Over the past year or so, Melanie Richmond has seen first-hand how methamphetamine destroys lives. "I have a high school classmate who is now in prison because of meth," she said. "A member of our extended family has been affected by it, and two children in our community have died in cases that involved meth." Richmond, a Nacogdoches resident, started to wonder when people would wake up to the problem that is "right here in our own back yard." Then, she started wondering what she could do to wake people up. [continues 566 words]
NACOGDOCHES -- With the closing of the Deep East Texas Narcotics Trafficking Task Force a few weeks away the question remains, "What does the future hold, with regard to drug enforcement in rural East Texas?" Ten agencies participate in the DETNTTF, including sheriff's offices in Nacogdoches, Angelina, Houston, Sabine and Tyler counties, and police departments in Nacogdoches, Diboll, Crockett, Hemphill and Woodville. County officials have set about the difficult task of dismantling the organization, turning over pending cases to individual jurisdictions and allocating assets. [continues 1305 words]
Kim Courtney-Graham nearly died when she was shot while working undercover as a narcotics officer on Aug. 26, 1998. She lost 50 percent of her blood, and her trauma surgeon didn't think she would pull through. Her daughter was in the seventh grade at the time, and her son was 6 years old. Courtney-Graham fought for her life, because of her children. And after she recuperated she returned to the streets and kept fighting drugs, because of her children. [continues 1647 words]
The Deep East Texas Narcotics Task Force faces an uncertain future, with regard to program funding. "We were notified that the funding, as we know it, will end March 31, 2006," Sheriff Thomas Kerss said. "It will be replaced with something else, but no one knows exactly what that will consist of or what it will mean for local jurisdictions." The one thing that Kerss does know is that East Texas and other areas throughout the state will experience a significant loss in law-enforcement resources, come April 1. [continues 659 words]
