The unit was manned by Flynn and seven full-time sergeants, but as many as 120 county cops were pooled into TNT service, primarily on overtime. On nights TNT conducted sweeps, as many as two dozen officers in tactical gear would jump out of unmarked cars, using the element of surprise and brute strength to nab suspects.
"By merely showing they could use overwhelming force against them, the criminals simply backed down," Dunham says. "They quickly realize resistance is futile."
Mark Poutenis
Mark Poutenis
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Flynn mapped out a strategy like a military general planning to take on an insurgency. "We targeted the most drug-infested neighborhoods with the highest number of felony crimes," Flynn says. "We would spend three weeks doing a lot of surveillance work to find out where the sellers operated from and follow their patterns. Then we would do a two-week enforcement phase that involved reverse stings and surveillance-based takedowns."
Once the criminals had been cleared out, the county's code enforcement office demolished crackhouses and removed abandoned cars. "We'd go door-to-door meeting with the neighbors and give them our pager numbers," Flynn says. "We helped them set up neighborhood watch groups in case the criminals tried to move back in."
By most accounts, TNT worked well in the beginning. In its first year, the team arrested more than 8,000 suspects, yet it didn't have a single excessive-use-of -force complaint, according to a 1991 UM study by Dunham.
"Flynn used officers who were reasonable," Dunham says. "It was considered a privilege to get on this unit. If one officer screwed up, he or she was taken out."
Flynn made it his mission to combine aggressive sweeps with good relationships in Miami's worst neighborhoods. Keeping abusive cops off the unit made it easier for inner-city residents to accept the large waves of sweeps conducted by TNT, the former major explains.
"Before you could come work on TNT, you had to go through a carefully designed training program," Flynn says. "One of the first things I would do is roll tape of the show Cops. In one particular scene, a guy puts a handful of drugs in his mouth. The officer cocks a gun against the head of the subject to get him to spit it out. That was a scenario I would never let happen in a TNT operation."
He also had another rule: A cop could not have any excessive-use-of-force complaints in his or her personnel file to make it onto the team. "I wanted officers and supervisors who were aggressive, but not abusive," Flynn says. "There's a difference."
Flynn was promoted to captain in the narcotics bureau one year after heading TNT, but the team continued to flourish after his departure. In its first ten years, according to department stats, TNT made 16,609 arrests and seized more than 14 kilos of crack cocaine, 22 kilos of powder cocaine, 5,764 kilos of marijuana, and one kilo of heroin. They also nabbed $874,198 in cash and 1,155 weapons. More than 160 crackhouses were shut down.
Just as important, the suspects they booked were often bad characters. In that first decade, 54 percent of those arrested had a criminal history, often for murder, sexual battery, assault, and kidnapping.
The unit's success even garnered some Hollywood recognition when Martin Lawrence and Will Smith played TNT members in 1995's Bad Boys and 2003's Bad Boys 2.
Flynn retired from Miami-Dade in 2000 after 27 years on the force, with stints running the narcotics, internal affairs, and special patrol bureaus. By the time he left, he had noticed the department changing TNT's philosophy for the worse. The aggressive sweeps were still there — but the emphasis on good cops was not.
"They began only doing the reverse stings and jump-outs," says Flynn, who is now the police chief in Marietta, Georgia. "They were no longer doing the community policing I put into it."
The changes created a negative perception of TNT — a feeling fueled by some high-profile busts of cops who assisted with TNT takedowns.
In 2006, Det. Daniel Fernandez and another officer were arrested on official misconduct charges for allegedly stealing $970 in marked bills during a sting involving an admitted drug dealer who complained to internal affairs that the two cops had planted drugs on him and taken his cash in a previous bust. Fernandez was convicted of burglary of an unoccupied dwelling and received a 21-month prison sentence last year.
Fernandez, a narcotics bureau detective, had been named Miami-Dade's distinguished officer of the year for coming under fire while helping TNT apprehend an armed, dangerous criminal. He had also received a gold medal of valor and a Purple Heart after he was shot in the back by a suspect he was chasing. But after Fernandez's arrest, state and federal prosecutors dropped more than two dozen cases that the detective had worked on. He was also kept off the witness stand against the man who shot him. Without Fernandez's testimony, Jim Druden was acquitted of attempted murder of a law enforcement officer.
Then, two years after Fernandez's arrest, officers Michael king and Antonio Roberts, who assisted TNT execute search warrants and conduct drug sweeps, were among 40 suspects charged with federal racketeering and drug charges. The U.S. Attorney's Office alleges King and Roberts were tipping off drug dealers in Opa-locka about TNT drug sweeps. King pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and is serving a 60-month prison sentence. However, Roberts was acquitted in 2009.
