Most Law Officer readers know that I spent a good deal of my time as a detective assigned to narcotics unit duties, most of it in an undercover capacity. My wife and I recently had the occasion to spend some quality time with my old narc unit boss, retired Deputy Chief Frank Dovidio and his wife while they were down here in southwest Florida on a vacation. As you might expect, the dinner turned to old war stories about the escapades of our former unit: the arrests, investigations, and what’s happened to the members of the unit since we all retired.
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A few are gone. All died too early in life—one at 43, just 6 months after he retired. One of my other former partners died from complications from diabetes, earned from Agent Orange exposure while in Vietnam. That news hit real close to home. Ol’ Dave was recently diagnosed with the same disease also attributed to Agent Orange exposure while “in country” in 1968–69. Even with all the sad news recounted during the two days we spent together here, it was a great time just getting together.
Shortly after Frank returned to upstate New York, I was reading about a series of drug scandals involving several police departments: one here in Florida, one in New York and another in northern California. A third deputy sheriff had just resigned from a central Florida sheriff’s office after being implicated in some questionable sting operations, specifically lying in search warrant applications and trespassing. Two of his unit mates resigned earlier. The New York incident involved some NYPD narc unit cops who were not vouchering drug evidence they seized, and then allegedly planting it on suspects or suspect locations. The California story dealt with the arrest of a task force commander accused of the theft and sale of drugs seized by the unit during some busts. Needless to say, it made for a sensational trifecta—which made me reflect back on my days working drugs.
The Exemplar
Frank was careful to watch over his men with a critical eye. He was a detective supervisor of the narc unit back then, and always looking for signs of burnout or the inability to shift roles from street scum back to cop as necessary.
Most of our arrests for drug sales were based on Sealed Indictment Warrants. Monthly, we’d have to go in front of the grand jury that was hearing evidence on our sales. Of course, we looked like something the cat dragged in. But the 18–23 citizens on those grand juries don’t want to hear street slang or any unprofessional language from UC cops testifying about the buys. They presumed we were professionals even though we looked like Hells Angels or Warlocks rejects.
Whenever the boss sensed something wasn’t right, he’d dress us up in suit coats and ties and send us off on some official police function, such as a drug presentation on trafficking trends, well away from our UC location. It was his way of subtlety reminding us that we were, at the base of it, cops really living lies in our UC roles. He also had a unique ability to somehow find us some “lost time” and tell us to take our wives or girlfriends to a theater show for a long weekend, again, well away from our city.
Deep cover assignments are probably the most difficult assignments in plainclothes work. It’s a step away from the normal undercover duties where you make a hand-to-hand exchange and then immediately do the “buy-bust” or take the seller down a day or two later. Deep cover means changing your lifestyle for extended periods. You move out of your house, away from your family and friends, take on new identities complete with needle track marks or gold-capped teeth. New addresses, new driver’s licenses, and in some cases even part-time jobs were often used to complete the change-over. In most cases, you don’t even see the inside of your department for weeks at a time. You muster at a safe site to voucher the dope you’ve bought, get some new cash, meet the boss and get de-briefed.
It’s a different kind of lifestyle and Frank watched over his flock of black sheep like the good shepherd he was. When it came time to surface after the deep cover gig was over, he was always watchful for the signs of not being able to return to the role of professional police officer.
Other local drug units weren’t so lucky. During my time on the job I saw a few get in trouble. Some detectives were reassigned and/or sent back to their home agencies. A few were even indicted. There was plenty of blame to go around, in both initial drug unit assignment (poor screening) and first-line supervision (lax management). The biggest mistake was probably assuming a former UC cop would automatically make a good UC boss.
Conclusion
The basic tenets of police supervision are the same, regardless the assignment. Frank never worked undercover, but he knew the uniqueness of drug work and the importance of maintaining day-to-day contact with his men, even if it was a date for lunch or an impromptu meet behind a shopping mall.
It takes a special breed of cop to do UC narcotics work and it takes a very special breed of boss to supervise drug cops. I’m not prejudging any of the officers involved in any of the central Florida, northern California or NYC incidents. But somehow, I have to wonder if the warning signs of burnout or the latent evidence of the wires being pulled too tight within those units weren’t visible to the first- or second-line supervisors of those officers.
Author’s note: This column is a long-overdue tribute to retired Deputy Chief of Police Frank Dovidio. Thanks, boss.