FIVE MINUTES WITH ... A DEA AGENT WHO'S A 'GOOD SHOT'

Get Big Country on the phone, you can pick up pretty quickly from his
Southern drawl that he's not from around these parts.

But four years into a career as a federal agent for the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration, Country, who hails from Texas and has a
real first name of Justin, says he loves working in Detroit.

He and some of his DEA buddies are to be featured Wednesday on the
Spike cable network as part of a six-installment series on DEA efforts
to fight drugs in metro Detroit.

QUESTION: I'm not allowed to use your last name, why is
that?

ANSWER: If you have a full name, you can get anything off a computer
these days, so they're just trying to give us a little protection
between anybody that might want to do something crazy.

Q: You've actually bought dope as an undercover officer?

A: I have. And I don't want to imply to you that I'm some kind of
undercover guru because being a big country boy in Detroit, obviously,
it's a little difficult for me to go out and make a lot of buys, but I
have done it at a small level.

Q: Not to jinx you or anything, but anyone ever take any shots at you
or smash your face with their fist?

A: Let me tell you something, Jim. I don't know if you got my stats.
I'm about 6-2, 260, and I haven't had anyone fight me yet. Not to say
I'm some kind of hard-(bottom), but I'm bigger than a lot of people. I
think maybe that's good for me.

Q: How are you with a gun? Can you shoot the head off an ant from 100
yards?

A: Uh, probably 200. ... Look, I grew up in the country. I been
shooting shotguns since one of 'em was taller than me, so I consider
myself a pretty good shot.

Q: Let's say I'm a dope man. What are the odds I'm going to run into
you at some point in my life?

A: If you're large-scale enough in this city, we're gonna run into
each other. DEA's gonna find you. Look, we're the government, we might
take a minute to get rollin', but we'll get ya.

Q: Why do we have this drug problem?

A: It's pretty simple, I think. There's a very high demand in this
country for drugs ... a lot of money to be made.

Q: What about the folks who are using? Why is there such a
demand?

A: People use all kinds of substances to escape problems, I think.
Again, here in Detroit, the economy's no good, people have a lot of
problems on their mind. And this is an easy escape.

Q: What about you, do they ask you guys when you join up what your
personal experiences are?

A: You can never have taken a schedule 1 substance. Now, there are
exceptions, marijuana for instance, they give you a certain number of
times that you can have used it in your life. If they didn't do that,
Jim, think of the number of people it would immediately exempt.
Everyone goes to college. That's just how it is.

Q: Do you ever feel emotions for the people you arrest?

A When I got into this line of work, I was very idealistic. Everything
was black and white, OK? You did right or you did wrong. The longer I
do this, the more I -- I don't want to say sympathize with them -- but
I understand a lot of times what's going on.

Q: What else should I ask you?

A: We don't want people to think DEA is a bunch of black tie, "Men in
Black" kind of thing. We're just normal guys. We love this.

Q: Oh, hey, before I let you go, if I want to throw a wild-and-crazy
party this weekend, what kind of blow would you recommend?

A: What kind of blow? (Chuckles.) What kind of blow?

Q: Yeah.

A: Jim, you're recording this thing, man we can't go into
- --

Q: Kidding. It's a joke!

A: I know. It's good! (Laughs.)