles with an addiction to crack cocaine. Ruben Castaneda, thank you for joining us.

MR. RUBEN CASTANEDAGood afternoon.

NNAMDIAlso in studio with us is Mitch Credle. He's a homicide detective with the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington. He's also an author and a long-time coach and mentor with the D.C. Police Boys and Girls Club system here in the District. Mitch Credle, thank you for joining us.

MR. MITCH CREDLEYeah. Good afternoon.

NNAMDIYou, too, can join us. Call us at 800-433-8850. Where do you still see the scars of the crack epidemic that consumed D.C. in the 80s and 90s? Was this a period of the city's history that you lived through? 800-433-8850, if you'd like to share your observations about it or if you have questions or comments. One of the reasons our colleagues here at WAMU 88.5 took on this documentary was to change the changes that are sweeping over neighborhoods throughout the city today.

NNAMDIFew neighborhoods are changing as rapidly as Shaw, where you, Ruben, used to cover crime for The Washington Post and where you made your very first purchase of crack cocaine in the city. What kind of window did your own drug use and what was happening in this neighborhood give you into what was going on throughout the rest of the city?

CASTANEDAI arrived in Washington in September 1989 to work at the night police reporter for The Post. I arrived on a Tuesday afternoon. By Saturday, I had made my first purchase of crack on the 600 block of S Street Northwest. I had started using the year before I arrived in Washington. I started in Los Angeles, where I grew up and where I was working for a newspaper, and I continued in D.C. When I got onto the -- I picked up -- this was part of my addiction. I picked up women who would make the purchases for me, so that I would not expose myself to arrest.

CASTANEDAAnd they traded sex for drugs. So that was all part of my addiction. So that Saturday I got -- my first Saturday in D.C., I got drunk. And I picked up a young lady who called herself Champaign. She directed me to the 600 block of S Street Northwest. And it was mid-afternoon, a bright sunny day. And I was taken aback by what I saw. There were drug dealers on both sides of the block just openly waiting to make sales.

CASTANEDAThey did not seem to be concerned about police or anybody watching them -- much different from Los Angeles where the gangsters who sold crack and other drugs at least looked over their shoulder for the L.A.P.D.

NNAMDIIt's my understanding that your first front-page story for the newspaper came out of a shooting that happened on the corner of 7th and S Northwest. What happened there?

CASTANEDAThat's right. This was a very cold winter night in early 1990. There was a call on the police radio, which I monitored at the office at 15th and L, a call for a homicide. And it was very late. It was near 2:00 a.m. Too late to put anything in the next day's paper. But because I knew what that block was like, I thought, I should go there. And, when I got there, I learned very quickly from a police officer at the scene that there had been a mass shooting inside John's Place, which was a nightclub at the corner of 7th and S...

NNAMDIUm-hmm.

CASTANEDA...that was frequented by drug dealers, drug enforcers, people like that. And it was basically almost exactly in the spot where I made almost all of my buys. So I ended up working into the early morning hours and into the next day with another Post reporter. And that story about four young men being shot to death and two others being wounded in the nightclub was on the front page of The Post the next morning.

NNAMDII lived around the corner and I used to call that place an alleged club, because on the days when I went in there, there was nothing going on there that even seemed remotely like what you would expect in a normal nightclub. But, Mitch Credle, you saw much of this violence from a different perspective: first, as a homicide detective who had to investigate many of these cases; secondly, as a coach and mentor at a Police Boys and Girls Club, who knew so many of the young people involved on a personal level.

CREDLEYes. It was a very trying time. And even though I did a great deal of work as a detective back during that time period, but most of my work was done as a community person. And everyone knew me as Mitch, not Detective Credle. So I was very personal with a great deal of families back then.

NNAMDIRuben wrote a profile of you for The Post in 1996. You told him at the time that more than 100 of the young people you'd worked with over the years had been locked up for crimes ranging from drug possession to armed robbery, and more than a dozen had been murdered. How did everything that you were seeing as a coach, a mentor, friend and neighbor affect your perspective for which you were tasked to do as a police detective?

CREDLEIt made it difficult. But, to my advantage, it gave me much more insight as far as what was going on in the communities. Like even when I had a foot beat in that particular block, the 1300 block Clifford Street, some citizens would call me before they called 9-1-1. So it rooted me in the community and it made me a much better detective. And I was always told years ago that the community will make you as good as you are. So I used the ties that I had within the community to work on the cases. I never put anyone in positions that they were going to be uncomfortable with.

CREDLEAnd I believe the community felt comfortable with me as a detective investigating certain cases, because I was always honest to them in their personal lives, because my thing was, if a mother is going to give me her child to help raise, when it comes to a homicide case, they're going to trust me the same.

NNAMDIBecause one of the things I noticed from having lived in that community for 20 years is that the people that people would see as drug dealers, were the people that people like you and I knew as kids...

CREDLEYes.

NNAMDI...and knew their names and knew the human beings that they were and what may have gotten them involved in that. How did you get into working in the Police Boys and Girls Club system in the first place? I read in one of Ruben's pieces that you had a scrape with the juvenile justice system yourself, as a young person growing up in D.C. over a scooter.

CREDLEYes. I was 18 years old on my way to -- I just turned, as a matter of fact, I was 17 about to turn 18 -- I was on my way to the annual high school all star football game. And my father always told me to leave this scooter alone. But my friends, we put the scooter together, not knowing that the frame was stolen. And enroute to the game, I was arrested. And that was an experience I didn't want to ever have to deal with again. So I ended up pleading guilty. And I was ordered to do community service at the local rec center.

CREDLEAnd when I went there to start coaching youth basketball, I just fell in love with coaching. And, even though I was only 18 years old, I had kids 12, 13, 14 that were following my lead. And we became a dynasty during that time period in youth sports in D.C.

NNAMDISo you were involved in the Boys and Girls Club system before you became a police officer.

CREDLEYes, well, I left the rec center -- I was at the rec center from the ages of 18 to 20. Then I went to the Police Boys and Girls Club because of Mr. Tom Jones, who ran the Police Boys and Girls Club for this particular area, saw me coaching. And he saw how dominant I was with the teams that I had at the rec center. So I took my kids from the rec center and bridged them together with the kids down at 14th and Clifton where I went to high school at, and we started building great teams there.

NNAMDIIn case you're just joining us, that's the voice of Mitch Credle. He's a homicide detective at the Metropolitan Police Department here in Washington. He's also an author and a long-time coach and mentor with the D.C. Police Boys and Girls Club system in the District. We're talking about the effect that the crack-cocaine epidemic had on D.C. in the 80s and the 90s with Ruben Castaneda. He's a former reporter for The Washington Post and author of the book, "S Street Rising: Crack, Murder and Redemption in Washington D.C." We're taking your calls at 800-433-8850.

NNAMDIYou can send email to Kojo@WAMU.org. It may be difficult for some people to imagine the choices young people had in a lot of these neighborhoods and how it was that many of them got involved in the crack-cocaine trade or with gangs. Lamont Carey, a former drug dealer, spoke with WAMU's Jacob Fenston for this documentary. Here's how he says he was brought into the scene as a young person growing up here in D.C.

MR. LAMONT CAREYSooner or later, the drug dealers that are familiar with you will say, I'm getting ready to go to the store. Watch that Irvey (sp?) over there. Let me know if somebody come over there. And then, eventually, the drug dealer says, Hold this for me. Or they'll say, If you see the police coming, make some kind of sound or say, five-oh, or something. And so I was being groomed as a drug dealer without knowing that I was being groomed as a drug dealer.

NNAMDILamont Carey's story, how does this compare to the stories of the young people that you, Mitch, or you, Ruben, knew coming up at that time?

CREDLEWell, I mean just listening to that, he's right. I mean, I'm not sitting here smiling because it's funny, but he was just...

NNAMDIIt's familiar.

CREDLE...he, it's very familiar. And he's on point. And even though during my era, when I was young, a lot of the guys in the street where I lived at uptown really wasn't a lot of drug dealing. But the other neighborhoods, it exists. And he's right. Guys would ask us to do favors for them. And, you know, luckily, myself and some of my friends, we were just strong enough to walk away.

NNAMDIRuben.

CASTANEDAWell, the title of my book, "S Street Rising," has to do with one of the main story lines in the book, which has to do with what was going on on that block. This is not just a memoir. It's also about how a charismatic minister named Jim Dickerson, the pastor of New Community Church, which was located in the middle of that block, he forged a sometimes tense, sometimes uneasy alliance with a man named Baldy, who was the drug dealer who ran the block. They became friends and got to know and trust each other. And Baldy actually protected the church.

CASTANEDASo he told his young dealers on the street to look out for the church, to not mess with it and to basically protect it. Jim talked to the drug dealers on the street and he tried to get as many of them as possible to change their lives. And some of them did. Jim understood that many of them were simply trying to survive. They just -- some of them were the main breadwinners in their household. So I understand from my time as a reporter going into these neighborhoods, certainly as a buyer, how and why Jim would have created this alliance with Baldy.

NNAMDIBack to the telephones. Now, here we go with Lynnwood in Washington D.C. Lynnwood, you are on the air. Go ahead, please.

LYNNWOODYeah, I compliment everybody on there. Let me ask you, do you all remember Wayne Perry?

CREDLEYes.

LYNNWOODNow, let me ask you, do you believe that Alpo (sp?) is out? Because I've heard he's been out like four years, man. Mark Barnes (sp?) threw a party for him about three years ago.

NNAMDITell us who he's talking about, Mitch Credle.

CREDLEYeah, Alpo was a notorious drug dealer back in the day who came from New York. And he came down here and got affiliated with Wayne Perry, who's one of the most notorious killers in the city. And they became good friends. And I've heard a lot of different rumors about where he is. I mean, I could find out for sure but I'm not really trying to. And I've heard different rumors about him. And the situation he put himself in, there's some things about him that people outside of law enforcement would never know.

NNAMDIThank you very much for your call. We move on now to Tom in Sterling, Va. Tom, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

TOMYeah, thanks, Kojo. The question is to the gentleman, I forget his name, but...

NNAMDIRuben Castaneda.

TOMMr. Castaneda. Well, this is a question for him. On his own admission, he was involved in prostitution as the john and drug dealing as a buyer. I'm curious to know how much jail time he spent. And in anticipation of his answer, why didn't he spend time in jail?

NNAMDIRuben.

CASTANEDAI was never caught.

NNAMDISimple answer, four words, I was never caught. Had he been caught he would be talking to us about his experiences with the criminal justice system. We've been talking a lot about young people. Let's talk for a minute about how this epidemic shaped a generation of parents who came up in the city. Here's a part of the story that one mother Evelyn Green shared with WAMU 88.5's Kavitha Cardoza for this documentary.

MS. EVELYN GREENThat first night I got here in the apartment building, people were smoking PCP and drinking liquor and I fit right in. I started smoking crack around about six months later because the lady down the street gave me a pipe. And from that day until I came into recovery the first time I never looked back.

MS KAVITHA CARDOZAShe was spending all the government assistance she received for her daughter on crack and was so consumed by her addiction, Green says she wasn't a mother at all.

GREENI couldn't send my child to school. I couldn't make sure my child eat. I didn't care about nobody else.

NNAMDIThere's a lot of that in my neighborhood, Mitch Credle. A lot of these young parents today are still living with great regrets about how they did not raise their children.

CREDLEYes. Even back when I was coaching during that time period, I used to -- I saw the beginning of family destructions. I used to go pick kids up for games because they were late. And then when I get there the kids are still in their bed. I walk them through unlocked doors, people stretched out all over floors from the previous night getting high. And I'm taking kids away to go to the games. The parents don't even know the kids are gone.

CREDLEAnd, you know, I felt for a lot of the mothers who were going through a lot of different things because what happened is as they were strung out on crack and as they became older they didn't raise their kids. And I believe a great deal the effect today is that a lot of the grandmothers back then are now either great grandmothers and are deceased and the grandmothers who were the mothers back then didn't really raise their kids. And now the young mothers are dealing with their children. And the person who was the strongest member of their family was their grandmother.

CREDLEAnd, you know, it's totally different. So that mother who's now the grandmother of a lot of the kids just -- in a lot of the families just, you know, weren't strong enough. And a lot of family leadership was lost throughout the years because of that.

NNAMDINo parenting skills. It brings me back to the beginning of your story, Ruben Castaneda, because I couldn't help thinking, I'll be you Champagne probably had a child or two.

CASTANEDAI don't know much about her background. And back to expand a little on what the person who had that question for me, what he asked. Again, it was part of my addiction, the drugs and the women. It's not something that -- it's something that I do have some -- I have to own it. It's not something that I'm proud of. It's something that happened more than 20 years ago. And anyone who has ever ingested crack cocaine would know just how powerful that -- the effects of it can be. It changes people's behavior.

CASTANEDAMitch saw it. He talked about how people -- some mothers would just neglect their kids. So it was -- I think I had -- when I was a reporter at the Post I had this window into both sides of it. I knew exactly what it was like...

NNAMDIWell, let me respond to the caller's inference. Ruben Castaneda was not prosecuted because he was a reporter for The Washington Post.

CASTANEDAThat's absolutely not true.

NNAMDIHe just never happened to get caught. But that's all the time we have. Ruben, thank you so much for joining us. Ruben Castaneda is a former reporter with the Washington Post. He's also the author of the book "S Street Rising: Crack, Murders and Redemption in Washington, D.C." Mitch Credle is a homicide detective at the metropolitan police department in Washington. He's also an author and a longtime coach and mentor with the D.C. Police Boys and Girls Club system in the district. Mitch, thank you for joining us. Thank you for everything you do.

CREDLESure. Thank you for having me.

NNAMDIWe're going to take a short break. When we come back, Alcatraz 11, how one story of American POWs in the Vietnam War continues to shape who we are. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.