Northpinellas: Complex unhappy with new deputies

LARGO -- Rainbow Village resident Gwen Miller has seen her apartment complex at its worst. Blatant drug dealing and crime was so rampant that she and many other residents were afraid to leave their apartments.

That is not the case now. The drug dealers are virtually gone. Random violence is a bad memory. The primary complaint among most residents is the loud music blaring from car stereos as the vehicles ride through the 200-unit public housing apartment complex, located north of Ridgecrest Park.

Still, Miller is not happy with the sheriff's deputies who serve the area. It is a complaint shared by several other longtime residents who say they miss the community policing officers that once served the neighborhood, deputies that played a major part in reducing crime in Rainbow Village.

In March 2000, 10 of the 14 deputies in the Pinellas County sheriff's community policing program requested transfers to other assignments. Their replacements, some Rainbow Village residents say, are less involved in community events. They're not as visible, they say. Some are confrontational with the teenagers in the neighborhood.

"Before they made the change, they were wonderful," said Miller, 43, who has lived in Rainbow Village for 22 years. "But now, these police harass you for the devil of it."

The complaints surprised the deputies and their supervisors.

"I haven't heard this," said Pinellas Sheriff's Lt. Carol Rasor, the unit's commander. "I have not gotten any (complaint) calls on our current community patrol."

Pinellas Sheriff's Sgt. Pete Sierchio, who supervises community policing efforts in Rainbow Village, Ridgecrest and High Point, said he's heard some complaints about his underlings. But he and Rasor said some of the specific complaints stem from encounters between residents and deputies who are not community policing officers.

Currently, there is just one community policing deputy in Rainbow Village. Two others serve the nearby Ridgecrest neighborhood. Another deputy who specifically served Rainbow Village was pulled from the area last year when grant funding ended for the position, said Angel Tua, a spokesman for the Pinellas County Housing Authority. The spokesman fears the housing authority may lose funding for the lone community policing position in Rainbow Village.

The agency is bracing for further funding cuts as the nation prepares for war.

"It might get worse," Tua said. "We are going to see more and more cuts."

Miller's ire stems from a Sept. 5 incident between her 15-year-old son, Carlton, and a sheriff's deputy. Carlton was among a group of six young people, including his older sister, who were walking in the bicycle path along Washington Drive after watching a fight between two women. Carlton and others say they like to walk in the path because residents complain if you walk on their front lawns.

A sheriff's vehicle pulled in front of the group, Carlton said. The deputy wanted to search him. Carlton refused. He said he believed the deputy was going to plant some evidence on him. Carlton and his friends were charged with "pedestrian violation, walking in the middle of roadway."

Miller called the encounter harassment.

"I don't like it one bit," Miller said. "They wanted to search him for what? He does not have drugs on him, and they did not see him with drugs."

Sierchio said the deputy involved was not a community policing officer. He disputes some of Carlton's account but declined to discuss specifics.

Carlton has known more pleasant dealings with sheriff's deputies. He remembers being picked by former community policing officer Cpl. Chris Laughlin to attend police camp in Crystal River. The anger in his face disappeared as he talked about going swimming and horseback riding.

Rainbow Village tenants association president JoAnn Paul said she has seen the difference in how much attention the neighborhood gets from its deputies. The last group put together bike rodeos, bought gifts for children, drove them to school if they missed their school bus. If a child was too embarrassed to be seen inside a sheriff's cruiser, the deputy would call Paul and ask her to take the student to school.

The deputies were able to build trust, Paul said. Some young people would tell them about criminal activity in the neighborhood.

"They were like family to these children," she said of the community policing officers.

So why did the deputies leave? That is still a mystery. Some cited no reason in their transfer request. Others wrote that they wanted different shifts for child care purposes. One corporal blamed some management changes. Sheriff Everett Rice ordered an internal investigation. In April 2000, he assumed the matter was closed because there was no theme to the transfer requests.

Mary Burns, a sheriff's deputy who works with neighborhood watch programs in the area, said the community policing officers have not been able to spend as much time providing community service in Rainbow Village. She cannot pinpoint why, although she noted that one officer formerly assigned there was able to devote time to community affairs because he was single.

But Burns suspects the former deputies heard similar complaints when they first came to Rainbow Village.

"Can any of them remember what it was like when they first came in?," she said. "Change is always difficult, and you have to get used to whatever the change is."

Sierchio said the deputies who have served Rainbow Village since March 2000 have tried, but they have not seen great community support. He recalled a parade in the neighborhood where only seven residents showed up. There were, he said, as many deputies on hand that day.

While several deputies fondly remembered by Paul and others are white, some residents say the area needs more African-American community policing officers. Although most of the residents in Rainbow Village are black, there have not been any black community policing officers since Deputy Ural Darling left the neighborhood last year.

"Black men relate to other black men," said Paul.

Rasor said it is more important to have competent officers who can handle any problem.

Despite the resident complaints, Burns says there is an ample opportunity renew the bonds between the neighborhood and its community policing unit.

"The common ground has not been found," she said. "But you have to allow time for those relationships to develop."

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