Pubdate: Sat, 11 Oct 2003
Source: Sarasota Herald-Tribune (FL)
Copyright: 2003 Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Contact:  http://www.heraldtribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/398

SARASOTA STINGS

Police Are Attracting The Wrong Kind Of Business

Chamber of Commerce officials like to cite the benefits of attracting 
high-income tourists to town: Once these upscale visitors see beautiful 
Southwest Florida, so the story goes, they'll want to move here and maybe 
start a business.

The Sarasota Police Department's efforts to lure major drug dealers to the 
area, however, are probably not what the Chamber has in mind.

In fact, police and city officials should rethink the wisdom of exposing 
the community, local residents and police officers to what has become a 
lucrative but dangerous sideline.

As reported by the Herald- Tribune's Mike Saewitz this week, over the last 
three years undercover police detectives have worked with the federal Drug 
Enforcement Agency to set up "reverse stings" based in Sarasota. In these 
operations, paid informants contact major dealers in this country and 
overseas, offering large quantities of cocaine. The dealers are brought to 
secret locations in the city where the staged transactions are conducted 
and arrests are made.

The operations have been beneficial. Court records show that 40 people have 
been arrested on federal drug trafficking charges and many are now behind bars.

Also, the stings have netted the Police Department more than $1.3 million, 
under state and federal laws that let police keep money and valuables 
seized from suspected drug dealers. This money has paid the department's 
costs of the undercover operations and supplemented its regular budget. The 
police have also donated a small amount to local nonprofits, as required by 
state law.

Yet, police and city officials should consider whether participation in the 
stings is the best use of the department's resources -- primarily the 
officers involved.

In most cases, these are federal matters -- drug deals that would not take 
place in Sarasota except for the local department's involvement. While the 
police should be willing to assist the DEA on occasion, Sarasota officers 
have enough crime in the city to keep them busy, without going out of town 
and overseas to solicit more.

More troubling, however, is the danger to which these transactions expose 
local officers and, potentially, the public. While the detectives say the 
transactions and arrests take place at night and away from local residents, 
there's always the possibility that plans could go awry. A recent bloody 
shootout at an East Manatee shopping center, deputies say, was the result 
of a drug deal gone bad.

Sarasota is not Miami, and few residents relish that city's connection with 
international crime. High-rolling drug deals are not the type of economic 
development that any community should encourage.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman