LOCAL LAW AGENCIES REGROUP TO TACKLE DRUGS

State, Buncombe Want to Partner With Towns

ASHEVILLE -- Without giving a specific incident, Buncombe County
Sheriff Van Duncan said it has happened that a law enforcement
officer from one department has targeted a drug suspect without
knowing another department was also watching the suspect.

Preventing that kind of duplication of effort is one argument Duncan
and Charles Moody, agent in charge for the Western District of the
State Bureau of Investigation, gave Wednesday for forming a new
multiagency task force. Another is that towns in the county are not
always equipped to deal with street-level drug crime.

"They get undercover investigations done in their towns when these
reports come in. Most of these small municipalities don't have the
resources to do that," Duncan said of the benefits of the new
Buncombe County Anti-Crime Task Force at a press conference at the
Sheriff's Department.

BCAT would take the place of the Metropolitan Enforcement Group, a
collaboration of agencies that dealt with higher-level drug crime and
which Asheville left more than a year ago.

"One of the reasons the Asheville Police Department pulled out of
this task force was because of the hue and cry in the community to do
something about street-level drugs," the sheriff said.

BCAT will work with the city's drug suppression unit, and will
concentrate on the county's own "street-level" drug crime outside
Asheville, he said. The other locally based collaboration, U.S. Drug
Enforcement Agency Task Force, will pick up bigger cases or those
that occur outside Buncombe.

Organizers hope the county's other towns will participate. So far,
Woodfin has signed on and Black Mountain appears interested, Duncan
said. Weaverville has not made a decision and Biltmore Forest is set
to hear the offer. Towns would contribute $28,424, or half an
officer's salary for a total of two new officers. The county has
agreed to pay for half an officer if necessary and to pick up full
salaries if towns pull out after two years. Full participation would
mean 13 officers and one administrator who would make the decision
when to deploy the group. Towns would have a seat on the
administrative board and access to drug seizure money.

BCAT began operating more than six weeks ago with a core group of
county and state agents. It has already claimed some successes,
including an undercover prostitution sting Thursday at a Bent Creek
apartment building and the arrest Friday of Jeffery Paul in West
Asheville for possession of a concealed weapon, marijuana and 18
grams of cocaine.