DISBANDED DRUG TASK FORCE LOSES ITS GRANT

THE DRUG task force that works Benton and Carroll counties will shut down
in a month or so. It was time for a timeout. The task force needs to pull
itself back together before it spends any more state money. The task force
for the 19th judicial district has been plagued by defections and disputes
over jurisdiction. Bill Hardin, the state's drug director, finally
recognized the inevitable. He said the $85,000 in federal grant money it
sought would go elsewhere.

This announcement capped more than a year of turmoil for the task force.
Two of the larger police agencies that provided its manpower, Benton
County's sheriff's department and the Bentonville police, pulled out of the
task force more than a year ago. Now the Rogers police are leaving, too.
That leaves one full-time officer from Siloam Springs and some part-timers
from the district's smaller police departments.

Rogers bailed out because the police chief there wants his officers to
concentrate on drug investigations in their own town, Benton County's
largest. He's got a point. It makes more sense to use the city's police
officers at home instead of spreading them out across two counties. Most of
the drug task forces in Arkansas are run out of prosecutors' offices. But
in Benton County the new prosecutor--Bob Balfe--has been unable to take on
that job because his office has several capital murder trials pending. Nor
has he been able to find a coordinator to replace Rogers' police chief, who
had been running the task force. Without a single official to coordinate
tactics and settle battles over turf, the whole operation invites chaos.

Better not to do something than to do it wrong. And running a two-county
drug task force with just some part-time help is doing it wrong. Those
still left in this incredible shrinking task force worry about its loss.
But it doesn't sound like there was a lot left to lose.