Pubdate: Sun, 11 May 2003 Source: Tampa Tribune (FL) Copyright: 2003, The Tribune Co. Contact: http://tampatrib.com/opinion/lettertotheeditor.htm Website: http://www.tampatrib.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/446 Note: Limit LTEs to 150 words Author: Keith Morelli, The Tribune Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine) LAW ENFORCEMENT BLITZ DESIGNED TO UP QUALITY OF LIFE Iorio Ready To Declare East Tampa Crime War TAMPA - Making good on a key campaign promise, Mayor Pam Iorio is expected to announce a massive anticrime and rejuvenation project for east Tampa that the city's police chief compares to the invasion of Iraq. "To borrow a term from the military," Chief Bennie Holder said, "it'll 'shock and awe' the criminals." The mayor said she will announce specifics of Operation Commitment on Monday. "We are looking at a sustained enforcement plan," she said. Police are mum about specifics, fearing drug dealers and others targeted will go into hiding during the first offensive, expected to be unleashed Monday and last until May 24. The operation will focus on neighborhoods including Belmont Heights, Jackson Heights and Southeast Seminole Heights, where police will target open-air drug markets selling mostly crack cocaine and marijuana, officials said. "There are known drug holes where there is daily drug activity, and we need to get them out of our city," Iorio said. "If they move to another part of the city, we will go after them." Capt. Marion Lewis heads a Tampa Police Department antidrug squad that will play a prominent role in the operation. "It's going to be a holistic approach," Lewis said. Code enforcement inspectors will issue tickets to property owners whose lawns are strewn with garbage and abandoned cars. Firefighters will hand out smoke detectors. Crime prevention officers will offer security inspections for homes, and drug counselors will talk to drug users and their families, said police Maj. Jane Castor, who oversees District 2, which includes east Tampa. The operation will draw police from other areas of the city, Castor said, but there will be enough left to respond to 911 calls. Community Wants Results Tampa Neighborhood Watch Association Vice President Marilyn Durst is hopeful about the initiative, which she sees as the extension of a 1990s community policing program. "They've been doing these sweeps and putting on a dog and pony show for a while," she said of much-publicized sweeps in the past. "But then they leave. And when they've been gone for a few hours, it's 10 times worse than before they got there. The prostitutes and drug dealers have to make up for lost time." And that's the flaw in the plan, she said. "They make lots of arrests and put up lots of numbers," Durst said. "It makes an impact for the moment. But, if they don't stay and keep the cleanup and maintenance going until it is thoroughly conveyed to the criminal element that they're not welcome, it's a waste of time." East Tampa residents are taking a wait- and-see attitude. Ernest Daffin, 54, has lived in east Tampa around 34th and Lila streets most of his life. Occasionally, he said, it gets dangerous. "It does get crazy sometimes," he said. Drug dealers and car thieves are the biggest problem. Operation Commitment "is a good thing," Daffin said. "They'll slow it down, but they won't stop it." Abe Chin, 43, a resident of east Tampa for 10 years, said he recently watched a man dumping garbage where Ellicott Street dead ends into the railroad. Chin asked: "Why do you do that?" The man threatened to shoot him. Chin backed off, allowing the man to dump the trash near an abandoned motor home and a dilapidated trailer left there years ago. "It's a jungle back here," Chin said. Still, he said: "I love my neighborhood." Others said they see no need to make the push. Lilly Grandberry, 73, sat on the porch of her east Tampa home and said she feels secure, even though blocks away on Thursday night, a motorist at the stop light at North 22nd Street and East Osborne Avenue was held up at gunpoint and robbed of his cash and car. Despite the robbery, Grandberry said, "I feel safe here." The idea of sweeping into neighborhoods to clean up crime is not a tactic that always works, said Hubert Williams, president of the Police Foundation, a Washington-based research and policy group. Solutions to crime-ridden and blighted neighborhoods "don't come in a box," he said. Rather, they are in the attitudes and ideas that come from communities and their interaction with the police. "The problem with sweeps is that they bring in people who are guilty, and they bring in people who are innocent," he said. "That tends to alienate the community." Success, he said, is measured by how safe people feel in the aftermath. East Tampa Business and Civic Association President Betty Wiggins said she is optimistic Iorio's plan will be more effective than past initiatives. "It's just going to have to be a sustained effort to try to arrest this malignancy that is so entrenched in our community," she said. A Proven Strategy Citywide police statistics indicate sweeps conducted in the late 1990s under former Mayor Dick Greco seem to have made a difference. Greco's plan, which mirrored former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's, had street crooks, panhandlers, vagrants, prostitutes and street-level drug dealers arrested. The theory was if you improve the quality of life, the more serious crimes also will decrease. In 1996, a year after Greco took office, murders dropped to 41 from 47 in 1995, Tampa police statistics show. By 1999, the number dropped to 31, and the yearly total has not reached 40 again. The same is true for rape. In 1998, Tampa police investigated 328 sexual batteries. The next year, that number dropped to 262. Last year, police logged 257 rapes. Aggravated assaults and burglaries rose during the past five years, but larcenies last year dropped by more than 1,500 from 1998, the department's Web site states. Former Tampa City Council member Bob Buckhorn, who was chairman of the city's public safety committee, said the mayor's initiative will be a positive step. "When you've got drug dealers that own the streets 18 hours a day," he said, "it takes a willingness to be out there 24/7 to eradicate it." Buckhorn said east Tampa must be cleared of drug dealers before redevelopment can take place. "Street-level drug dealing is the most critical issue facing east Tampa, he said. "You can't get redevelopment in impoverished areas unless it's safe. In order to do that, you've got to make an environment where customers are safe and investments are safe. "It's a wonderful initiative," he said. "It will pay off, but it's got to be ongoing." - --- MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager