Pubdate: Sun, 13 Oct 2002
Source: Johnson City Press (TN)
Copyright: 2002 Johnson City Press and Associated Press
Contact:  http://www.johnsoncitypress.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1983
Author: John Thompson

Part 1 Of 4 Related Articles

DRUG-FIGHTING AGENCY BEGAN HUMBLY

It has been nearly 20 years since 11 sheriffs and police chiefs from the 
area's law enforcement agencies gathered at the Ash Street Courthouse to 
revolutionize the way they dealt with the region's growing drug problem. 
Those leaders adopted a solution that eventually was copied from one end of 
Tennessee to the other and influenced other Southern states.

That 1983 meeting led to the creation of the 1st Judicial District Drug 
Task Force, an organization staffed by officers assigned from the member 
agencies. The new organization was directed by an executive board made up 
of the member sheriffs and police chiefs.

"We recognized that drug dealers operated across city and county lines and 
we had to do the same. Johnson City may be the hub of the area, but there 
is a lot that goes on in other places," said David Crockett, who was 
district attorney general of the 1st District at the time.

The new organization could investigate criminal activities and make arrests 
throughout the four-county region that makes up the 1st District.

"Narcotics enforcement in the area was sporadic in 1982," said Trent 
Harris, one of the original officers assigned to the DTF. "It used to be 
that each sheriff and chief of police would say, 'Don't come into my 
jurisdiction.' It hamstrung you."

There was also little help from the federal government. He said the FBI was 
not normally involved in drug crimes in those days and offered no help to 
the local agencies. The nearest federal office that was involved in drug 
crimes, the Drug Enforcement Agency, was located 100 miles away in Knoxville.

Harris, now the director of the Johnson City Police Department's Criminal 
Investigation Division, was a sergeant in the department during those days 
and spent most of his time working to convict drug dealers.

There were only a few other officers in the region who worked most of the 
time in narcotics. These included Coleman Ramsey with Unicoi County, David 
Story with Washington County, Rick Collins with Carter County and Lt. Linc 
Higgins of the JCPD.

Even before the DTF was organized, Harris said these officers looked for a 
way to work together on big drug operations. Their solution was to work 
with David Blackwell of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

Because Blackwell's jurisdiction covered the entire state, the local 
officers could work with him and go into different counties.

The officers were also deputized in all four counties of the district to 
help prevent jurisdictional problems. The unorthodox organization worked, 
but as the original officers moved on to other assignments it became 
apparent that a more structured operation was needed, especially as the 
nation's drug problem worsened in the early 1980s.

One of the original officers had an influential friend who could do 
something about it. Ramsey, who came here from Salisbury, N.C., decided to 
stay in the area after he graduated from East Tennessee State University.

Ramsey was living in the guest room of the newly elected district attorney 
general, David Crockett. He had worked as an administrative assistant in 
the attorney general's office before he went to work for the Unicoi County 
Sheriff's Department.

Crockett liked the young man and invited him to stay with his family. It 
was a living arrangement that would last seven years. They became close 
friends.

While sitting around the kitchen table, Ramsey talked to Crockett about the 
jurisdictional problems he and other narcotics agents had. Crockett 
listened and decided to call the courthouse meeting.

Crockett said one of the keys in winning converts among the sheriffs and 
chiefs was a detailed 100-page standard operations procedure drawn up by 
Harris. It enabled the chiefs and sergeants to see the advantages of 
cooperating.

Some of Harris' ideas on how city and county law enforcers should cooperate 
came from an investigation he had done on the Ghost Riders motorcycle gang. 
He said some members of the gang were in the Army at Fort Bragg, N.C., 
where they stole explosives for the gang.

The investigation led Harris to work closely with the police from the city 
of Fayetteville and deputies from the Cumberland County (N.C.) Sheriff's 
Department. He found that these two agencies had overcome their 
jurisdictional problems to develop an effective cooperative effort.

The close cooperation of federal, city and county law enforcement groups in 
two states proved effective in arresting and prosecuting the gang.

Harris believed he could expand the Fayetteville-Cumberland County 
cooperation to an entire judicial district and drew up the procedures on 
how to do it.

The DTF was activated in October 1984. Lee Hecht came from Cumberland 
County to serve as the first director. Some of the original task force 
members included Jerry Tunnell from the JCPD, Mike Peters from 
Elizabethton, Danny Bullock from Carter County and John Smith from Unicoi. 
They soon began undercover operations. The drug pushers were caught totally 
off guard. They had grown comfortable with the lack of cooperation between 
law enforcement agencies.

As a result, some massive drug roundups began in 1986. Harris smiled when 
he recalled the shocked expressions on the faces of the drug dealers in 
those early roundups.

"They looked just like a deer caught in the headlights," he said.

While the organization was experiencing success, it was not until a tragic 
incident in New York City that other parts of the state began looking at 
the DTF.

Edward Byrne, a narcotics officer with the New York City Police Department, 
was shot and killed while working on a case in 1987. In an effort to honor 
the officer, Congress established the Edward Byrne Memorial Block Grant 
Program, which made money available to local law enforcement agencies to 
fight drug crime.

The federal money was funneled to the local agencies through the individual 
states. In Tennessee, Gov. Ned McWherter was looking for the most effective 
ways to use the windfall in the state's fight against drugs.

The governor's search soon led him to a closer look at the novel DTF. 
Suddenly, the DTF and Crockett started getting calls from law officers and 
district attorneys general all over the state.

Once again Harris' detailed SOP was used to convince wary chiefs of police 
and sheriffs about the benefits of cooperation. The promise of federal 
money and the encouragement of McWherter helped the idea win acceptance.

In September 1987, McWherter's aide, Jim Hall, wrote to Harris:

"To help other judicial districts across the state put together their own 
task team, we would like to ask for your help in developing a Suggested 
Policies and Procedures manual." Hall said administration officials would 
be in touch with him "to coordinate this effort that will allow the new 
task teams to build on your experience."

The effort has proven successful. There are now 22 judicial district drug 
task forces in Tennessee. These DTFs combined to make 1,361 felony arrests 
last year.

The final step in cooperation was reached when the federal agencies began 
routinely working closely with local agencies as part of the Organized 
Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force program.

"It opened up a whole new mode of cooperation," said Harris. "If we know 
marijuana is coming here from Mexico through Arizona, it is much easier to 
coordinate."

It is a type of coordination that Harris could not have imagined back in 
the days when law enforcement officers from neighboring agencies were not 
able to work together to battle a common foe.
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