Pubdate: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 Source: Asheville Citizen-Times (NC) Copyright: 2008 Asheville Citizen-Times Contact: http://www.citizen-times.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/863 Author: Jon Ostendorff SBI QUITS BUNCOMBE CRIME TASK FORCE ASHEVILLE - State investigators are dropping out of a multi-agency task force created to fight illegal drugs in Western North Carolina's largest county, authorities said. The N.C. State Bureau of Investigation will pull its two agents from the Buncombe County Anti-crime Task Force by the end of the year, agency spokeswoman Noelle Talley said. The SBI instead will focus on high-level drug trafficking cases. Law enforcement leaders called the split "amicable" and said it won't stop the year-old task force. "We will remain effective," Sheriff Van Duncan said. B-CAT, as it is known, was started by Duncan and now-retired Asheville SBI supervisor Charles Moody last year in response to what both men said was a growing problem of street-level drugs. They also said the task force would improve communication among law enforcement agencies investigating drug dealers. The group was the successor to the Metropolitan Enforcement Group, or MEG, which was made up of the Sheriff's Office, Asheville police and the SBI. The focus of the new task force shifted from investigating larger-scale dealers to busting street-level operators, Duncan and Asheville Police Chief Bill Hogan said last week. Duncan said voters were demanding that sort of enforcement in the county. Hogan said Asheville City Council directed him to focus on street-level drug interdiction when he was hired in 2004. He pulled out of MEG a year later to start his own drug suppression unit focused on crack cocaine. Street-level enforcement tends to have a bigger impact on the crimes that surround drugs, like theft and assaults, officials said. Also, the new task force was geared toward anti-crime interdiction. That meant that if a string of robberies were reported in a community - even if they were not directly tied to drug activity - - the task force could assign agents to help. The SBI, already short staffed, couldn't afford to commit agents to an operation that wasn't focused on major traffickers, Hogan and Duncan said Asheville SBI supervisor Toby Hayes had told them in giving notice of the departure last week. "I can appreciate what Toby Hayes is saying," Hogan said. "They got manpower shortages, and that becomes a significant issue." Hogan said the city's decision to leave MEG three years ago was similar. "It's a business decision," he said. After the SBI leaves, the task force will have 13 agents. The majority of members are assigned from the Sheriff's Office. Hayes wasn't available for comment. SBI agents and supervisors do not normally make public statements about department policy. Talley said Attorney General Roy Cooper, who oversees the SBI, asked state lawmakers for 17 new field agents, but none of the positions were filled in this year's budget. Duncan and Hogan said Hayes had hoped to get three new positions in Asheville but got only one. The SBI is what's known as an assisting agency - meaning it helps local police or sheriffs with special equipment or expertise at the request of a District Attorney. The 23 SBI agents in the 16-county WNC area are routinely called to help smaller police departments with murder investigations, crime scene processing and computer sex crimes. The SBI has original jurisdiction over six types of investigations, including drugs. The SBI, unlike the other member agencies, wasn't paying for task force operating expenses, which include materials and the cost of the BCAT offices. Although the task force does cost its member agencies, it can also bring a significant amount of money back to the departments. Since 2006, the Sheriff's Office has received a little more than $77,000 from drug seizure money. Task force member agencies must apply to the group's executive committee, which was Hayes, Hogan and Duncan, for seizure money. The money can be spent on federally approved equipment and training. Duncan's office bought body armor, night sights for weapons and ammunition with part of the money. The rest went to communications equipment, batons, weapons sights and weapon-mounted lights for the tactical team and training for homicide detectives. Asheville Police, a task force member for only three months, said it has not yet received drug seizure money. All of the agencies will continue to share narcotics intelligence as part of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency task force, Duncan and Hogan said. "They are great and we are going to miss them," Duncan said of the SBI. "But I think what they have decided to do is participate in the DEA task force, and basically participate at that level instead of the B-CAT level. They just have a limited number of resources they can put forward." - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin