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."