GETTING AT A BIG ROOT OF CRIME Top-Ranked Police Unit Finds Drugs Linked To 60% Of County's Cases Port Washington - The commander of the best police anti-drug unit in Wisconsin leaned back and his chair pondered the question: Does he sometimes feel the fight against drugs is like trying to empty Lake Michigan with a spoon? "It's an ongoing problem," Ozaukee County Sheriff's Department Lt. Dean Roberts said. "It seems like the more arrests we make, the more cases we develop because of those arrests. We just keep on going." There may be debate in other quarters of society about whether drugs are truly bad, and whether they should be legalized. But in the ground floor office of the Ozaukee County Multi-Jurisdictional Enforcement Group, the MEG unit, there is no equivocation - drugs are bad in and of themselves and they lead to other crime. "Car thefts, burglaries, domestic disputes, all of those things usually turn back to drugs," Roberts said as he leaned back in his chair. "I think 60% of the crime committed in the county comes back to drugs." "So much of the crime in Ozaukee County and other areas centers around drugs," agreed Ozaukee County Sheriff's Department Detective Jeff Taylor. "There would be a lot less crime if there were less drugs." The unit works out of, and is supervised by, the Ozaukee County Sheriff's Department in Port Washington. Created in 1988 under former Sheriff Fernando Perez, the unit is designed to attack drug crime throughout the county. Sheriff Maury Straub said he does everything he can to support the unit. Like every other part of his department, Straub said he wishes he could provide more resources for the drug unit. The unit has the enthusiastic support of the county's police chiefs, Roberts said. Each department does what it can to help the unit out. "You have to attack these things on a county-wide basis," Mequon Police Chief E. Doyle Barker said. "Crime doesn't stop at the Mequon border." Mequon is the only department besides the Sheriff's Department that assigns an officer to the unit on a full-time basis. Doyle said the decision to make the assignment was one of the first he made when he became the Mequon chief in 1995. Mequon assigns its officers for two years at a time, Barker said. The current Mequon officer assigned to the unit works undercover. In addition to Taylor and the Mequon officer, two officers from Cedarburg, one from Grafton and one from Thiensville all work with the unit on a part-time basis, Roberts said. Despite its size, the unit has been very effective, especially since the Mequon officer arrived, Taylor and Roberts said. So far in 2000, the unit has seized 31 pounds of marijuana, 2.4 pounds of crack cocaine, an ounce of powder cocaine, about a third of an ounce of hallucinogenic mushrooms, 10 doses of LSD, and a small amount of heroin, Roberts said. For all of 1999, the unit seized 10.8 pounds of marijuana, half an ounce of powder cocaine, almost half a pound of crack cocaine, two doses of LSD and a third of an ounce of heroin. In 1999, it generated 78 cases that led to 97 arrests. The data on arrests for 2000 is still being compiled. The unit assisted state officials last month in the raid of a large-scale marijuana operation in the Town of Belgium. Two men, David Burmesch, 74, and Eugene Burmesch, 80, have been criminally charged in what state officials says is the largest marijuana seizure in Wisconsin this year. Agents seized 98.6 pounds with an estimated street value of $598,000. "If you look back a couple of years ago, we didn't have the numbers of cases because we didn't have the people," Roberts said. "Now, with two full-time officers and help from the other departments, they are making more and more cases." The unit has become so effective it was named the 2000 Drug Unit of the Year by the Wisconsin Narcotics Officers' Association. The association is made up of more than 500 law enforcement officers from local, state and federal law enforcement agencies. "Ozaukee County is one of the smallest units in the state and is in one of the smallest counties, but the work the unit is doing is not only greatly affecting the drug problem in their county, it is also affecting their neighboring counties," the announcement of the award said. "They have developed informants and made substantial cases in neighboring counties, including Milwaukee, Washington and Sheboygan. "They have worked with the Sheboygan County Drug Task Force, Milwaukee Metropolitan Drug Enforcement Unit, the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Department Drug Unit, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's Police Department and the federal Drug Enforcement Administration's Milwaukee office." "That was a real nice honor," Roberts said. "Jeff especially has been doing a lot of good work and now that we got him some help, things are better. If you look at the numbers we have generated vs. the size of the unit, the award was a no-brainer." Taylor, who is a 10-year veteran of the Ozaukee County Sheriff's Department, was assigned to the unit three years ago. "It was work I always wanted to do because so much crime originates with drug use," he said. Having the drug unit makes law enforcement in Ozaukee County more effective, District Attorney Sandy Williams said. "Most of our criminal cases have some connection to drug and alcohol," Williams said. "We have to work on the problem on many different levels. They are very effective in their work." Ozaukee County is not home to large-scale dealers, Taylor said. "We are dealing with mostly users out here and small- and middle-level dealers," Taylor said. The work the unit does isn't particularly glamorous, both Taylor and Roberts said. The cases the unit develops usually start with another police agency passing on a tip. Or, an informant will tell the unit's officers about a drug dealer, and they will painstakingly build a case against that person. "Often, the cases lead down to Milwaukee County," Taylor said. "We have to work to get the dealers to come up here, but they like to because there's more profit. They feel they are taking more of a risk, so they ask for more money."
No member comments available...
|