Rolling 60s are out

David Kihara

Friday, Oct. 7, 2005 | 8:36 a.m.

The Las Vegas neighborhood where the Rolling 60s street gang used to operate drug houses is mostly quiet now, but 82-year-old Iley Campbell Sr. still keeps a loaded shotgun next to his bed.

Campbell has lived in an apartment on George Place, near Owens Avenue and D Street, for eight years and has been working as a maintenance man in the area even longer. His apartment is just a few houses away from a house where Rolling 60s members allegedly sold drugs.

But after more than 20 admitted or alleged members of the gang were hit with federal charges two years ago, drug buyers are no longer seen walking in and out of a house in the 100 block of Gregory Place at all hours, neighbors said.

"It used to be bad around here, but it's a whole lot better now," Campbell said Tuesday.

His 77-year-old wife, Lula Campbell, said, "(The drug dealers) moved out, and other people moved in."

But her husband doesn't feel safe enough to stop keeping his shotgun next to his bed at night, and he always has a yardlong stick nearby. He said he needs them because people in the neighborhood still get high on drugs and come around to his house, either to cut through his yard or to bother him.

"I tell them 'Go home!' I'm too old for that," he said.

Still, the neighborhood definitely is not as bad as it used to be, he said.

Seventeen members of the Rolling 60s have pleaded guilty in federal court. Charges ranged from operating drug houses and selling crack to murder.

Most pleaded guilty to conspiracy to engage in racketeering and are facing sentences ranging from 57 months to 168 months behind bars.

On Tuesday, five alleged gang members appeared before U.S. District Judge Larry Hicks and U.S. Magistrate Lawrence Leavitt for a status hearing on their case. They face multiple racketeering counts, among other charges. A trial date has been set for May 2.

While the federal indictment is clearly one reason the gang activity in the Rolling 60s' old stamping grounds has decreased, there are other factors as well, including better community involvement and vigilance by Metro Police, Lt. Lew Roberts of Metro's gang detail said.

That's why no other gang filled the vacuum in the neighborhood, he said.

The Gerson Park Kingsmen, a gang that was active around Martin Luther King and Lake Mead boulevards, would have been the most likely to pick up where the Rolling 60s left off. But when the Gerson Park public housing project was demolished in the late 1990s, the gang was dispersed and weakened, authorities said.

Whether gang-related or not, there is still plenty of crime in the Rolling 60s' former territory.

In the last two months there were 94 reports of assault, 30 cases of assault or battery with a gun and 68 narcotics incidents within a one-mile radius of George Place and Cadillac Lane, according to Metro statistics.

In comparison, another relatively crime-ridden area, the more densely populated area around UNLV, logged 154 reported assaults, 20 cases of assault or battery with a gun and 31 narcotics incidents during the same period.

The statistics for the former Rolling 60s area come as no surprise to neighbors of the gang's former crack houses.

As 17-year-old George Beltran was hanging out in front of his home on Paul Avenue near D Street on Tuesday, he pointed in the direction of Cadillac Lane, where the Rolling 60s had operated a drug house. He said he still sees drug deals going on around there.

Even so, the neighborhood is better than the Compton suburb of Los Angeles, where he came from, he added. Beltran said his family moved to Paul Avenue after his brother was shot in Compton.

"It's cool. I can walk down the street to the store and no one messes with me," he said.

David Kihara can be reached at 259-2330 or at davidk@lasvegassun.com