PINELLAS SHERIFF, ST.PETE POLICE TOUT SUCCESSES AGAINST DRUGS

94 Suspected Dealers Arrested Since May

ST. PETERSBURG - Some five years ago, Pinellas County Sheriff Everett Rice
stopped his office's narcotics operations with the St. Petersburg Police
Department after the two agencies fought over who should pay workers'
compensation for a confidential informant who ran into a car during a joint
undercover operation.

But several months ago, Rice was asked to come back into the city after the
police were harshly criticized for not doing enough to rid predominantly
poor, black neighborhoods of street-level drug dealers.

Rice did.

On Wednesday, Rice, St. Petersburg Police Chief Chuck Harmon and St.
Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker held a news conference to trumpet the results.

Since late May, cases have been built against 94 suspected dealers, almost
all of whom are charged with selling crack cocaine. More than 30 have been
convicted, and others were paraded before television cameras and newspaper
photographers Wednesday to publicize the crackdown.

The effort was described as a collaborative effort between Rice's office
and St. Petersburg police. But all 94 cases were initiated by sheriff's
undercover detectives, and they will track the cases as they wend through
the judicial system.

Police administrators conceded that St. Petersburg's finest essentially
assisted the sheriff's deputies - providing cover during undercover buys of
small amounts of the drug, or identifying suspects when sheriff's narcotics
detectives couldn't.

And police conceded they have not beefed up the staffing of their own
street-level narcotics squads, which remain at half the strength they were
when first put together.

Indeed, the city police department, which has seen the number of
street-level narcotics arrests plummet in recent years, won't even be able
to count these cases toward their own totals under the state's uniform
crime reporting standards.

Rice gets to.

``No, this isn't credited to our arrests,'' admitted Assistant Police Chief
Dave DeKay. But, he added, not getting that credit was well worth the price
of getting dealers off street corners.

``This is a new type of catch for us,'' he said.