NEW DEA HEAD HERE WILL TACKLE THE METH SCOURGE

By Bill Bryan Of The Post-Dispatch Bill Renton fought machine-gun killings
by Colombian cocaine dealers in Miami and ruthless violence by the Jamaican
Posse in Philadelphia. He orchestrated the first federal wiretap
investigation in Memphis, Tenn., ruining planned assassinations by the Cali
drug cartel.

Now, the Louisiana native brings his experience to St. Louis to tackle a
home-grown drug scourge -- methamphetamine.

"It's the most insidious drug there is," says the affable Renton, 50.
"We've seen cases where meth users don't eat or sleep for days. They forget
their personal hygiene. They don't change their babies' diapers.

"It eats up their brain cells."

William J. Renton Jr. is the new special agent in charge of the St. Louis
division of the Drug Enforcement Administration, replacing Joe Corcoran,
who retired. The job pays $134,000 a year.

Renton gets high marks from a fellow officer who worked with him in Louisiana.

"He's very aggressive, a hard worker. When we did search warrants together,
we did three or four a night," said Tony Soto, now leader of an anti-drug
task force for Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. "Billy's always got his
head in his work."

Renton's territory is vast: Missouri, Southern Illinois, Kansas, Iowa,
Nebraska and South Dakota. He has 124 agents plus more than 100 local
officers on loan.

"Meth production and use exploded in the mid-1990s, and it hit the
Heartland very hard," Renton said. While some is brought in from Mexico and
California, he said, most of the Midwest's supply comes from small labs in
its back yard.

He calls them "Beavis and Butthead labs."

"The operator of the lab is the primary user of what he produces," Renton
explained.

"He's usually undereducated and comes from a poor socioeconomic background."

Renton considers meth his top concern, but he vows to continue focusing on
cocaine, crack cocaine and other drugs. He said that drug use was in slight
decline nationally.

"Drug law enforcement professionals realize that the No. 1 key to reducing
the supply is reducing the demand, and education has to begin early, in
grammar school," he said.

Renton grew up in a New Orleans suburb, and watched marijuana and pills
make their way into schools. That influenced his decision to go into law
enforcement.

After high school, Renton used a federal grant to pay for night school at
Loyola University while he worked as a sheriff's cadet by day. He quickly
turned to undercover work.

"The detectives were guys in their 40s with fedoras and bald heads," he
recalls. "They didn't know how to go after 18-year-old drug dealers. They
had no clue how to get inside that circle."

The 1970s saw Renton graduate at the top of his recruit class, graduate
from Loyola with a major in sociology, get married and become frustrated at
the limited jurisdiction of the sheriff's office.

"I admired the DEA because you could follow a trail to LA or overseas," he
said. "You had a chance to go after the biggest and baddest dope peddlers."

The DEA hired him in 1979. Six months later, he was assigned to Panama
City, Fla., where Cuban-Americans were shipping in Colombian marijuana by
the boatload. Violence broke out when Colombians started managing the
business themselves, at the point of machine guns.

In 1987, Renton was promoted to intelligence group supervisor in
Philadelphia, where the so-called Jamaican Posse was shooting rivals over
control of the inner-city drug trade.

Overseeing nearly 50 people there helped Renton hone his supervisory skills.

After a variety of assignments from 1991-95, Renton was transferred to
Memphis, where he said the local DEA and FBI were feuding. "I was always
able to get along with people," he explained. "They sent me there to get
along with the FBI."

Renton was instrumental in conducting the first wiretap investigation in
Memphis' history. It paid off, as agents overheard phone conversations by
members of the Cali (Colombia) cartel hit squad called the "Angels of
Death." Several murders were thwarted, and numerous cartel operatives were
arrested.

Renton returned to New Orleans as assistant special agent in charge in
September 1996. In 2000, he won a distinguished service award for
supervising an investigation into club drug abuse at rave events.

Now, it's on to the Midwest and the challenge of meth. "I'm looking forward
to it," he said.