"That's a bunch of bullshit," counters Alexis (who has two previous convictions for cocaine possession, but she insists she's now clean). She says she was already in her room with her wheelchair-bound daughter when the officers entered the house and arrested her. "I had a broom in my hand because I was cleaning up," she says.
Prosecutors evidently didn't have enough evidence. Four weeks after her arrest, charges were dropped.
Mark Poutenis
Mark Poutenis
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The Levels are not alone in their criticism of TNT and Santa's Helper. On day two of the operation, Shenika Rollins was in the living room of the two-bedroom house she rents at 1550 NW 71st St., a few miles north of the Levels' home. "All of a sudden I hear a loud noise outside and police officers yelling," Rollins recalls. "There must have been like 20, 30 officers all over my front lawn. They had my son, son-in-law, and nephew on the ground."
Rollins says she repeatedly asked a Hispanic officer what was going on, but he wouldn't answer. "He told me to come out on the sidewalk and sit down," she says. "Next thing I know, I am in handcuffs."
A Miami Northwestern Senior High School alum, Rollins works as a part-time cashier at a Hess gas station. Nine years ago, she pleaded guilty to one count of grand theft, and in 2009 she served probation on a cocaine possession charge. Still, the 38-year-old single mom says her criminal record doesn't give TNT officers permission to be rude. "I inadvertently slumped against one of the officers," she says. "So he says to me: 'What am I? A fucking leaning post?' Another one told me to shut the fuck up."
Rollins didn't learn that she, along with three relatives and four friends, was being booked for pot possession until officers took her to the police department's Northside district headquarters.
According to the arrest reports, Det. Christopher Polack saw Rollins and her crew sharing a marijuana blunt. "I want them to drug-test me," Rollins says. "It's been four years since I smoked weed."
Operation Santa's Helper was the brainchild of Maj. Charles Nanney, a husky blond veteran who moved up the ranks after serving a stint as a narcotics bureau lieutenant who worked with TNT. (Lt. Jose Gonzalez, who oversaw Santa's Helper, declined to comment.) Four years ago, after then-TNT Det. Raymond Robertson was shot multiple times in front of several children during a firefight near an Opa-locka dope hole, Nanney decided the unit should help neighborhood kids during Christmas. The gesture, he hoped, might win hearts and minds.
"To show the kids we're not an occupying army, but an important part of the community," Nanney says, "we collected and delivered toys to the kids in the complex where Robertson was shot."
It has since become a TNT holiday tradition — but to fit TNT's mission, it's now been coupled with a massive street operation to bust potheads. "I got the idea for the name [Santa's Helper] because we were both helping kids and arresting bad guys prior to Christmas," Nanney says.
The numbers behind the bust, though, raise serious questions about whether Santa's Helper keeps the community safer. What's more, an analysis of the IA records of officers on TNT today paints a picture of a very different unit than the one during Flynn's time in the mid-'90s.
Of the 112 people rounded up during the December 19 sweep, 26 were never jailed, 71 were arrested for holding less than a gram of marijuana, and only three actual drug dealers were busted. Nine of the 112, or less than 10 percent, could be considered career criminals with past arrests for homicide, sexual battery, robbery, and kidnapping.
New Times also examined TNT's 2011 statistics, which show few gains in the War on Drugs during the past decade. In 2001, TNT made 5,255 arrests and seized 101 guns, 1,683 grams of crack cocaine, and 62 pounds of marijuana. Last year, it arrested 5,045 people, confiscated 71 guns, 837 grams of rocks, and 136 pounds of pot.
In other words: If the intent is deterrence, there hardly seems to be less drugs on the streets. Moreover, of the arrests last year, more than half were for misdemeanor pot possession — and only 64 marijuana dealers in all were busted by TNT.
Nanney, though, insists TNT is worth the cost. "We are not targeting the smokers," he says. "We are targeting high crime areas. Most of our children shot in Miami-Dade County have been shot due to turf wars and disputes at drug sale areas."
Some sociologists and criminologists call that kind of police thinking into question, though.
Peter Reuter, a University of Maryland criminal justice professor, says operations such as Santa's Helper do little to stem the tide of drugs on the streets.
"I am mystified by it," Reuter says. "It's not that pot use has gotten worse; it's just that more people are going to jail for it. I can't see any deterrent effects when pot possession charges are usually dismissed at an arraignment hearing. It is hard to justify making so many arrests when the end result is only a couple of days in jail."
Marvin Dunn, a Florida International University sociology professor and community activist, believes MDPD would be better off spending resources on putting more cameras on the streets to catch criminals committing violent crimes.
