DETECTIVE WHO KILLED GUARD FOCUSED ON DRUG GANGS

Detective Anthony Vasquez, the police officer involved in the fatal
shooting yesterday of an off-duty security guard, has spent most of his
five years on the force as an undercover officer in a unit that focuses on
drug dealing by street gangs.

The unit's mission early Thursday morning, according to investigators, was
to make marijuana purchases in an area of Midtown Manhattan just south of
the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Investigators said they believed that
members of the Bloods gang had come to dominate the drug trade in the area.

When the transactions in such a mission go smoothly, as several did that
morning, one undercover officer, in the guise of a drug user, makes a
purchase and moves on, with colleagues from the narcotics squad of the Gang
Investigations Division sweeping in to make the arrest.

But on the last attempted purchase of the team's tour, the first undercover
officer became entangled in a scuffle with the man he had approached, a
security guard named Patrick M. Dorismond.

Detective Vasquez and another officer rushed forward and Detective
Vasquez's gun went off, the police said.

Detective Vasquez said the security guard had started the scuffle, said his
lawyer, Richard Dienst.

He said his client felt terrible about the shooting, which he termed an
accident. "He is traumatized by this," Mr. Dienst said. "He is a human being."

Police officials said Detective Vasquez, 29, had what they described as a
minor disciplinary record that included one complaint of domestic abuse by
his wife three years ago and an arrest on disorderly conduct charges after
he pulled his gun during a 1997 bar fight in Pennsylvania.

Mr. Vasquez's wife later dropped the complaint against him, and police
officials said they had determined it was unsubstantiated.

The disorderly conduct charge was later dismissed in court, according to a
second lawyer for Detective Vasquez, Philip Karasyk.

The lawyer and the police officials said Mr. Vasquez had come to the aid of
a friend in the bar fight. During an internal investigation of the
incident, he was placed on desk duty for nine months and his gun was taken
away, officials said. But after the disorderly conduct charge was
dismissed, he was returned to active duty, although he was stripped of one
vacation day by the department for failing initially to notify his
superiors about the incident, Mr. Karasyk said.

Police officials said Detective Vasquez had fired his weapon only once
before, in a 1996 incident in which he shot and killed a Rottweiler that he
said had attacked his family outside his Long Island home. Officials said
that the shooting of the dog was not considered misconduct and that he was
not disciplined.

Detective Vasquez was also the subject of a single citizen complaint, for
discourtesy, but the disposition of the complaint was not available,
officials said yesterday.

Detective Vasquez, who is the divorced father of a 5-year-old boy, lives
with his parents in Suffolk County, his lawyers said. Sgt. Andrew McInnis,
a police spokesman, said the detective had been placed on desk duty
yesterday, and his gun taken away, as is standard practice in all shootings
by officers.

Mr. Karasyk said that Detective Vasquez had been rated highly competent in
his last personnel evaluation. Police officials said he had made 42 arrests
since joining the force in 1995.

Officer Vasquez worked for the narcotics squad of the Manhattan Gang Unit,
part of the Gang Investigations Division.

All of the city's five boroughs have their own gang units, consisting of
several dozen officers who specialize in tracking gang activities and
crimes, including narcotics trafficking, prostitution and robbery. Brooklyn
has two units.

Each of the borough units has its own narcotics squad that concentrates on
drug dealing by gang members. The squads, which generally consist of 6 to
10 officers led by a lieutenant, have become very active as gangs become
more involved in the sale of narcotics, particularly heroin and cocaine,
investigators said.