OFFICERS DEFEND ROLE IN DRUG BUST INCIDENT

SPRINGFIELD -- As plainclothes narcotics officers swarmed their
car, shouting obscenities and smashing the windshield, the son of a
former police commissioner and his girlfriend believed they were
targets of a carjacking, the couple testified yesterday.

"I heard Kim say, 'Oh my God, we're going to die,'" Julian Pellegrino,
31, of Chicopee, told the Police Commission while recalling how he and
Kimberly Desjardins, 32, of Ware, reacted to the unsuccessful 1998
drug bust.

But in their first public statements on the raid, five police officers
testified they never violated department rules and only stopped the
couple's vehicle after Pellegrino appeared to visit a crack house on
Clifton Avenue.

Contradicting the couple's account, Sgt. Thomas Scanlon recalled
watching Pellegrino walk toward the back door of 72-74 Clifton Ave.
less than a hour before police found 26 bags of heroin, 7 grams of
crack cocaine, $4,617 in cash and two rifles at the house during a
raid. While acknowledging his view of the back door was blocked,
Scanlon said he never doubted that Pellegrino entered the house.

"It was a classic example of a customer at a drug house," Scanlon
said, explaining why police stopped Pellegrino's car after it left the
neighborhood. The conflicting accounts emerged during a five-hour
hearing held by the commission to determine whether the officers
should face disciplinary action for the Jan. 14, 1998, incident. In a
rare move, all five officers waived their rights to a closed door
hearing and asked the review be held in open session.

Commission Chairman Gerald A. Phillips said the five-member police
panel will reconvene next week to hear closing arguments from lawyers
for both sides, and deliberate on a verdict.

"I'd like to wrap this up by the end of next week," Philips
said.

During yesterday's testimony, Pellegrino -- the son of former
Police Commissioner Kathleen Pellegrino -- told the commission he was
visiting Clifton Avenue as a property manager, but never entered the
house that police had under surveillance for drug sales.

Under questioning from Law Department lawyer Thomas A. Kokonowski,
Pellegrino produced paperwork showing he worked for a Connecticut
landlord who owned homes in the neighborhood. Pellegrino said he
visited the house across the street from 72-74 Clifton Ave. to leave a
flyer for tenants, but never crossed the street to the suspected drug
house.

Police stopped the couple's vehicle after it left Clifton Avenue, but
found no drugs during a search. Yesterday, Pellegrino and Desjardins
repeated assertions made in police reports that the officer never
identified themselves, shouted obscenities and smashed their
windshield and never apologized after the attempted bust.

At one point, Desjardins recalled that Patrolman Dexter West leaped
onto the hood of their car, and shouted "Get the (obscenity) out of
the car" and later dragged Pellegrino out of the vehicle "like a rag
doll."

But the officers testified they were wearing badges and police
insignias, and never struck or threatened the couple.

West acknowledged leaping on the hood and shouting, but said he was
concerned that Pellegrino was attempting to swallow drugs. Earlier,
officers had testified that targets of drug raids frequently swallow
small drug packets to avoid arrest.

"I believed he had concealed some type of contraband by swallowing. I
yelled 'Spit it out. Spit it out,'" West said.

Pellegrino denied raising his hands toward his mouth, and West said he
never saw any object in Pellegrino's hands.

Sgt. Thomas Melady said Pellegrino realized the officers were police
from the start, because his first remarks after emerging from the car
were: "My mother's a police commissioner and my father's a judge. I'm
Julian Pellegrino."

Pellegrino's father, Joseph, is a judge in Springfield Juvenile
Court.

Patrolmen Pablo Diaz and Mary O'Halloran also testified
yesterday.

Lawyers for the five officers tried to have the matter dismissed
because the case was more than two years old. But Phillips refused
their request, noting attempts by Police Chief Paula C. Meara to
negotiate an apology from the officers, along with several other
factors, had contributed to the delays.

Meara, a family friend of the Pellegrino's, triggered the case by
ordering a review of the attempted bust.