Residents and visitors alike have long wondered about the blatant drug sales that occur even during daylight hours in a predominantly black community in Tarpon Springs known as Union Academy. While some people speculated that the local police must be deliberately closing their eyes to the drug dealing, others concluded that the city's small Police Department just lacked the resources and expertise to attack the drug problem.
As criticism mounted a few years ago, Police Chief Mark LeCouris pledged to work harder to put an end to the community's reputation as a candyland for drug users. Undercover narcotics officers made arrests, the city police joined with other law enforcement agencies for drug sweeps, and crack houses were shut down. The problem was far from solved, but people went to jail for buying and selling drugs in Tarpon Springs.
However, were those drug investigations properly conducted? Today, the Tarpon Springs Police Department itself is under investigation by state authorities following allegations that certain officers abused suspects, violated their civil rights or even planted evidence in drug cases. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement already has spent months reviewing records of arrests and conducting interviews. FDLE investigators will say little about what they are looking for, but some of their inquiries focus on arrests in which force was used and on the work of two officers, Sgt. Michael Trill and retired Officer Romando Black.
Black, who grew up in Tarpon Springs and spent years assigned to the Union Academy neighborhood, and Trill, an eight-year veteran with many arrests to his credit, often worked together on the department's narcotics detail. Together, they sometimes received accolades for their work.
But their names also surface together in dozens of complaints received by the office of Pinellas-Pasco Public Defender Bob Dillinger, who is concerned that there may be a pattern of abuse of suspects in the Tarpon Springs Police Department. Black and Trill also show up as defendants in a lawsuit over the death of a drug suspect arrested by Black three years ago. The suspect died of head injuries after being wrestled to the ground - a maneuver the department described as an attempt to "escort (the suspect) to the ground." Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe concluded then that Black used reasonable force.
Chief LeCouris defends his department, contending that it does everything "by the book." However, records reviewed by the Times raise questions about whether some of the techniques used by police would withstand scrutiny - techniques such as prying open the jaws of a man police are chatting with on the sidewalk so they can search his mouth for drugs.
When police go too far, the civil rights of all residents of a community are at risk. The FDLE investigation hopefully will sift out the facts and reveal whether Tarpon Springs officers have just done their duty or have abused their authority.
