BLUE TEA LEADS TO RED FACES

Hub Police Are Humbled By Mistaken Drug Sting

At the age of 73, Evelyn A. Davis is blessed with a strong heart and a
gracious Jamaican spirit. We should thank God. Otherwise, what was a police
screwup could easily have turned into a full-blown tragedy.

On Aug. 6, this city came uncomfortably close to revisiting the fiasco that
stopped the frail heart of the Rev. Accelyne Williams . . . and cost the
taxpayers about a million bucks.

No, the cops did not come crashing through Evelyn Davis' front door in
Dorchester, wrapped in body armor and carrying shields. But the technical
term for their visit to 15 Moody St. on that steamy Friday afternoon is
``drug sting.''

You see, the combined forces of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the
Boston Housing Authority, the Boston Police Drug Control Squad and the
state police K-9 unit were all convinced that Evelyn Davis, a retired
laundry supervisor at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, was awaiting a
shipment of marijuana.

``It's called blue vervine tea, dear,'' Evelyn recently explained, in the
lilting tones of her native island. ``I had been home in Jamaica for a
visit, back in the spring and early summer, you see. While I was there, I
developed such a terrible pain in my knee, don't you know.

`` `Evelyn, do you drink the vervine?' my friend asked me. Now, I have been
drinking herb tea practically all my life,'' Evelyn said, ``but never
vervine. My friend, she had the herbs growing right there in her yard. She
ground up the leaves and made me some tea. All I can tell you, dear, is
that a miraculous change took place in my knee. The pain was gone.''

When she returns home, Evelyn heads straight for Bread & Circus in
Cambridge. No blue vervine. So, she phones her niece in Georgia. ``Auntie,
I've found the vervine!'' Evelyn's niece happily responds. ``It's in the
mail.''

This is where Michelle Douglas, part-time flexible mail carrier at the
Dorchester Post Office, enters the picture. She believes the aroma wafting
from an 8-by-11 inch manila envelope smells just like dope. Michelle tells
her boss, Thomas McKenna, who kicks it up to Ernie Carson, who ultimately
calls in Postal Inspector John J. Stassi.

Eventually, we get to Sgt. Detective William J. Robertson, of the BPD drug
control unit, who writes in his affidavit for a warrant that he has
``effected over 1,000 arrests for violation of the drug laws,'' and based
on his 20 years of experience, ``I believe the package being sent to 15
Moody St. contains marijuana. . . .''

Turns out, Sgt. Robertson never actually laid eyes on what was inside the
envelope. He went along with a state police German shepherd named Shane.
Aside from being a highly decorated four-legged investigator, Shane may
also be the most controversial.

Almost a year ago, Shane tracked a scent from Irene Kennedy's mutilated
body in a Walpole park for almost a mile in a twisting route that ended at
front door of a man who kept dead cats in his freezer. Ed Burke spent a
month in jail, until DNA tests failed to establish a link to the dead
woman. Upon his release, he blamed his trouble ``on a dog.''

This time, Shane picked out, or ``hit on,'' the envelope sent from Georgia
from among six others stuffed with paper.

So, on Aug. 6, assuming the role of a mailman, Boston police officer Terry
Cotton pressed Evelyn Davis' doorbell. ``Finally,'' Evelyn sighed. ``I was
wondering why it took so long for my tea to get here.''

At that moment, according to a Boston Police Department source, the cops
realized they could be headed for blunder territory, but thought that
Evelyn might be the unwitting foil of a dubious grandchild.

``Sign here, ma'am,'' Cotton said. After she did, Cotton flashed his badge,
served a warrant and asked if he could come in.

``Of course,'' Evelyn said. ``What's the matter?'' When she climbed the
stairs and opened her front door, Evelyn recalled, ``I was stunned to see
my living room fill up with police.''

``Would you open the package, ma'am?'' Cotton asked. But when she reached
for a steel letter opener, several cops ordered Evelyn to ``put that down,
ma'am.''

``I suppose they thought I was going to stab them.''

Soon as the two plastic bags came out of the envelope, one cop immediately
groaned: ``That's not marijuana.''

``I told you it was tea,'' Evelyn said.

``Oh, bleep!'' thought the trooper who handled Shane. Under the
circumstances, he recalled, Evelyn couldn't have been nicer. Before he
followed his red-faced brothers in blue out of Evelyn's living room,
Shane's handler asked if he could take a sample of the blue vervine tea to
test on other dogs.

``Be my guest,'' said Evelyn.

In retrospect, Shane's handler thinks a ton of embarrassment could've been
avoided had the BPD warrant called for the package to be visually inspected
before it was delivered to Evelyn.

Two other state police dogs - a black Lab and another German shepherd -
would also hit on the blue vervine in separate tests. Still, the state
police lab found no traces of contraband.

True, the cops apologized profusely. No doors were kicked in and Evelyn's
73-year-old heart didn't stop. But that's hardly the end of the story.

``The problem is you've got a lady - who's worked all her life, owns her
own home - and now she has to deal with the suspicions of people on her
street who think she's a drug queen,'' said Glen Hannington, the lawyer
Evelyn came to with her bags of blue vervine.

``I realize that, technically, the police had probable cause,'' Hannington
said. ``Who knows, maybe the dog had a cold that day. Or possibly, they
were profiling packages at the post office, I don't know. But after the
neighbors see a half-dozen police cars roll down the street, and a dozen
cops going in her house, where does this 73-year-old lady go to get her
good name and reputation back?''