Last Tuesday afternoon Ed Wiggins was tooling around the Point Breeze section of South Philly in his late model Buick Le Sabre, looking for answers and opinions. As chief aide to State Rep. Harold James, whose district encompasses Point Breeze, it’s part of Wiggins’ job to have his finger on the pulse of the community. At the moment, many of those constituents are frightened and angry. They say that Operation Safe Streets has quietly pulled out of the neighborhood, and the violent drug dealers are back with a vengeance.

Just the night before, 12-year-old Latasha Davis was shot in the chest and hand on Sigel Street near 21st, an innocent bystander in the hail of bullets intended for someone else. A week before that a 29-year-old man was found slumped over the wheel of his car at 17th and Dickinson with a bullet in his head. Shootings are on the rise, neighbors say, often on the same corners that were monitored by foot patrol officers just weeks ago.

"When the cops were out here a couple of weeks ago, kids could play on the street with no problem," says Marjorie Davis, the 24-year-old sister of shooting victim Latasha. "All this wasn't here when the police were on the corner," Davis says, sweeping her arm in the general direction of at least a half dozen young men hanging out across the street drinking 40s of malt liquor. Davis says the doctors will have to amputate part of Latasha's thumb, and she's suffered a collapsed lung as a result of the shooting, but is expected to recover. Meanwhile, her big sister bemoans the lack of police presence the neighbors have come to expect since Operation Safe Streets.

"The cops have to be out here," Marjorie Davis says sadly. "You see as soon as they left it started right back up again. They have to be out here."

Wiggins thinks that it's possible the police themselves unwittingly facilitated the recent violence by leaving previously allocated drug corners open territory again. It's a theory shared by many in this community, and one arrived at reluctantly, considering the overwhelming support neighbors had for Operation Safe Streets.

"You hate to think of it that way, but there's no other explanation for it," Wiggins says. "By leaving those corners, the police made it anybody's corner again. So old fights over turf come back up, and this is what happens."

Wiggins says there was a shooting a few weeks ago right down the street from Rep. James' office in the middle of the day, which he missed by a couple of minutes.

"I had just left the office, and when I came back 10 minutes later, there were cops everywhere and people were gathered around talking about the shooting. It's gotten ridiculous."

Ridiculous is just how Ernestine Black describes it. Black has lived on 21st Street near Sigel for 30 years, and says her late husband was shot two years ago.

"We were right here on these steps," Black says, "and as soon as I went inside I heard shots. My husband came in bleeding."

Black says that her husband recovered from his wound, and the bullet had nothing to do with the cancer that eventually took his life, but just the same, she doesn't sit out on her steps much anymore.

"It got better a few months ago when the police were out on the corners," Black says, "but no sooner did the police leave than the shooting started back up. I hope they do something soon, it really is ridiculous."

Frank Keel, spokesperson for Mayor John Street, says that while he understands the neighbors' frustration, their premise is incorrect. There is no pullout or slowdown of Operation Safe Streets, according to Keel, just a reshuffling designed to put cops where they're needed most.

"I've heard that [theory] recently, and all I can tell you is that it's mistaken," Keel says. "The mayor understands the frustration, but the neighborhood has not been abandoned. You have to understand that Safe Streets is not a static thing, and adjustments are being made. There is not a pullback. It's more of a strategic repositioning of resources. Those corners that were ŒA' corners, where the drug dealing was most open and active, have dried up. The dealers have moved on, and we have to move with them. It's a game of cat and mouse."

Keel says that contrary to any notion of dismantling Operation Safe Streets, the mayor plans to announce an expansion of the program to include more bicycle patrols than ever.

"Our intelligence says the dealers are now mobile, and have taken to using bicycles instead of standing on corners. We'll counteract that with more bike cops and an expanded civilian component," Keel says. He won't give out the details of the program expansion just yet, but promises all will be explained to the public soon. Keel also promises that in the meantime, if neighbors notice that the bad guys have returned to those ŒA' corners in the absence of uniformed cops, neighbors should call the Operation Safe Streets hotline at (215) 686-DRUGS.

"That's an anonymous tipline that goes directly to the police department's Safe Streets command," he explains. "If the dealers come back, we'll come back. We're not going anywhere."

The tipline is working, Keel adds. He says last week's bust of $100,000 in drugs in the city's Wissinoming section was a direct result of an anonymous call to the hotline.

Police department spokesperson Sgt. Roland Lee backs up Keel's version of the status of Operation Safe Streets, and insists that less visibility does not mean fewer officers or a scaling back of the operation.

"The cops are still out there," Lee says, emphasizing that at the time of the Latasha Davis shooting, there were four patrol cars within two blocks of the scene, and response time was less than 30 seconds. "We're still covering more than 300 corners every day and every night, but as a police force, we have to go where the dealers go. We had to re-deploy our officers when dealers moved off the corners, but believe me, we're in this for the duration."

Kimyetta Lewis is the Program Liaison for Youth Services at the Point Breeze Community Center. The center, located in the McDaniel Elementary School at 22nd and Moore, is host to a number of summer programs for local kids. On a Thursday morning two weeks ago, she says, those kids had to duck and cover.

"There were upwards of 150 children here from our summer programs and performing arts program," Lewis explains. "We were having our session and there were shots right outside -- pow! pow! pow! pow! The children instinctively dove under their desks until it was over."

The session Lewis was in the middle of conducting, ironically, was called Peacemakers; it teaches kids to resolve conflicts without resorting to violence. After the shooting, Lewis says, police and city officials came inside the school to make sure everyone was OK, and after being assured that no one inside the building was hurt, the police left and she and the kids went on with their session. She says the kids talked about Operation Safe Streets, and how secure they felt with police patrols on most corners. They also talked about how the feelings of fear returned when they didn't see the police anymore.

"I know the reason they can't have police everywhere anymore has a lot to do with money," Lewis says, "but the people of this community deserve to feel safe. These children deserve to feel safe. It's an investment in the lives of children. The residents have to stand up and finish the job the police started."

To that end, Lewis has organized an anti-violence march through the neighborhood slated for this Saturday, hoping to spur her neighbors to speak out against the rash of violence. Joining her in the fight, a group calling themselves Men United For A Better Philadelphia have cruised the neighborhood preaching the gospel of non-violence to teens. Members of the Philadelphia Anti-Drug/Anti-Violence Network (PAAN) are also canvassing the neighborhood, handing out leaflets imploring neighbors to help end the violence. PAAN program coordinators Wali Smith and Kim Bacone urge neighbors to use the police to help them reclaim their street corners.

"[Operation] Safe Streets was a great idea, but the people in the communities failed to use it to galvanize," Smith says. "The mayor wanted to do the right thing, but citizens have to take the lead in policing ourselves. We have to live here."

"Now that Operation Safe Streets is winding down, the drug dealers are coming out more," Bacone chimes in. "You have to take people by the hand and show them how to make the changes permanent, and nobody did that. So we've been down here organizing block by block."

PAAN has supervised an annual gun turn-in program and helped neighbors start town watches, emphasizing the power of good neighbors to transform a neighborhood.

"People need to know that they have the power, these thugs don't have the power," Smith adds. "The people who have the courage to stand up get results. We have to stop being afraid of our young people, or we'll never get it done."

"Once the people get unified, then you'll see the lasting difference," Bacone adds with a smile.

After saying his goodbyes to Smith and Bacone, Ed Wiggins hops back into his Buick and lights a Newport.

"It's a constant power struggle," Wiggins says. "This neighborhood is full of tons of good, decent people versus a handful of knuckleheads. The problem is, the knuckleheads are armed."