ARRESTED OFFICER HAD REPUTATION IN HIS AGENCY

Long before Officer Robert Kukowinski was arrested last week on charges of
stealing drugs from dealers he should have locked up, he had developed a
reputation among his fellow officers.

A midnight-shift patrol officer with 12 years on the Opa-Locka police
force, Kukowinski was known for keeping a special eye on the city's worst
drug area, the Triangle.

City residents began to complain to his department: Kukowinski was frisking
known drug dealers and residents, taking their drugs and money. On Jan. 17,
four officers, a lieutenant and the police chief went to the FBI with the
damaging information.

Now federal agents say Kukowinski not only stole drugs from dealers but his
own department's property room, frisked dealers for their money and drugs
but didn't arrest them, smoked crack, and shared a home with a prostitute.

Chief Ronald Wilson, who recently took over the department long mired in
turmoil and turnover, said he had always had reservations about Kukowinski.

The 39-year-old officer, who now lives in Weston, has worked for a number
of police departments throughout the state -- Surfside, North Miami Beach
and Punta Gorda.

"His track record from going from one place to another ... should have
raised eyebrows to some degree," he said.

Other signs also could have pointed to larger problems.

Four years ago, his fourth wife, Karin Kelly, faxed a letter to the Police
Department, saying: "I don't know what to do anymore."

Kelly, who was going through divorce proceedings and had filed an
injunction against Kukowinski alleging domestic violence, told a detective
in a letter that Kukowinski was an admitted drug user.

"He has admitted to me repeated drug use [which would show in a drug test]
even though he is a police officer who states that he wants to keep his job
and that my actions are making him lose his job," she wrote, adding he told
her he was about to lose his job.

Neither she nor Kukowinski could be reached for comment. Wilson said he did
not know whether Kukowinski had taken any drug tests recently. Law
enforcement sources said the department had not administered drug tests in
two years.

It was Kukowinski's personal problems that led to his downfall, Wilson said.

The most serious reprimands in his police file begin in 1997. In August of
that year, he was reprimanded for going to a scene where people were
supposed to have been selling drugs and reporting that no one was there.
Another call came into the department later complaining about the dealers.

When confronted by then-Chief Craig Collins, Kukowinski said he never
checked the back of the building. By the time he and a supervisor went to
the area again, the dealers were gone, according to his personnel file.

During his divorce proceedings, he failed to report to work one day, saying
he did not know he was supposed to work. On another day he excused himself
for what he said was a family emergency. An officer who checked up on him
later that day learned of the emergency: His wife changed the locks on him
and he was angry. Kukowinski was suspended without pay for 15 days for that
incident.

In 1996 he was reprimanded for not carefully patrolling the Triangle area.

But he also was commended while on the force for the drug busts he took
part in. A supervisor called his efforts during a narcotics sweep which led
to an arrest and took in 180 packets of cocaine as well as other drugs "a
job well done."

Kukowinski's partner, Cpl. William Booker, arrested last week after
Kukowinski began cooperating with the feds to build a case against Booker,
often was commended in many of the same cases. But the seven-year veteran
and former military man also was plagued with troubles.

The two now are accused of dealing drugs and guns, ransacking a drug
dealer's apartment and taking an assault rifle.

In 1995, Miami police arrested Booker for striking a girlfriend during a
fight. Booker, of Broward County, was never prosecuted in that case. Two
years later, he was reprimanded for a burglary at city hall when he was
supposed to be patrolling the building.

Out on bond, the two are now suspended with pay -- Kukowinski makes $41,995
a year, Booker $44,075 -- pending internal disciplinary procedures.

The men's attorneys said their disciplinary records are fairly clean for
officers who have served as long as they have.

"If that's the worst you can get out of hundreds of pages, then that's
pretty good," said Kukowinski's attorney John Howes, who dismissed Kelly's
claims because they were made during their divorce.

The latest round of arrests of fallen police officers in Miami-Dade drew
different reactions.

To Lida Rodriguez-Taseff, president of the Miami chapter of the American
Civil Liberties Union, the arrests were more reason for a civilian review
panel in the county that would allow citizens to cut through the "blue wall
of silence" that protected these officers.

To PBA President John Rivera, the arrests marked the problems that have
fallen on the department.

"That department needs to be disbanded," said Rivera, who suggested that
department should become part of the county's force.

But to Wilson, the city's sixth chief in seven years, the arrests signal
the beginning of a long overdue housecleaning: "I need this place cleaned
up. I don't care how long it takes."