STRANGE RESIGNS AS HEAD OF MBN

Inadequate Funding, Alleged Vendetta Cited

The head of the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics, Don Strange Jr., submitted
his resignation Wednesday, citing a lack of funding for his agency and
bluntly accusing his enemies of attacking his son in a personal vendetta
against him.

Strange, 53, of Hattiesburg, has accepted a position running the Air
Marshal Service in Atlanta. He leaves for his new position on Friday.

"There are people in state law enforcement that aren't team players,"
Strange said. "They'd run the Bureau of Narcotics by putting it under the
Highway Patrol, but that's not a good idea."

The heads of the MBN and Highway Patrol both report to the governor but
fall under the Department of Public Safety.

In three years, Strange, who earns $60,000 a year, overhauled the Bureau of
Narcotics.

The agency dismantled several drug organizations. Strange also elicited a
$1 million federal grant for the state's first methamphetamine initiative
and found funding for a helicopter in a highly successful marijuana
eradication program.

Strange praised Gov. Ronnie Musgrove's efforts to persuade the Legislature
to give the bureau $14 million.

But Tuesday, the Legislative Budget Committee recommended $9.3 million for
2004, effectively slashing the MBN's budget 41 percent in the past three years.

"The governor is committed to the Bureau of Narcotics and its mission to
fight drugs," said Lee Ann Mayo, a spokesman for Musgrove. "We will
announce Don's replacement shortly."

Strange also said Wednesday he believes his son was fired from a state job
as a way to get at him. Mayo said Strange never mentioned his son's
situation in tendering his resignation.

Chris Strange, 31, the director's oldest child and a former investigator
with Attorney General Mike Moore's Office of Public Integrity, says he was
called unproductive and fired in October.

He got two weeks notice, later extended to 30 days after his father met
with Moore. Shortly afterwards, Don Strange met with Bill East, the head of
investigations for Public Integrity.

"It turned into a screaming match," Chris Strange said. Neither Moore nor
East could be reached for comment.

Five days after that meeting, Chris Strange said, he was in Covington
County when "my car got broken into and $1,930 in drug buy money was stolen
from the glove compartment.

"I think they think I stole the money to get back at them for firing me,"
he said. "That would be the dumbest thing I could imagine doing."

He said he offered to pay back the money, if he violated policy.

Instead, his last paycheck was withheld, he said.