Pubdate: Sat, 08 Jun 2002
Source: Daily Advertiser, The (LA)
Copyright: 2002 South Louisiana Publishing
Contact:  http://www.theadvertiser.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1670

NEW FBI WORRIES FEW

WASHINGTON (GNS) - Tommy Ferrell remembers when his dad, then Adams County 
sheriff, worked closely with 25 FBI agents stationed in Natchez to fight 
race-based violence during Mississippi's dark days of civil rights strife 
in the 1960s.

The agents are gone now. But southwest Mississippi still has a local FBI 
presence, a lone agent four counties away in the town of McComb who 
sometimes helps Ferrell - the current Adams County sheriff - fight crime. 
Ferrell is proud that with the FBI's help, he has just finished cracking an 
interstate truck theft ring.

But Ferrell, also the new head of the National Sheriff's Association, 
worries that a valuable partnership between the FBI and local police is 
threatened because of the Bush administration's decision to change the 
FBI's chief mission from crime solving to counterterrorism.

"The bottom line is that this is going to have a terrible impact on us and 
we're bracing for it," he said.

Restructuring of the FBI began right after the Sept. 11 attacks and is 
expected to accelerate now that FBI Director Robert Mueller has revealed 
his detailed plan to retool the agency. Mueller has picked W. Wilson Lowery 
Jr., an agency outsider and former corporate executive, to carry out the 
changes.

Reform of the agency also was made the No. 1 priority after revelations 
that Washington headquarters mishandled information from agents in the 
FBI's Minneapolis and Phoenix field offices that may have helped uncover 
plans for the attacks.

Soon the 94-year-old agency will have a new chain of command. About 400 
agents will be redirected from drug investigations and nearly 100 others 
from their work on violent and white-collar crime. Another 900 new agents 
with special language, computer and science skills will be hired. A top CIA 
official has been sent to the FBI to coordinate the agency's intelligence, 
25 CIA agents will teach their FBI counterparts how to be analysts, and 
chasing terrorists has become the most important job at the 56 field offices.

But some of these changes need congressional approval, and it appears that 
lawmakers aren't ready to rubberstamp the proposal.

Rep. Frank Wolf, a Virginia Republican who heads the House Appropriations 
Committee that oversees the FBI budget, has requested an independent review 
of the plan and has scheduled hearings on the proposed reorganization. Like 
Ferrell, Wolf is concerned that Mueller's plans to shift hundreds of FBI 
agents and 766 support personnel to the war on terrorism may leave a void 
in other important law enforcement functions.

Ferrell and his counterparts across the nation realize that law enforcement 
was changed forever when hijacked planes hit the World Trade Center and the 
Pentagon.

But he and others worry about the FBI's abandonment of some of its 
traditional duties. For instance, the bureau now is expected to leave the 
investigation of most "note jobs," isolated bank robberies committed by 
single armed bandits, to local police. The FBI's retreat from this field 
worries some because, while most crime dropped in the past few years, the 
number of bank heists increased 25 percent in two years, from 6,599 in 1999 
to 8,259 in 2001.

Since the days of Bonnie and Clyde, the FBI has been able to do what local 
police can't - track criminals across state lines and keep a national crime 
database.

Working with the FBI also helps local police because the agency has 
resources, including money to pay informants and buy evidence, that most 
police and sheriff's departments lack. The FBI also has access to 
information culled from grand juries and secret sources that are off-limits 
to the local police but come in handy in joint investigations.

"We're going to have to pick up the slack, and that may be difficult," 
Ferrell said.

But some say the FBI's 11,000 agents represent a fraction of the nation's 
law enforcement strength and that their redeployment will have little 
effect on fighting street crime. Jim Pasco, executive director of the 
Washington office of the Fraternal Order of Police, predicted that the 
nation's police departments won't see a change in their operations.

"In terms of just fighting any kind of crime at the beat level, the FBI is 
not particularly relevant," he said.

And if any local police department is inconvenienced from the change, it's 
a small price to pay, Pasco said.

"Which did more damage to America, the destruction of the trade center or 
the robbing of a bank in Duluth?" Pasco asked.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom