New Haven Independent

The police narcotics unit was reborn in September after it imploded in a theft and bribery scandal centering around top narcotics Lt. Billy White.

In its first 100 days actually on the street, the reconstituted Tactical Narcotics Unit has swept through the city, opening 183 investigations and making 108 arrests, officials announced at a press conference at police headquarters Tuesday.

The 15-person unit ran 107 controlled purchases of narcotics by confidential informants. The unit seized about 2.4 kilos of crack cocaine, two cars, two guns, and almost $170,000 in cash.

Crack cocaine remains the most prevalent drug, though cops also seized 900 grams of marijuana, 35 grams of heroin, as well as a few hundred illicit pills.

The bounty included the bags of chocolate-colored chunks in the photo. Those are pieces of the hallucinogenic drug DMT, nicknamed “businessman’s LSD,” seized in a first-of-its-kind-in-the-state bust on a Woodward Avenue home, according to Assistant Police Chief Peter Reichard.

The amount of cash seized, $168,945 in a five-month period, is “unprecedented” for the department, said Lt. John Velleca, head of the narcotics squad.

The money has already been put to good use, said Police Chief James Lewis (at left in photo, with the mayor and members of the narcotics squad). It paid for new Blackberries for district managers, new vehicles, and two police youth programs. Recently, the drug money was used to send 40 schoolkids to an African-American wax museum in Baltimore.

The unit consists of 12 officers, two sergeants and one lieutenant. They stood in attendance at the press conference, in all-black outfits with cargo pants. The squad was sent to Drug Enforcement Agency school before hitting the streets, Lewis said. He applauded the team for building good relationships with neighbors and getting drugs off the streets.

“A lot of the shooting and violence [in the city] are connected to drugs,” Lewis said. He said most investigations stemmed from anonymous tips from neighbors, including one from the website SeeClickFix.

Mayor John DeStefano, Jr. touted the new squad as a key component of departmental reform outlined in the PERF report, an audit done by the Police Executive Research Forum in the wake of the Billy White scandal.

Reforms include a new procedure for handling police informant funds. The issue took center stage this spring at the local state courthouse, where former detective Clarence Willoughby went on trial on charges he stole thousands of dollars from the money meant for informants. The trial painted a picture of a system where detectives could take out money as though through an ATM, with little oversight. Defense attorney Norm Pattis painted his client as a sacrificial lamb singled out to take the hit for a larger systemic problem. Jurors found Willoughby not guilty.

Reichard outlined the new procedure for taking out informant funds. Now, he said, cops are only allowed to take out money for pre-registered informants. The profiles of those informants are locked up in a safe that only Reichard has access to. Detectives have to apply for the funds. Any time an informant is paid, the transaction must be witnessed by another detective and a supervisor. All receipts are returned to Reichard, and logged into a computer system, creating clear documentation, he said.

Chief Lewis praised the new system of checks and balances. He said the department has received no complaints against members of the new narcotics squad.

“We’re very proud of what they’ve accomplished,” he said.