COCAINE'S A HELL OF A DRUG: Officers were called to a room at the Econo Lodge on Busch Boulevard in Tampa. On the scene, police encountered the room's occupants, a man and a woman who "both appeared to be in a highly drug induced state." The woman "had trouble communicating and revealing what was going on." The man "kept changing his accounts of the incident." The cops remain pretty sketchy on what exactly happened, saying "it could only be determined at this time that [the man] may have tried taking the DVD player, and that she may have shortly afterwards pushed [him] down on the bed and struck him several times." Police were sure that both parties were in possession of cocaine and drug paraphernalia, and the couple was arrested.
CRACK POLICE WORK: In December, police officers engaged in a "buy bust" operation in Tampa. The "buy bust" involved the help of a "confidential informant," ("CI") who was told to buy drugs in the area of the Robles Park housing project. Cops searched the CI to make sure he was clean, handed him a $20 bill and instructed him to drive to a prearranged location. The officer states in the report, "I then concealed myself under a sheet in the rear seat." From his position snuggled in the back, the officer observed a woman carrying a black book bag approach the CI's vehicle and ask what he wanted. Per the report, "The CI said he wanted a $20 piece of hard (street name for crack cocaine)." The woman said she would go get it, and returned a minute later with two pieces of crack cocaine. As the CI drove away, the under-the-covers officer called in backup to make the arrest.
SYMMETRY: Police responded to a plea for help from a Tampa woman whose 40-year-old daughter was high on drugs and abusing her. The woman told police that, "Her daughter arrived home earlier in the evening in a police car. She didn't know why." Once inside the house, the daughter began screaming about her truck, and a dispute over usage of a cell phone soon escalated to the mother being smacked in the back. Cops on the scene report: "The defendant was coming down off a crack high and was out of control. She was hitting things and tearing stuff up. One minute she was crying and then she would be yelling at us ... She also got into both officer's faces and screamed and yelled," even shoving a bowl of food into the chest of one of the cops. The officers restrained the daughter, who dropped to the floor and had to be carried kicking and screaming from the home, finally leaving the scene in the same type of car she arrived in.
From the files of the T.P.D.
