Thomas MacMillan Photo
Officer Luis Lopez and his teammates had been on the streets for only an hour and a half. They were returning with their first catch of the evening: a 24-year-old caught with 14 bags of crack in his boot. After five hours, the team would have three more alleged dealers and one buyer in handcuffs.
The name of the team was emblazoned on the T‑shirts Lopez (pictured) and his fellow cops wore Monday night: the Street Interdiction Unit (SIU).
The squad of 12 officers and two sergeants has a new leader, a new name and a new mission. The T‑shirts are part of it.
The new leader, Lt. Jeff Hoffman, took over the unit three weeks ago as part of a department shake-up under new Police Chief Frank Limon. Hoffman’s been busy.
In the first two weeks of August, the SIU had 105 “Suspicious Persons” incidents. The unit made 20 narcotic arrests, 12 marijuana arrests, and seized three handguns during the same time period.
The officers in the squad have been pulled off of patrol and out of the daily grind of responding to calls, to allow them to target street crime throughout the city. Using techniques from surveillance and sting operations, the SIU operates in response to citizen complaints about crime hot spots, analysis of recent crime statistics, and orders from the chief.
The SIU is a revival of street crimes units that have existed in the past. The most recent one, called ID-Net, was disbanded in 2006. But SIU is operating in a new way, Hoffman said.
For starters, SIU cops don’t sport the usual patrol uniforms. They wear blue T‑shirts instead. And the unit is placing an emphasis on intelligence-gathering through formal interviews with arrestees. If one suspect talks, it can lead to more arrests in the future.
The ID-Net approach enlisted uniformed cops to saturate neighborhoods for short periods of time and make arrests on all kinds of crimes, from seat belt violations to drug-dealing. Advocates said it gave crime-weary neighborhoods a needed temporary reprieve. Critics charged it merely racked up arrests without addressing the roots of crime, representing a retreat from community policing; small-time crooks arrested in one location could merely pop up elsewhere.
Lt. Hoffman acknowledged that that is likely to be a factor in any targeted street-crime enforcement. But each arrest has a direct impact on neighborhoods struggling with crime, especially when the cops can produce multiple arrests of a suspect, he said. The SIU can build felony records against dealers, eventually putting them away for long periods of time.
14 Bags Of Crack
At around 4:45 p.m., less than two hours into the evening shift, Hoffman was in his third-floor office at police headquarters when his Blackberry buzzed: The unit had a perp. Hoffman headed down to the parking garage under the station and got into an unmarked car. He drove across town and met his team at the Barnard Environmental Studies Magnet School off the Boulevard in the West River neighborhood. On the way, he got an email on his Blackberry: The suspect had 14 bags of crack, a bag of pot, and some cash on him.
Pulling into the parking lot at Barnard school, Hoffman found that evidence laid out on the trunk of a squad car, along with the man’s cell phone. SIU Officers Lopez and Anthony Maio, Sgt. Doug Harkins, and patrol officer Robert Hwang were waiting for a van to come pick up their suspect.
Maio (at left in photo) filled Hoffman (second from right) in on what had happened: After observing the 24-year-old man making what appeared to be several hand-to-hand drug sales, the team followed him in two unmarked cars. They pulled up to him on Mead Street, where he was riding a bike, and arrested him without incident. They found the drugs in one of his black work boots.
“We’re off to a good start,” said Sgt. Harkins (at right in photo).
Sartorial Strategy
Chief Limon put Hoffman in charge of both the Tactical Narcotics Unit and the Street Interdiction Unit. He was transferred from his position as East Shore’s beloved district manager. His new post marks the first time in 15 years as a New Haven cop that Hoffman shows up to work without a uniform.
On Monday afternoon in police headquarters, Hoffman wore a blue polo shirt and jeans as he explained some of the philosophy behind the new SIU — including a discussion of sartorial strategy.
Police can go out on the job in three different ways, Hoffman said. They can work overtly — that is, in full uniform. They can work covertly, in plainclothes or “undercover.” Or they can work as the SIU does, somewhere in between. The officers in the SIU wear blue T‑shirts and can wear jeans with their normal equipment belt. This type of outfit is more comfortable than a standard uniform, and allows more freedom of movement for cops who might be jumping in and out of cars and regularly engaging in foot chases with suspects, Hoffman said. The T‑shirts also create “an impression among the criminal element.” When arrested by police in a special uniform, criminals tend to take it more seriously, Hoffman said.
ID-Net employed uniformed officers in marked police cars; SIU uses T‑shirted cops in unmarked cars. While ID-Net was a branch of patrol, SIU is part of the detective division.
In another difference from ID-Net, with each felony arrest that it makes, the SIU is taking time to interview the arrestee. It’s a way to try to gather intelligence about what criminals in New Haven are up to, Hoffman said. Police might ask arrestees about gang affiliations or other people involved in dealing drugs. It’s not a new technique, Hoffman stressed. But it’s a tool that some earlier street crime units didn’t emphasize.
The officers in the SIU are assigned to the unit for six-month periods. They’re removed from “the grind of responding to constant response to calls” to work on special duty, Hoffman said. By taking cops from beats all over the city, the unit is able to use the intelligence they may have gathered on their previous assignments.
For instance, the SIU’s most recent gun arrest, last Thursday, came about after an officer recognized a man on Whalley Avenue. He knew the man had been “involved in criminal activity” in the Dwight-Kensington area. Noting that it was odd to see the man in a different neighborhood, the officer, Chris Senior, pulled over his squad car and stopped to talk to him. During the “field interview,” Officer Senior noticed the handgun in the guy’s pants pocket. He quickly made the arrest, with the help of Officer Sean Maher.
That’s that kind of police work that Hoffman encourages among the officers on the SIU, he said. He trains his men and women to have their eye out for suspicious behavior and to know the ins-and-outs of the “Terry pat-down.” That’s a police procedure resulting from U.S. Supreme Court decision in Terry v. Ohio, when justices ruled that police officers can stop and frisk people without probable cause to arrest, if they have a reasonable suspicion that a crime is in progress. “We utilize that frequently,” Hoffman said.
2‑Way Street
When the van arrived to pick up the suspect at the Barnard school with 14 bags of crack, Officer Lopez helped the man out of the back of Hwang’s cruiser and gave him a final pat-down. Lopez asked him about the tattoos on his arm and his neck. “That’s my son,” the man said about a tattoo reading “Jayvon” on his arm. His neck said “Rose.” “Family. It’s just family,” the man said.
Asking about tattoos is standard procedure, Hoffman said moments later, after his team had dispersed back to the streets. It’s all part of intelligence-gathering — which is not a one-way street.
“There’s two individuals gathering intelligence,” Hoffman said.
He pointed to two young men walking slowly by the school parking lot. Hoffman noted that one was wearing a red hat, and both were casually yet intently observant of the site of the recent police activity. Hoffman said if he still had officers nearby he’d send them over to talk to the two men. “There’s not enough for a Terry pat-down,” he said. But cops could always try to strike up a conversation.
In light of the neighborhood interest, Hoffman moved his car to a more inconspicuous spot in the lot, among a line of other cars.
Hoffman said shifts in drug dealing activity make it clear that the city’s criminal elements are keeping tabs on police work. “After a few arrests [in one spot], things shut down,” Hoffman said. “So we stay mobile.”
Hoffman was asked about criticisms that street crime enforcement can be like Whack-A-Mole, where police clamp down on crime in some areas only to have it pop up elsewhere, without addressing the underlying level of crime. “It is like Whack-A-Mole to an extent,” Hoffman responded. “But it’s about building felony arrests.” If police get the same dealer three times, it can lead to some real jail time, he said.
“Maybe it’s Whack-A-Mole, but it’s certainly valuable and worthwhile, and it certainly helps the neighborhood.” Such complaints about street crime enforcement don’t usually come from people with drug dealers on their blocks, he said.
In particular, gun recoveries have the lasting effect of taking a deadly weapon off the street and out of the hands of a criminal, Hoffman said.
“Very Satisfying”
After 45 minutes of monitoring radio bulletins from his team, Hoffman saw his officers pull into the parking lot a second time, this time with two suspects in custody. They had been confirmed as dealers through police observation and information from an informant. The team also arrested a buyer with a bag of crack, who was at a different location. The officers took one of the alleged dealers out of the backseat of a cruiser and gave him a thorough pat-down, finding no narcotics.
“That’s my nephew,” called a woman who appeared in the parking lot. She pointed to the second car, where a man sat in handcuffs in the backseat.
Doll Gatling (“Boom! Like the gun”) said she got a call from a neighbor that her nephew had been arrested. She followed police to the parking lot to keep an eye on them, she said.
She said she finds it suspicious when police make an arrest and then remove a suspect to a different location. “There’s no reason to take them out of the public eye,” she said.
She sat a little ways off and soon determined that her nephew and the other man were to be arrested for conspiracy. “I got eyes, I got ears, I read lips,” she said. “It’s always good for them to know someone’s watching.”
After the two suspects, both 19-year-old, were loaded into the van, Hoffman stepped over to chat with Gatling. She said conspiracy is a dubious charge because it’s based just on association.
“Sometimes we see more than you think we see,” Hoffman said. He later explained that a conspiracy charge requires actual evidence of involvement in drug sales, not just proximity to a dealer. “We need far more evidence than standing nearby.”
Gatling said she had been favorably impressed by the calm and quiet police behavior she saw in the parking lot. “That was very satisfying,” she said. “This was beautiful. This was how it’s supposed to be done.”
Later, at around 8 p.m., the SIU made another drug arrest in Fair Haven. Officers Craig Miller and Newton Anderson spotted two men on the porch of a house in at Grand Avenue and Lloyd Street. Police had previously received reports that the house was a spot used by drug dealers. The officers arrested the two men for trespassing and found one had 19 pieces of crack on him.
The evening’s total was six arrests and 34 bags of crack recovered. That’s both good and typical for the SIU, Hoffman said.