ROUTT COUNTY SHERIFF PULLS AGENCY FROM DRUG TASK FORCE

Newly elected Routt County Sheriff Gary Wall has removed his agency
from a joint drug task force in northwestern Colorado, saying
investigator tactics have violated individual rights and seized a
"shockingly low" amount of illegal drugs. "I ran to protect the
citizens of Routt County," said Wall, whose county abuts Wyoming. "We
will enforce drug laws, but it's going to be done right."

"Their investigation and arrest tactics are violations of individual
rights," Wall said, speaking of the task force. "They try to get
people to do things for them by intimidating them. When somebody says
they want to see what their attorney thinks, as far as I'm concerned,
the conversation is over."

Wall's pullout from the Greater Routt and Moffat Narcotics Enforcement
Team, known as GRAMNET, will cost the task force about a quarter of
its funding, but the remaining agencies of Craig, Steamboat Springs
and Moffat County plan to continue, said Garrett Wiggins, an employee
of the Steamboat Springs police and the task force commander.

Wiggins said Wall "just doesn't want us to be working in Routt County,
and it opens the floodgates for drug dealers. He says he'll continue
drug enforcement, but I have my doubts."

Wall said the task force spent about $450,000 last year, of which
$115,000 came from the Routt County sheriff, and netted a small amount
of cocaine, 11 ounces of mushrooms, 8.9 grams of methamphetamine and
small quantities of marijuana, Ecstasy and illegal prescription drugs.

"That's not much for the money spent," he said. "The war on drugs has
been a failure no matter how you measure it."

Wall is the third Western Slope sheriff to be publicly leery of drug
task forces. Pitkin County Sheriff Bob Braudis has long expressed his
belief that undercover operations and other tactics erode public
confidence, and San Miguel County Sheriff Bill Masters wrote a book
questioning the war on drugs.