Pubdate: Sat, 27 Mar 2004 Source: Times-Picayune, The (LA) Copyright: 2004 The Times-Picayune Contact: http://www.nola.com/t-p/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/848 Author: Walt Philbin NARC UNIT TAKES NEW APPROACH TO CARNIVAL Focus On Violent Areas Pays Off, Officials Say For the past three decades, the New Orleans police narcotics unit has spent the Carnival season in the French Quarter, busting street-level drug buyers and sellers. But this year, a new commander took over the unit and directed his 30-member team to work overtime in the most violence-prone areas of the city. The common-sense result: More serious arrests for more serious crimes. "How much impact do you have on the violence when you bust a tourist with a joint?" asked narcotics Capt. Tim Bayard. "These officers went into the violent areas and did real police work." Using federal grant money and his Mardi Gras overtime allotment, Bayard's team frequently worked 18 hours in each of the 22 days that ended on Fat Tuesday. During that time, Bayard said, officers made at least nine "significant" seizures of crack, powdered cocaine, heroin and other drugs, including twice taking in 15 or more pounds of marijuana. In that time period, they: - -- Seized 49 guns from people, vehicles and homes -- some of them while serving 41 search warrants and one of which was linked to an October murder in the Iberville public housing complex. - -- Confiscated 915 grams of crack cocaine and 216 grams of powdered cocaine. - -- Collected 35 grams of heroin, 28 grams of crystal methamphetamine, 4 grams of methadone, 25 grams of Ecstasy, 2 grams of Ketamine and 33.5 pounds of marijuana. - -- Made 272 arrests, most of them on drug or weapons-related charges. - -- Confiscated $34,525 believed to be associated with drug trafficking. With Bayard's recent transfer from commander of the 7th District to the head of the Police Department's main narcotics-enforcement unit, Superintendent Eddie Compass beefed up the unit from two squads to four. These squads include New Orleans police officers and agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Four police sergeants head the four squads: Sgts. Stephen Imbraguglio and Paul Noel head up the two major narcotics squads; Sgt. Michael Lohman leads the DEA-police squad; and Sgt. Michael Montalbano runs the Safe Home Task Force. During Carnival season, state troopers also worked in Lohman's squad, Bayard said. Bayard said Compass approved shifting the unit's deployment from the French Quarter to areas that ranged from the Lower 9th Ward to Pigeon Town and Central City and included five housing complexes and sections of the 1st, 2nd, 5th and 6th Districts. This was done to "have a greater impact" on suppressing the city's violent crime, Bayard said. "It's unfortunate we missed the two guns used in the murder on (St. Charles) Avenue, but 49 guns is a lot of guns in that period of time," Bayard said. He was referring to the shooting death of 20-year-old Gert Town resident Latasha Bell and the wounding of three other people on St. Charles Avenue near St. Andrew Street as the Muses parade was passing the night of Feb. 18. Stray bullets hit the victims during a shootout between two rival groups of youths. In the areas where the plain-clothes squads worked, however, not one murder occurred during the 22-day period, Bayard said. He said he hopes to shift the unit full time toward going after violent drug offenders by targeting the areas in which they are operating. - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin