When a local drug dealer mistook an undercover West New York police officer for a regionally known rapper, it smoothed over one of the first successful buys in a four-month investigation into drug crime in town.
The dealer even asked Police Officer Karriem Shabazz when his next album was coming out. Shabazz said he played along because it was working to his advantage, but he knew he had to be careful.
“It could have gone badly,” said Shabazz. “Right after we finished the deal, I left, and then [the real rapper] actually showed up.”
A unique situation
Recognized for his street smarts and martial arts skills, Shabazz was recruited right from the Police Academy to join the West New York Narcotics Unit, which is a very unusual move, said Police Director Oscar Fernandez.
“You don’t get out of an academy and go to a narcotics unit anywhere,” said Fernandez. “It is a unique situation.”
He said that West New York needed someone to work undercover, and Shabazz was the right man for the job.
After careful consideration, Shabazz seized an opportunity that he said “most people would give their left arm” to have. Before starting the operation, he went through weeks of intensive training, learning how to identify drugs and even how to pretend to use them.
Shabazz put those skills to good use, he said, when a dealer asked him to try cocaine.
“I went inside this hallway and I just made snorting noises and came out rubbing my nose,” he said. He also had to fake smoking marijuana at one point during the investigation.
However, at the start of the operation, dealers wouldn’t sell to Shabazz because they didn’t know him and they didn’t trust him.
“The first attempt, I got shooed away,” he said. “That happened a few times. Then people started seeing me around.”
Just another local guy
Shabazz said he got in the routine of riding around town on a bike, hanging out at gas stations and pizzerias, letting people see him. The goal was to get dealers to recognize him as a member of the neighborhood and eventually trust him, said Police Captain Donald Cassarini.
“They say, ‘I might not know this guy, but I have seen him around,’ ” said Cassarini. He added that it took about a week for this to work.
During the investigation, Shabazz said he bought marijuana, crack, cocaine, ecstasy, and prescription pills.
“It got so bad – and when I say bad, it was going well – I would go out and do three or four buys in one day, and that was two hours into the shift,” said Shabazz. He added that his frequent buys caused some trouble.
“One time that actually came to a head,” he said. “I was buying coke from one guy, and then the guy that sells weed ran up the street and said, ‘Hey, you want a bag?’ And then the guy looked at me like, ‘You buy weed, too?’ ” Shabazz said he did some quick thinking and told the dealer that he liked to mix the two drugs. The dealer was impressed with his ingenuity, he said, and didn’t question him any further.
“Growing up in Newark, you are not made to feel like that’s a good choice.” – Karriem Shabazz
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Shabazz added that the dealers really don’t care, as long as they get their money.
“I am buying crack from these guys,” he said. “They don’t respect me. They want my money, but they don’t respect me. I am not their friend. In their eyes, I am a crack head. I am the lowest scum on the earth. I am only good for money. They don’t cherish their customers.”
Did a phenomenal job
Shabazz, who grew up in a rough neighborhood in Newark, played the part very well, said Cassarini.
“He didn’t look like a police officer,” he said. “He also dressed the part. He dressed like a street kid, street guy. He had the baggy pants, he had the hat off to the side, he had the iPod. He was just bopping down the street like that.”
Fernandez said that one morning during the investigation, he bought coffee while standing right next to Shabazz and didn’t even recognize the officer.
Shabazz said he knew he had to stay in character, especially when the dealers started to get to know him.
“After I started buying, I would see them, unfortunately, when I was off duty going to get gas, going to get coffee, washing clothes,” he said. “That got to me a little, but it worked to my advantage.”
Through a listening device Shabazz wore, his backup officers could hear every conversation. Fernandez said Shabazz became very popular among the dealers, entertaining them with fabricated stories and raps made up on the spot.
“For the amount of experience that he had in the Police Department, he did a phenomenal job, an excellent, excellent job,” said Cassarini. “He fell right into it. He fell into role playing.”
Longtime ambition
Shabazz said that he always wanted to do police work.
“It was something that I wanted to do for a long time, but growing up in Newark, you are not made to feel like that’s a good choice,” said Shabazz. “I was 18 when I first wanted to do it. Urban communities usually have a stigma that the cops are bad no matter what. They just want to pick people up, harass people, but then I realized the only people who don’t like cops are people who are doing bad stuff.”
Nearly two decades later, he decided to do something about the stories he would read in the newspaper or see on TV, said Shabazz.
And he did.
The big crackdown
Toward the end of the investigation, police made 32 arrests within a few days. Fernandez said it was the biggest crackdown on drug crime that West New York had ever seen.
Shabazz said that while the criminals were being hauled in, he kept doing business as usual.
“I just kept going around like normal,” he said. “I didn’t go with them to arrest anybody. I was riding my bike like normal, hanging out, and seeing if I hear anything.”
“What we wanted to do was keep it going, just in case some of these guys’ friends would deal or they made it out on bail for the next week or two,” said Fernandez.
Since the operation ended, three more related arrests have been made, and Fernandez said his department has even more arrest warrants to serve.
Shabazz said that his time undercover helped him, as a new police officer, understand that people who are dealing drugs usually commit other crimes as well.
“There is no such thing as just selling drugs,” he said.
He also said that the operation was an opportunity for him to quickly learn what crime is ongoing in West New York. That has helped him now be a better patrol officer, he said.
“I got a crash course in who’s who, who is doing what, where and what’s going on at this location,” said Shabazz. “It would have taken me at least a year to figure that out.”
Offenders see him now
He said that now that the word is out that he is a police officer, he gets mixed reactions from the offenders he met while he was undercover.
“A couple people try to stare me down, a couple people smirk,” said Shabazz. “One guy came and shook my hand.”
Amanda Staab may be reached at astaab@hudsonreporter.com.