Pubdate: Fri, 24 Jan 2003
Source: Robesonian, The (NC)
Copyright: 2003 The Robesonian
Contact:  http://www.robesonian.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1548
Author: Matt Elofson

OFFICERS GET CLUES ON STOPPING DRUG TRAFFIC

LUMBERTON -- Almost four years to the day after Robbie Bishop, a sheriff's 
captain from Georgia, was shot and killed during a traffic stop, his wife 
and friends are continuing his legacy of fighting drugs and crime.

On Tuesday, about 250 law enforcement officers from across the country 
gathered at the Southeastern Regional Agricultural Center to learn traffic 
stop techniques during the fourth annual National Criminal Enforcement 
Association training conference. The conference continues through Friday. 
This year's conference is the first to be held outside of Georgia.

Bishop was shot and killed on Jan. 20, 1999, during a Georgia traffic stop. 
He had worked closely with Robeson County deputies teaching them his 
techniques. In September 1998, he suffered a gunshot wound while working in 
Robeson County. That happened during a stop in which sheriff's Deputy James 
O. Hunt was shot and almost killed.

"Robbie had a way of networking," Lisa Bishop said. "He told every officer 
he met what he'd found and how (he found it) in a traffic stop ... ."

In February 1999, soon after Bishop's death, the National Drug Interdiction 
Association was formed in his memory. Lisa Bishop is executive director of 
the organization, which has changed its name to the National Criminal 
Enforcement Association.

She said the 2003 conference is the first to have seized vehicles to 
demonstrate for officers how drugs can be hidden in secret compartments. 
The Robeson County Sheriff's Office provided seven seized vehicles that 
have false floors and secret compartments.

Sheriff Glenn Maynor, who could not be reached for this story, said the 
conference was brought here because of Bishop's relationship with the 
county and because of his office's successes in intercepting drugs 
traveling through the county on Interstate 95.

Bishop said that officers will learn how to properly report and prepare an 
arrest for court and how to properly handle the forfeiture of assets when 
drugs or other illegal contraband are seized. And, she said, they will 
learn about designer drugs like Ecstasy.

James O'Dell, a board member, said officers will leave the conference with 
the knowledge of how to find illegal contraband in motor vehicles.

"It's being able to recognize things that don't belong," O'Dell said. 
"We're trying to teach the officers to pay attention to detail."

O'Dell, an interstate criminal enforcement agent with the Charleston County 
Sheriff's Office in South Carolina, said that board members will show 
officers how to find drugs, guns and money in false floors and hidden 
compartments of vehicles. Almost all of the 25 board members are law 
enforcement officers.

Motor vehicles are the No. 1 form of transporting drugs across the United 
States, O'Dell said. He said that it can cost as much as $10,000 to add a 
hidden compartment to a motor vehicle.

"We try to teach every aspect of it: the stop, search, arrest and the 
courtroom," O'Dell said.

Bishop said that officers from as far away as Florida and New York are 
attending the conference. She said that the association has more than 1,300 
members from the United States and Canada.
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