At last night's Eastern District Police Community Relations Council meeting, Baltimore Police Maj. Melvin Russell ran into flak from residents about his request that they e-mail him directly with complaints about drug organizations.

Breaking crime still goes to 911, his officers said, but e-mails about ongoing drug houses and drug corners will help both log the complaints and ensure action. But Russell, who is trying restore community policing, wants very specific information.

"Don't just put the drug dealers are in my block again," Russell said. "You won't get a response. Be detailed. Give me license plate numbers. Tell me that 'Pookie' is back on the street selling drugs."

Russell said that when he was in the Northeastern District, one resident took him up on his word. The man took pictures of dealers through his blinds. Then he took video. "He sent me two 10-second videos of drug dealers. Hand-to-hand. Hand-to-hand. The guy took pictures of the alley where the guy hid his drugs. He didn't call it a stash. He called it a store. He drew and arrow to the spot."

Russell said police were on it that day.

That's the kind of cooperation Russell is trying to get. His deputy major, Dan A. Lioi, a former lieutenant in the gun squad, got praise from a resident who had spotted him at a drug corner. She had called him to complain about Preston and Aisquith streets, and Lioi went there. "I had to see what you guys are telling me is going on," he said.

Crime in the Eastern District has dropped more sharply this year than anywhere else in the city, according to police spokesman Sterling Clifford. At last night's meeting, police delivered an astounding statistic: the Eastern has had only one nonfatal shooting and one homicide so far this month.

The fatal shooting occurred about 1 a.m. Saturday in the 1800 block of N. Regester St. Derrick Phillips, 42, was shot in the head. His last known address was in Woodlawn, but Lioi said the victim hung out on Greenmount Avenue in North Baltimore. He said Phillips may have been visiting or looking for a woman on Regester Street, but other than that detectives have uncovered no ties between him and the Eastside.

Even one homicide is one too many. "It's a person who lost his life," the deputy major said.