1996 SPECIAL REPORT: "CROWN HEIGHTS CULT"

While investigating a report of suspected child abuse, New York City police got a surprise: they uncovered a cache of weapons hidden in a false closet in a house in Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood. Thirty-five people were taken into custody, believed to be members of a small group called the Provisional Party of Communism. While only five have been charged, the case will go to a grand jury for further investigation into who the group is, and what they were planning. NPR's Melissa Block reports.
Police officials said yesterday that the 30 people arrested in the late-night raid were followers of Eugenio Perente-Ramos, who experts in fringe groups and cults said had created a mythological persona as a radical labor organizer. The experts said Mr. Perente-Ramos had a following of several hundred people on the East and West Coasts who remained devoted to him after his death in March 1995 at the age of 59.

Stunned police officers recovered a large arsenal from the cluster of apartment buildings on Carroll Street in Crown Heights, where the group lived, a place the members called the Cave. The officers seized 16 pistols, 26 rifles, 5 shotguns and 2 working replicas of Thompson submachine guns. They also found five canisters of black powder, which could be used for making explosives.

At 1 A.M., Jerry Varson, a police spokesman, said a total of 35 people had been arrested, but he could not say when the additional arrests had been made. Of those held, six people were charged yesterday, most for possessing illegal weapons.
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