SEIZURES OF DISKS INTRIGUE CHATHAM

PITTSBORO - The mystery of Chatham County's missing marijuana developed a
new twist Wednesday when two FBI agents asked a county commissioner who is
also running for sheriff to help them confiscate a year of telephone
recordings from the county's emergency dispatch center.

Commissioner Rick Givens said the agents, who delivered a subpoena for all
recordings of incoming calls placed to the center between Sept. 1, 2000,
and Sept. 1, 2001, asked him to tag along because "they wanted someone
credible to expedite the process."

To some, that explanation seems strange. Givens, a four-year commissioner,
has been outspoken this past year about getting to the bottom of the
September 2000 theft of 5,000 pounds of marijuana from the sheriff's office
- -- three-fifths of it from a surplus Army truck parked behind the
department and the rest from a shallow pit at the county landfill.

In June, at a news conference in Pittsboro, the FBI announced it was
investigating the thefts. So far, no charges have been filed. An FBI agent
handling the case did not return a call to his office Thursday. Sheriff Ike
Gray did not return repeated calls to his office Wednesday and Thursday.

Dispatch centers record all of their telephone communications, consisting
of 911, personal and administrative calls. Those include nonemergency calls
from complainants, officers, outside agencies and alarm companies, said
Nick Waters, Orange County emergency management director.

The recordings also include informants for CrimeStoppers giving tips to
dispatchers, said James Bowden, a Siler City police sergeant and candidate
for sheriff. One possibility, Bowden said, is that the FBI agents could be
searching for evidence of a caller reporting something that was never
investigated.

"Evidently there's some type of conversation they're looking for," Bowden
said, "a call that came in that they're interested in."

The agents must have found something new, he said, or they would have
subpoenaed the recordings months ago.

While Bowden had no involvement in the seizure of the recordings, which are
made on DVDs, he suspects it was part of the FBI's investigation into the
missing drugs.

"I'm sure if the FBI was down there about the [recordings], it was because
of the marijuana," he said. "That's what they're there for."

But Bowden "has no earthly idea" why the agents asked Givens -- or anyone
- -- to accompany them. As a law enforcement officer, he said, he would have
delivered the subpoena on his own.

"I think they went to him as a county commissioner to make sure it was
handled properly and legally," Bowden said. "Don't ask me why they picked
him. I don't know why they didn't go to the county manager."

Randy Knight, a retired trooper who also plans to run for sheriff, said he
couldn't imagine why FBI agents would ask Givens to accompany them. "Of all
people, why him?" Knight said.

Regardless, both Bowden and Knight say Givens' involvement with the FBI and
the recordings won't affect the upcoming sheriff's race.

Waters said he was surprised the Chatham center still had the recordings
from September 2000. His office recycles their disks every three to six
months, unless they have evidentiary value.

"That's a lot of listening somebody's got to do," Waters said. "Oh, man."