CITY OF SUNNYVALE
DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY
BUREAU OF SPECIAL OPERATIONS
TO: Robert LaSala, City Manager
Through: Irwin Bakin, Director of Public Safety
FROM: Greg Kevin, Captain
SUBJECT: City Council Inquiry Related to Narcotics Enforcement
Background
At the City Council meeting of September 16, 2003, members of the Council had questions related to the enforcement of narcotics related crimes in the City of Sunnyvale. This is a status report on the enforcement of narcotics and vice related crimes.
The recent budget reductions by the City Council has caused the Department of Public Safety to reevaluate the way it provides service related to the investigation of narcotics and vice related crimes. Through the elimination of Detective positions and the reduction of Detective hours, the Department has had to change the way in which these cases are investigated. Due to these reductions, on Sunday, August 3, 2003 the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety closed the Department’s dedicated narcotics/vice unit. In light of these reductions, the Department has developed a three-point plan to address and deal with the issues related to narcotics and vice crimes.
The first point of the plan is the reassignment of one detective to the local narcotics task force. The Santa Clara County Special Enforcement Team (SCCSET) is a regional task force operated by the State of California, Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement (BNE). The task force is comprised of officers from the California Highway Patrol, California State University Police-San Jose, Campbell Police Department, Los Gatos Police Department, Milpitas Police Department, San Jose Police Department, Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, Santa Clara County Probation Department and the Santa Clara Police Department. With our involvement, the task force will establish an active presence in Sunnyvale to investigate and enforce narcotics violations. In addition, we gain the resources of the task force, when needed, to assist in the investigation of other major crimes.
The second point of the program is the even greater use of patrol officers to assist in the investigation of narcotics/vice crimes. Patrol officers routinely conduct basic narcotics and vice investigations, but now there will be a greater reliance on patrol to investigate and deal with more complex investigations and neighborhood issues. This will be an additional demand on the on the resource of patrol operations.
The third point of the narcotics/vice enforcement plan is the maintenance of narcotics and vice expertise within the Sunnyvale Investigations Unit. We currently have two Detectives assigned to the investigations unit who are skilled in the investigation of narcotics and vice crimes. They can be pulled from their primary assignments to address special narcotics/vice issues as needed. As a result, their caseloads may be diverted to other detectives and other cases may suffer delayed action. Although this is not always desirable, it does afford flexibility and the ability to respond quickly to special problems. In addition, a third detective will act as an in-house narcotics/vice coordinator screening all of Sunnyvale’s narcotics/vice cases and coordinating all narcotics/vice tips. The Department will still maintain the 245-DRUG tip line. From this line community narcotics and vice complaints will still be collected and investigated. The information will be triaged and either sent to the task force, handled by our investigators or referred to the patrol for investigation.
The elimination of the Narcotics/Vice Unit does not mean that we will stop investigating narcotics and vice crimes, it simply means that we will have to change the way we investigate those crimes.
How Complaints are Handled
Complaints are received in a variety of ways. They are received from the Desk Officer or dispatch when citizens call to provide information or to complain about a "problem house". They are generated by patrol officers during their community policing activities. Complaints are also receive them from our fire personnel when they encounter something suspicious or out of the ordinary when they are on a call or doing fire inspections. The largest number of our complaints come from the citizens calling the "Drug Hotline" (245-DRUG). All the complaints received are supposed to be documented on a "Narcotics/Vice Information" sheet and forwarded to the Investigations Unit for follow-up.
Once the Investigations Unit receives the complaint, it is assigned to a Detective for further investigation. The first step the Detective will do is re-contacting the person who made the complaint if they have left their name and phone number. This is done to make sure that we have all possible pertinent information for the investigation. The Detective then follows the guidelines below:
If the complaint is general in nature (i.e. a driver of a blue car making a transaction in a parking lot, with no further information), the information is provided to patrol for beat information.
If the complaint lists a specific address, vehicle and/or person, the detective will conduct a computer check on all information provided. (i.e. heavy foot traffic at 123 Able Street). With the computer check the detective is looking at the resident and the occupants to see if there have been H&S violations there in the past, or if the occupants are currently on probation, parole or are drug registrants. If any of this part of the investigation shows any type of prior drug activity, or the occupants are on probation/parole, this case is forwarded to our Detective that is assigned to the county drug task force for further investigation.
If there are no indications that are related to drug activity, the detective will continue his investigation by conducting surveillance at the residence to gain further intelligence on the occupants and/or their visitors.
If the detective does not obtain any further leads during his investigation, he has the option of doing three things;
Make contact at the residence and attempt to obtain a permissive search and discuss the complaint with the occupants (without revealing the reporting party).
Provide the information to patrol and have them provide frequent patrol.
Close the investigation until further information or leads develop.
These guidelines are used in Narcotics and Vice related complaints. There are other investigative steps that are taken with suspected massage establishments or with establishments that serve alcohol. With the massage or alcohol related complaints, undercover operations are usually employed.
In addition to the detective we have assigned to the task force and the other members of the task force, we currently have two detectives assigned to the persons’ crimes section that have prior undercover experience. We would utilize these detectives for any investigation related to illegal massage or prostitution complaints. As for the alcohol-related complaints at bars or restaurants, we would forward that complaint to the investigators at the local Alcohol Beverage Control (ABC) office in San Jose.
Since August 3, 2003 we have received 16 Narcotics / Vice related complaints via the drug hotline or from other sources. Of those 16 complaints, six were referred to patrol, three were referred to another agency (ABC), five were sent to our detective at the county task force and the remaining two are currently being held active for follow up investigation from within the investigations unit.