GRANT WILL FINANCE NEW POLICEMEN

CAIRO, Ill. -- The Cairo Police Department will add four new officers to its community policing program with a $185,000 federal grant announced last week.

"This is part of President Bill Clinton's proposal to put 100,000 new officers on the street nationwide, with an emphasis on community policing," said James Wilson, mayor of Cairo. "We applied for the grant and felt we had a good chance of obtaining it."

Wilson's remarks were made before being notified that Cairo had been selected to receive the U.S. Department of Justice grant.

The grant will be used, in part, to pay for hiring officers who will maintain foot patrols and work closely with the tenants and youths of the city's two public housing complexes. The housing sites have been plagued by drug-related problems over the past 18 months.

"Community policing brings law enforcement officials and private citizens together to solve crime-related problems," said Wilson.

During the past year and a half, numerous complaints have been received by law enforcement agencies from the housing projects. During that same 18 months, as many as 15 to 20 drug violators have been arrested and sentenced in federal court.

Two of the sentencings came Friday, when two Cairo persons were sentenced by Chief U.S. Judge J. Phil Gilbert in U.S. District Court at Benton on their convictions for conspiring to distribute cocaine in Cairo.

W. Charles Grace, U.S. State's Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, announced the sentencings. Steven Adams, 30, was sentenced to 292 months and Stephanie R. Wilson, 19, was sentenced to 90 months.

Each defendant pleaded guilty to their involvement in a conspiracy with numerous other individuals who have been responsible for distributing large quantities of crack cocaine in and around a public housing project in Cairo.

Assistant U.S. attorneys Robert T. Coleman and Michael C. Carr handled the prosecutions.

In addition to their prison sentences, both were ordered to serve at least five years of supervised release following their incarceration.

The cases were the result of an ongoing investigation conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Cairo Police Department, and the Alexander County Federal Public Housing Drug Task Force.

That investigation is part of a concentrated effort being conducted by the federal government in cooperation with local law enforcement to address complaints made by people living in the public housing facilities in Cairo.