By Bill Forry

It takes guts to stand up to thugs with semi-automatics and machine guns. Even if you're a law enforcement professional, the fear of the unknown is always there, holding your hand, giving you pause.

But some things are worth the risk; just ask the good people of Dracut Street. At the end of June, this normally quiet side-street between Dot Ave. and Florida Street turned into a shooting gallery not once, but twice, in one week. As police later discovered, the problems were traced back to one house, 31 Dracut, where firefighters responding to a small blaze on July 3 stumbled upon a big cache of weapons and ammo. The discovery of the arsenal &emdash; along with a sizable stash of what appears to be cocaine &emdash; confirmed what most folks on Dracut already knew: The tenants in the yellow two-family were up to no good.

Two days before the fire, neighbors held an emergency meeting at a neighbor's house. Steve Quintana, (pictured above, right) an 11-year resident of Dracut, said that back-to-back shoot-outs in front of 31 Dracut prompted the huddle.

"I mobilized everyone on the block," says Quintana. "We know everyone by their first name here. We don't have no problems and we're proud of the block. Everyone gets along: black, white, Asian. All the children play together.

"Besides this one house, this block is heaven," he says.

The week before, though, heaven gave way to the "boom, boom, boom" of gunshots. Police descended on the scene but found little evidence, Steve says. Then, a few nights later, on a Sunday, the neighborhood shook to the sounds of machine gun spray tearing through the night &emdash; another drive-by. Bullet holes laced the car of a neighbor who was away for the weekend, but had left a car parked in front of 31 Dracut.

For Quintana and his neighbors, it was the last straw. An emergency meeting was called for Tuesday night. Maureen Feeney, the District Three city councillor, was on hand, along with police from C-11 and the crime watch unit. Area C-11 commander Captain Tom Lee says that the troubled house was already on his radar screen, mainly thanks to alert neighbors.

"We did get a lot of info on Dracut Street, even before the meeting," says Capt. Lee. "Any time residents can provide us information, whether it's plate numbers or descriptions, it's a huge help."

Two of the people who lived in the yellow house came to the crime watch meeting, too, apparently to defend their reputation. One woman angrily denied accusations that something was amiss, telling her neighbors that her son was in a band, which accounted for the busy traffic in and out of the home.

When firefighters swarmed the yellow house two nights later, though, it wasn't cymbals and synthesizers that caught their eye. It was the Rumanian AK-47 assault rifle with a banana clip that could have blasted holes through the wall. Police also found five semiautomatic handguns, a case of ammunition, cocaine, and marijuana. The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms are still analyzing the weapons to see if they can be tied to any shootings. To date, only one of the seven people who lived at 31 Dracut has been arrested: 23-year-old Cravins Ducheine, nabbed for an outstanding traffic violation.

For the moment, anyway, Dracut Street is peaceful again. The July 3 fire drove the suspect tenants from the yellow house, which has been condemned by inspectors. Meantime, Steve Quintana says he and his neighbors will be watching for any other emerging problems in the area.

"We were able to expose some ideas with our meeting," Quintana says. "The most important thing is to keep it up as a group on the block. We have a meeting next month on the 12th. We're trying to see if we can get some of the other blocks together, too, to do a meeting among leaders of all of them.

"That will put a stop on this crime. Or, at least, make them think twice," says Steve Quintana.

•••

An inter-agency task force that was highly effective in shutting down problem properties in the 1990s is being revived this month in response to the recent crime spike. The Top Ten Most Wanted Drug House program, coordinated by Fields Corner's Tom Gannon, shut down 81 drug dens between 1991 and 2000. The task force targeted the city's most notorious crime magnets, found a way to seize the house, and then recycled the property back into the marketplace to responsible, first-time homebuyers.

Technically, the task force is still active and several Dorchester properties are on the hit list, according to Gannon. The operation has slowed down in the last few years, but Gannon says, "We're running at full tilt again."

Members of the task force come from the Boston Police Drug Control and Crime Watch Units, the Suffolk County D.A.'s office, the Mayor's Office of Neighborhood Services, the U.S. Attorney's office, and the city's Inspectional Services and Neighborhood Development departments. Gannon heads up the group, researching the histories of the bad addresses and working with the cops to find a way to shut it down, often by chasing down owners for lesser offenses, like tax evasion.

Dorchester is peppered with success stories from the Top Ten's big run in the mid-'90s. Part of the Marr Club's McLaughlin Youth Center on Dot Ave. was carved out of lots seized for illicit drug dealing. The McDonald's in Codman Square was once a corner smokeshop, which doubled as a dope spot for junkies at the corner of Washington, Talbot, and Norfolk until Gannon and company closed it down. Another notorious apartment complex on Talbot Ave. near Peabody Square was seized and turned into senior housing. Dozens more properties were flipped across the neighborhood during the program's boom years.

All signals suggest that the Top Ten list is ready for round two this summer. Gannon says a new task force members has just signed on: the Drug Enforcement Agency.

Residents who suspect a drug house is active on their block should not start with the task force. Your first call should be to your district police commander or the Drug Control Unit at one of the stations. Residents in Area C-11 can call the Gibson Street stationhouse at 617-343-4330. Residents are also encouraged to alert the Mayor's office to the problem property (call Molly Dunford or Mila Monteiro at 635-4819).

"The important thing is that they get information to the police in a timely fashion," Gannon says. "The police don't care who it comes from. Like everything else, when they get it, they'll trust, but they're going to verify."

Gannon says the task force will be meeting this month to map out its next steps.

Bill Forry can be reached at bforry@dotnews.com