Pubdate: Mon, 14 Jun 2004
Source: Daily Leader, The (MS)
Copyright: The Daily Leader 2004
Contact: 
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=65297&BRD=1377&PAG=461&dept_id=172930&
Website: http://www.dailyleader.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1955
Author: Scott Tynes

DRUG INTERDICTION IMPORTANT TO SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT

Interstate traffic interdictions are not an active policy of the Lincoln 
County Sheriff's Department, according to Sheriff Wiley Calcote, but they 
do contribute to efforts in the drug war.

His office does not regularly engage in interstate interdictions, Calcote 
said, because he prefers to leave that to the Mississippi Highway Patrol. 
His officers do occasionally make traffic stops when deputies are traveling 
on the interstate to get from one area of the county to another.

"We do not have an officer assigned to I-55," Calcote said.

Calcote said negative publicity resulting from a recent newspaper article 
in the New Orleans Times-Picayune about a $27,000 seizure involving three 
New Orleans businessmen will not prevent his deputies from continuing to 
make occasional stops on I-55.

The money was returned last week when investigators failed to link it to a 
crime. Investigators had suspected the money was being laundered, Calcote 
said. They also had concerns about whether taxes had been paid on the 
money, which was reported as proceeds from store sales.

"People need to know if they travel through Lincoln County they may be 
stopped if they violate the law. We're not backing up because of any 
negative article," he said.

Interdiction along I-55 is important, Calcote said, because the interstate 
serves as a primary artery in drug trafficking from Texas to other areas in 
the South.

"There's a lot of drugs that travel through Lincoln County on I-55," he 
said. "It's true that not a lot of those drugs stop in Lincoln County, but 
a seizure here can still help someone up the road. The war on drugs is a 
national one, not regional."

However, Calcote said he does not feel justified in allotting county 
resources to a concerted effort to stop the trafficking on the interstate 
when the MHP is already conducting those operations.

"We try to put all our attention on the county communities, not the 
interstate," he said.

Drug interdiction efforts, whether done in the county or on the interstate, 
provide law enforcement agencies with needed funds to combat drug abuse, 
Calcote said.

Eighty percent of the money seized in drug cases under the state asset 
forfeiture laws is returned to the agency that made the arrest. Twenty 
percent goes to the district attorney's office, according to Robert Byrd, 
an assistant district attorney with the 14th District.

In some cases, such as when more than one agency is involved in the 
seizure, the money is distributed differently, but 100 percent of the 
seizure is returned to law enforcement, he said.

"We've got to have it," Calcote said. "The four vehicles we purchased this 
year were purchased with drug-seized money. If we did not have this drug 
seizure money coming in, we would have to cut back on staff and in other 
areas. It's crucial we have this money coming in."

Lincoln County Sheriff's Department Narcotics Capt. Dustin Bairfield, who 
handles the paperwork on the seizures, said the department has made a total 
of 35 seizures since Jan. 1, but only three or four were made on I-55.

The vast majority of their seizure cases result from stops made on county 
roads, he said. The number of seizures varies from month to month, but the 
department averages about seven a month.

Occasionally, Bairfield said, money seized when drugs are found is proved 
not to be linked to the illegal substances, and in those cases the money is 
returned to the suspect.

This most commonly occurs during the tax refund season, he said, when 
people cash their tax refund checks and are stopped soon afterward in 
possession of drugs. When the suspect presents his income tax check, and 
the time and date it was cashed is verified, the money is returned.

"We try to screen them pretty well," he said. "We're after drug money, 
nothing else."

Once a seizure case makes it to court, however, Bairfield estimated that 95 
percent or more of the rulings are in favor of the sheriff's department.
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart