Police returned to the scene of a home invasion — this time, with a search warrant.
It was the Tactical Narcotics Unit (TNU) that showed up at the Winthrop Terrace apartment building — a longtime crime magnet—around 5:45 p.m. Monday.
Members swarmed up to an apartment on the third floor. Outside, the 44-year-old woman who lives in the apartment was handcuffed and searched. Inside, TNU members looked for drugs.
Other members of the police department had shown up at the same apartment around 4 a.m. on Sunday. The 44-year-old woman said two people, one of them armed, had knocked on her door, forced their way inside when she responded, pushed her to the floor, and stole her money and inhaler.
Paul Bass Photo
Officer Renee Forte (Bitang’s partner) and Lt. Hoffman outside the building while the search proceeded inside.
It turns out the TNU had already been investigating the apartment as a possible drug-dealing lair, according to TNU chief Lt. Jeff Hoffman. He said TNU had made two undercover crack buys there. So the unit obtained a warrant and made Monday evening’s bust, assisted by police canine Bitang.
“That’s a hazard of drug dealing,” Hoffman observed at the scene. “You might get robbed one day. Police might have a warrant to search your apartment the next day.”
Detective Vensel searches suspect.
As the raid inside the apartment proceeded Monday evening, Detective Manuela Vensel carefully patted down the handcuffed woman, who wore a hooded sweatshirt and sweatpants and was cooperative. (Click on the video at the top of the story to watch a snippet.) The woman appears to be disabled; she had a walker with her.
Hoffman said the search produced two baggies of crack. The woman was arrested on drug-dealing charges based on the warrant and previous buys. Hoffman said the woman is the same person who told police a man had forced her out of her apartment at gunpoint one morning in September; that report led to the police blocking off the neighborhood and calling in the SWAT team to search the neighborhood. (They caught the man.)
The apartment building is run by Netz Mandy management, which controls rental properties across town. Across Winthrop at the same corner, another real estate company with dozens of holdings across town, Pike International, has cleared out another problem apartment building and has been doing a full gut-rehab. Police at the scene Monday night praised Pike’s efforts at improving the neighborhood and working with police.
This is a major problem area.
Ever wonder why the crime rate in this zone is so much higher than the rate in Downtown, compared to the amount of overall activity? It's because there is no business improvement district (BID).
Downtown Ambassadors should be hired from among local youth (who face an unemployment rate of 50%) and then paid to walk the area until the dealers leave.
When BIDs come to an area, crime drops by 40-80% because there are more eyes on the street. In addition to Downtown (which is largely paid for by Yale), Yale has its own version - most of its security force consists of non-sworn paraprofessionals - and crime on the campus is virtually nonexistent.
Unfortunately, the NHPD labor unions will never allow BIDs to spread beyond Downtown, because it would immediately reduce crime by 40-80%, and then police layoffs would be possible.