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The Sheriff's Office is lending the St. Petersburg Police Department some officers to work undercover.
By LEANORA MINAI, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published May 27, 2002
ST. PETERSBURG -- On the street, they're called "Starman."
The Pinellas County Sheriff's deputies, who are working in St. Petersburg on an as-needed basis, have acquired that nickname because of their star-shaped badges.
But you won't see them. They're sleuthing undercover, helping St. Petersburg police officers build drug cases, and their work is secret.
In fact, police Chief Chuck Harmon and Sheriff Everett Rice don't have a written agreement, detailing the parameters of their new team effort.
"I think there's a level of trust between myself and the sheriff, and we're comfortable with each other," Harmon said.
The Sheriff's Office has not made any arrests yet. Police administrators say that's not unusual and residents should not expect instant results because it takes time to build cases.
"We're going to be looking at mid- to upper-level drug trafficking and street corner stuff," said Lt. Gary Brown, who supervises the Sheriff's Office narcotics unit.
In recent months, St. Petersburg residents criticized the police administration for failing to aggressively patrol open-air drug markets, particularly in neighborhoods south of Central Avenue. They pointed to an increase in homicides and a decline in drug arrests.
The situation also drew the attention of the state's top drug czar, Jim McDonough, who in March asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement if St. Petersburg needed help.
Residents and city officials, including City Council member Bill Foster, asked Sheriff Rice for assistance.
Since then, the St. Petersburg Police Department has stepped up patrols. Overall, citywide drug arrests increased to 200 in April from 159 in March. The April arrests were the most for that month in two years.
"There's been an emphasis from everybody about working on the drug issue, and I'm optimistic that that trend will continue," Harmon said.
Rice said he isn't concerned about not having a written agreement with the city, even though he had a disagreement with officials in the mid 1990s and yanked six deputies he assigned to work out of the St. Petersburg police station.
Rice got upset the city demanded that the sheriff help pay workers' compensation for a confidential informant who was injured in a joint narcotics operation in St. Petersburg.
"They caused a little rough spot in the road a few years ago," Rice said last week. "It's over and done with."
Police and sheriff's officials refused to say how many sheriff's investigators are working in the city at any given time.
"If I tell you what we're doing, and you print that in the paper, all of the dopers are going to see that, too," said Brown, the narcotics lieutenant. "And they're going to know what to look for, and that's going to put our guys in a compromising situation."
Brown said deputies are not assigned to the police station. Instead, they come when needed.
"It's not an etched-in-stone plan -- this day we're going to do this, this day we're going to do that," Brown said. "It's kind of as it goes."