A WAR WITH FEW WINNERS: The Eastside Narcotics Task Force has seized more
than $40 million in drugs since 1992, but critics think this drug war has
gone too far

They're recognized by their black uniforms and the slashed-out marijuana
leaf patches they wear on their shoulders.

The badge is a symbol of their mission to eradicate the Eastside of pot and
other drugs. For nearly two decades, officers of the Eastside Narcotics
Task Force have been cracking down on dealers, growers and drug houses.

The multi-agency drug-enforcement team has confiscated $40.6 million worth
of drugs since 1992. Last year it shut down 18 marijuana growing operations
and seized $1.3 million in assets such as vehicles, bank accounts and homes.

In the past seven years, the task force has arrested 1,466 people, almost
all adults, and almost all for offenses serious enough to be felonies. It
investigated 1,320 cases of narcotics dealing, including marijuana. And it
conducted 1,412 undercover drug buys.

Many applaud the team's work clearing crack houses from their neighborhoods
and keeping dangerous drugs out of the hands of children. But some critics
say the ENTF sometimes is too aggressive and spends too much time tracking
down nonviolent marijuana growers. Critics say officers use tactics that
are being questioned in jurisdictions around the country.

"There's something wrong when police start watching the activities of
individuals, who are presumably law abiding, just in case they aren't,"
said Seattle attorney Peter Tucker. "As far as marijuana is concerned, why
are we wasting all these resources? What's it all for?"

What it's for, authorities say, is ridding the Eastside of drugs and the
crime they bring to neighborhoods.

Residents of an Eastgate neighborhood say last year the team closed down a
crack house that had degraded their block for years.

Last month, the Task Force scored another victory in the first round of
arrests following a six-month investigation into a ring of cocaine and
methamphetamine dealers. The two related raids resulted in the arrest of
four men and a woman, all in their 20s, and confiscation of more than
$600,000 worth of meth and coke. Officers also seized four vehicles -- two
Audis, a Jeep and a Nissan --- from the suspects.

But Tucker and other critics say ENTF tactics -- staking out gardening
stores, scanning power bills, turning small-time users into informants and
seizing homes and cars -- cross the lines of personal privacy, and the task
force is driven by the goal of bringing in more money, which in turn
strengthens drug interdiction.

Though the Task Force says marijuana isn't its primary target, the team
scores highest in its history of pot busts since its formation in 1981.
Last year it seized pot with a street value of $2.7 million. All the seized
cocaine, crack, meth, heroin, ecstasy, psychedelic mushrooms, hashish and
LSD had a combined street value just short of $844,000.

"We don't go after the three-plant guys," said ENTF commander Capt. Bob
Baker of the Bellevue Police Department. "We want the 80-90-plant growers.
Narcotics officers don't go after possession cases. This is about catching
dealers.

"We have a 100 percent conviction rate; we've never lost a case," he said.
"By arresting these people and turning them into informants, there's no
more crack house."

In 1981, not long after disco and cocaine had overtaken the country,
Bellevue, Mercer Island and Kirkland joined forces, declaring a local war
on drugs. Redmond and Issaquah joined the task force early the next year.

By 1987, the task force was working three or four investigations a day, or
up to 10 a week. It seized $1.6 million in drugs that year, mostly marijuana.

For much of its first decade, the task force was funded solely by its
member cities. But in 1990, a federal grant boosted the program, just as
crack cocaine was changing the rules on the nation's inner-city streets.

Now in its 19th year, the Eastside Narcotics Task Force -- a team of cops
from Bellevue, Redmond, Kirkland, Issaquah and Mercer Island -- maintains a
$1.2 million annual budget and has a full-time team of 12 law enforcement
officers, as well as a lead prosecutor and a secretary. Among the team
members are a full-time federal Drug Enforcement agent, a National
Guardswoman and a drug dog named Dollar. Bellevue's Tactical Arms Group or
SWAT team also helps out on potentially dangerous raids.

The ENTF has grown from seizing $1.9 million in drugs in 1981 -- of which
$1.8 million was marijuana --to last year busting 130 suspected drug
dealers and taking $3.5 million in illegal narcotics off the street.

The amount of drugs seized can vary wildly. In 1995, for example, a single
ENTF operation seized $7.6 million in cocaine and heroin in the task
force's biggest-ever bust, which followed a drug ring from street dealers
here to major cocaine suppliers in Los Angeles. That bust raised the year's
total drug seizures to a record $11 million.

But the numbers don't accurately reflect the amount or type of drugs moving
through the Eastside, Baker said. Rather, they speak of the resources
available to the ENTF at the time.

"Right now, methamphetamine is the biggest thing because we got a guy who's
good at meth busts," Baker said.

Marijuana, heroin and cocaine still are hot items, he said, and like meth,
they're responsible for a slew of social ills such as property crime, bank
robberies and overdoses.

After the busts, the officers and prosecutor work to seize property that
was bought using drug money. Last year, the task force seized $1.3 million
in personal assets. A key component of the anti-drug strategy is to make
growing, processing and dealing unprofitable by seizing property purchased
with drug money or used to produce, sell or transport drugs.

"Seizing money and assets is not the driving opportunity here," Baker said.
"Arresting drug dealers is the driving opportunity. ... These guys are
living on $100,000 a year, making $5,000 a year, according to their tax
returns. That doesn't compute."

But some say taking people's property is wrong.

Jeffrey Steinborn, an attorney representing a Woodinville couple trying to
keep their home from being seized, often finds himself at odds with the
task force. He's built a reputation for himself as an outspoken supporter
of the rights of people arrested for pot.

"(The Task Force) takes anything they can get their hands on, whether it's
justified or not," Steinborn said. "There's great abuses there, because
they know people who lose their property can't retain a lawyer."

King County deputy prosecutor Sheila Weirth disagrees.

"People have horror stories about seizures that I agree are horror
stories," said Weirth, who is assigned to the ENTF, "but we try to keep in
mind our intent, which is to take away the tools of the trade and take the
profit out of the crime by seizing the proceeds."

Criminal trials proceed separately from civil seizure hearings. And if the
charges are delayed, it's usually at the request of the defense, she said.

"There's no intent to force the defendant into poverty, so they can't
afford an attorney," said Weirth, who has worked with the Task Force for
more than two years.

In many cases, it's what leads up to the seizures and raids that draws
criticism.

Task force members acknowledge that staking out the shopping center parking
lot in front of gardening supply store Green Gardens on 132nd Avenue
Northeast in Bellevue has led to numerous marijuana arrests, despite
protests from the store. The store's owner, Bob Cronk, says his customers
- -- law-abiding or not -- shouldn't have to feel like they're being watched
when they patronize his store.

"This store caters to gardeners," said Cronk, adding he doesn't associate
with pot growers. "People who shop here shouldn't have to worry about
having their door knocked down."

Typically, task force officers only act on a person seen exiting the store
when they can match a car license plate number to a name associated with
prior drug convictions, Baker said.

Court documents show it's not unusual for task force detectives to ask
Puget Sound Energy workers to help look for anything suspicious about a
suspect's electricity usage. Without a search warrant issued by a judge, it
would be illegal for officers to get such a close look. Ironically, the
meter often provides detectives with the probable cause they need to get a
search warrant.

Often, the next step is to obtain a search warrant to take thermal images
of the house. Areas appearing warmer under infrared light support the
detective's theory that a grow room with high-intensity lights is operating
inside.

One search warrant often leads to another in cases like this, Weirth
explained. Officers search power bills, telephone bills, bank accounts,
until they assemble enough probable cause to get a green light for
searching inside the suspected pot house.

All that adds up to the potential for police to find loopholes and cut
corners, say attorneys like Steinborn and Tucker, who defended Dick Lewis,
a former Bothell High School teacher who recently pleaded guilty to growing
pot in his Bothell home. Court papers say Lewis also was observed buying
supplies at Green Gardens.

"The farther we go with things like police sitting outside gardening
stores, it seems more like economics than some moralistic purpose," he said.

Baker says the tactics are fair play, and they shouldn't bother anyone
except the drug dealers.

One dealer they shut down is Gary Lonctot of Bellevue. Prior to his last
arrest by the ENTF a year ago, Lonctot sold rock cocaine to undercover
officers and informants more than a half-dozen times since 1997. Police
searched his house at 15403 S.E. 38th St. at least three times, and found
only small amounts of cocaine.

In April 1998, armed officers finally found what they were looking for.
They arrested nine people at the house, including Lonctot, who was found in
his bedroom with an ounce of cocaine and a loaded gun. Last year, he was
sentenced to five years in prison.

Another raid a month later brought five more arrests, and Lonctot, who had
bailed out of jail, found himself back behind bars. This time, prosecutors
succeeded in seizing Lonctot's four-bedroom house under a deal that gave
the Task Force half the proceeds from the $174,000 sale. Several months ago
the house was purchased and now is being remodeled for a new family.

For Lonctot's former neighbors, the deal brought long-awaited relief.

"It was a blessing," said Jerry Beasley who's lived for five years next
door to the Lonctot property. "The house was attracting a lot of traffic at
all hours of the night. Finally, they started parking in front of our
house, and I had to go talk to them."

According to prosecutor Weirth, the Lonctot case was a true victory. But
because house seizures often are mired in court for years, it was only one
of a few completed cases that have ended with money from a seized house
funding the ENTF.

"When we're trying to seize a house it's to take away the illegal use of it
and the profit motive," Weirth said. "Here the seizure was a real success
story, because it also helped a troubled neighborhood."

`All I could see was the barrel of a gun'

By Noel S. Brady

Journal Reporter

WOODINVILLE --Ashleigh Cromwell was home alone one afternoon last year when
she heard banging at her front door.

The 13-year-old says she looked out a window and saw close to a dozen armed
men in camouflage and black. Just as she turned the door knob, five
officers threw it open and entered with their weapons drawn.

"All I could see was the barrel of a black gun," said Ashleigh, who had
just gotten home from Timbercrest Junior High.

"I just said `don't hurt me, don't hurt me, please,"' Ashleigh said. "They
never said who they were or what they wanted."

The task force insists members identified themselves and told her they had
a search warrant. And what they were after was the hidden marijuana growing
operation they thought her parents, John and Colleen, were operating. They
confiscated 103 pot plants and all the makings of a sophisticated indoor
hydroponics growing system -- along with a few guns and rifles-- but the
Cromwells say the raid was out of control.

Task force officials admit they made a mistake by not knowing the girl was
home, but they stand by their actions. And the Cromwell case is one example
of the battle over how the task force carries out its war against drugs.

Depending on how you look at it, the February 1999 raid of the Cromwells'
Woodinville home was another success story for the Eastside Narcotics Task
Force, or a case of overzealous drug officers trampling people's rights and
privacy.

"The officers behaved like a street gang that had broken into a vacant
house for the purpose of vandalism," said the Cromwells' attorney, Jeffrey
Steinborn. "They drank beer from the refrigerator, sprinkled cereal and the
contents of packaged food on the Cromwells' furniture and terrorized their
13-year-old daughter."

Colleen Cromwell also says officers kicked her small dog, causing it to die
from internal bleeding days later. That, said task force Cmdr. Capt Bob
Baker, is just another contrived accusation in the couple's attempt to
avoid being prosecuted as drug dealers.

Steinborn questions the validity of the task force's methods and says its
search wasn't justified. He wants all the evidence thrown out of court, and
thinks the Cromwells shouldn't lose their home.

Baker stands behind the way his detectives investigated the Cromwells and
conducted the raid, and he denies many of the accusations the family is making.

"None of our activities are improper or illegal," Baker said.

John and Colleen Cromwell were at work when officers invaded their house.
They were charged in April with felony drug possession, money laundering
and illegal possession of a firearm. Both have pleaded innocent.

Prosecutors are trying to seize the Cromwells' house, vehicles and other
assets. Law allows police to seize property that was purchased with drug
money or used in the transport, sale or production of narcotics. A hearing
on that matter is pending.

The Cromwells believe task force officers waited for their daughter to be
dropped off at her school bus stop and followed her home from school, then
served the search warrant. Baker strongly denies that.

"We want to know if their are children in the house," Baker said, adding
that detectives were told by a neighbor of the Cromwells that they had no
children living with them. "We try to do it when there's no one home."

Ashleigh says officers grabbed her arm roughly and whisked her out of the
house to a neighbor's, where she stayed until detectives returned to
question her. She told them she had no idea why they were there, and to
this day she insists she never knew or suspected her parents were growing pot.

For several hours, officers searched the house, dumping out drawers and
cupboards. The size of the operation they found gave detectives little
doubt that the couple was making a business out of the garden hidden in a
crawl space between floors.

If they smoked a joint every two hours, Baker calculated, it would take
them more than five years to finish what they had growing if they weren't
selling it to anyone else.

Police also seized rifles and handguns. It was illegal for Cromwells to
possess the weapons, because both John and Colleen already were convicted
felons. John has a previous drug conviction, and Colleen pleaded guilty to
embezzling from her previous employer.

At her attorney's office high inside Seattle's Smith Tower, Colleen
Cromwell, a 37-year-old veterinary accountant in Bellevue, said she and her
husband had the guns for hunting and range shooting. They stored them in
the attic to keep them away from the hands of their daughter and other
neighborhood kids.

She said she doesn't understand why officers trashed her house, dumping
food on the floor and clothing and other items everywhere else.

"It looked like a bomb went off in there," she said. "I just don't think it
was necessary."

Baker defends the his team for making a mess, because that's what happens
when conducting a search. Officers have to look for drugs and documented
evidence inside cereal boxes, underneath drawers, in the pockets of clothes
and hundreds of other nooks and crannies.

"We searched the house, and when we search a house we put things in piles,"
Baker said. "It's not pretty when we leave."

Steinborn says the tactics leading to the raid are questionable. Task Force
detectives first started investigating the Cromwells three months earlier
after they spotted John Cromwell, a 39-year-old safety engineer, leaving a
Bellevue gardening supply shop called Green Gardens. A check on his license
plate showed the previous conviction for growing marijuana in 1986.

Officers followed up by going to their home, where the Cromwells contend
Task Force detectives stood in a neighbor's yard to get a closer look. They
call that trespassing.

Baker wouldn't comment on any of the events or tactics that occurred during
the Task Force's investigation.

According to court documents, a detective spotted a yellow plastic box
attached to the side of the Cromwell house near the electricity meter, but
they needed a search warrant to get a closer look. So they went to Puget
Sound Energy, and asked for help. A PSE worker inspected the Cromwell meter
in search of a power diversion, which could be used to mask excessive
electricity levels. Narcotics officers say growers often divert the power,
so electricity used to power high-intensity grow lights doesn't register on
the electricity bill and raise suspicion.

While at the Cromwell home, the energy worker determined that the yellow
box housed controls for the family's hot tub, but she said while she was
there she caught a pungent whiff of something she thought smelled like
marijuana. Court documents say the woman was familiar with smell of pot
because she'd helped in other marijuana investigations.

Two months later, the Task Force decided it was time to search the house.

For months after the raid, Colleen Cromwell said, her daughter made weekly
visits to a therapist to address her trauma. For months her school grades
dropped sharply, and she had difficulty sleeping, she said.

"All these resources spent knocking down the door," protested the
Cromwells' attorney Steinborn. "They don't spend a dime on surveillance to
see who's there, to see if they need the guns."

PHOTO by Maxwell Balmain: Colleen Cromwell (right) listens as her daughter,
Ashleigh, tearfully recounts the Eastside Narcotics Talk Force's raid of
their Woodinville home.

Drug prosecutor has perfect record: Sheila Weirth hasn't lost a case since
joining in 1997

By Noel S. Brady

Journal Reporter

Once the house is searched and the suspects arrested, the Eastside
Narcotics Task Force has completed only half the job. That's when King
County deputy prosecutor Sheila Weirth goes to work.

A task force member for two years and a prosecutor for nearly 10, Weirth
works to ensure drug dealers are convicted and their cars, homes and other
assets go to the task force.

Since asking to join the ENTF in 1997, Weirth hasn't lost a case. In fact,
most cases never make it to trial, she said. Suspects often plead guilty to
all charges or bargain for lesser charges. Sometimes they accept a lighter
sentence in exchange for working directly with detectives as an informant
to nab their supplier.

Weirth works with five case development deputies, prosecuting everyone
arrested by the task force. Since its creation in 1981, the ENTF has
included a prosecutor to help members understand and abide by ever-changing
search and seizure laws.

"What's complicated is the evidentiary laws and the rules of search and
seizure," Weirth said in her office at the Bellevue Police Department.
"Search and seizure is always evolving, because all cases present different
fact patterns, which in turn are interpreted by courts."

The key is knowing the gray areas, she said.

Task force detectives often start working with Weirth early in their
investigations. Together they brainstorm the best ways to get a search
warrant or use an informant. Sometimes detectives pay informants to help
gain the evidence they need, Weirth said.

It's all part of the long process of establishing probable cause to
persuade a judge to grant a search warrant.

"It can't be just a suspicion," she said. "To obtain a search warrant, you
have to have evidence that more probable than not narcotics will be found
at the location."

A complaint by neighbors of frequent five-minute visits at a particular
house isn't enough. But tips from informants or people with drugs seen
exiting the house often do the trick.

The asset seizure process begins with the search warrant affidavit.
Detectives must stipulate what they believe was purchased with drug money
and therefore subject to seizure under the law.

In Washington, marijuana-related house seizures only are legal when more
than five plants are found. And all house seizures here shift the burden on
police by requiring them that it's more likely than not that the house was
being used for drugs or purchased with drug money.

For other seized items like vehicles, computers, jewelry and money, the
defendant must prove it's more likely or not that the items weren't being
used illegally or illegally obtained.

Once the items are seized, the suspects have 90 days, to file a claim in
civil court arguing why they should be allowed to keep their possession.
This part of the process is separate from the criminal trial, and sometimes
seizures and forfeitures are decided before formal criminal charges are
filed. Weirth has three years from an arrest to file charges.

"You kinda have to seize this stuff when it's available to be seized," she
said, "because we're afraid it's going to disappear. The defendant can give
the stuff away to friends and family."

DRUG SEIZURES

Estimated street value of drugs seized by the Eastside Narcotics Task Force

1992 $6 million

1993 $2.6 million

1994 $5.4 million

1995 $11.2 million

1996 $2.3 million

1997 $4.9 million

1998 $4.7 million

1999 $3.5 million

Drugs seized last year, in dollar values

Marijuana, plants $1.8 million

Marijuana, starters $594,000

Marijuana, processed $296,724

Cocaine, powder $415,880

Cocaine, rock $153,130

Methamphetamine $229,100

Heroin $33,525

Ecstasy $10,890

Psylocybin $1,200

Hashish $236

LSD $30

TASK FORCE AT A GLANCE

The Eastside Narcotics Task Force has 14 members -- plus a drug-sniffing
dog named Dollar.

The team includes:

* 8 detectives, including one federal Drug Enforcement Administration agent.

* 1 Bellevue police captain and 1 police lieutenant, who run the task force.

* 1 King County prosecutor assigned to the task force.

* 1 National Guard intelligence officer assigned under federal law to
drug-fighting duties.

* 1 secretary.

* 1 police officer --the human half of the K-9 team.

Bellevue pays the salaries of the K-9 team, four detectives and the
lieutenant. Kirkland, Redmond, Mercer Island and Issaquah pay salary and
benefits for one detective each. A $140,000 federal grant picks up most
costs for the captain, secretary and prosecutor.

All told, salaries and benefits for team members will total about $1.2
million this year. The police chiefs of all five cities oversee the task
force operations.

The task force also maintains strict accounts of money and property it
seizes, and how much it spends.

In addition to cash, the task force takes property that was paid for with
drug money. Some forfeitures are negotiated with defendants; some are
court-ordered.

From July 1998, when all five cities pooled their money from forfeitures,
through March, the task force took in $318,988.62. That includes a hefty
$110,000 deposited last month from a man who'd been growing marijuana for
18 years, police said.

It spent $96,220.65, although $41,000 of that is an accounting entry to
replay salaries and benefits that exceeded the federal grant amount.

Much of the rest was spent on plane flights and hotel rooms in connection
with training seminars. More went to buy an undercover car and high-tech
surveillance devices, such as a sophisticated video system and a $15,000
GPS system used to track suspected criminals.

It also pays for drugs and snitches. Last year the task force spent $49,660
on evidence and informants.

In general, the forfeiture money can be spent only for drug-enforcement
purposes.

In addition, each department has separate accounts for forfeitures received
before the money was pooled in 1998. In Bellevue, that account totals
$666,000, of which $350,000 is earmarked to pay for a new forensic
identification lab and for a half-dozen new jail cells to temporarily hold
prisoners -- projects that otherwise would be paid for out of tax dollars.

Last year, seizures totaled $1.3 million -- the highest amount in four
years, and more than the task force goal of seizing assets worth $800,000
in 1999.

But the task force did not meet two other performance goals: It took 259
"enforcement actions," short of the hoped-for 325. And the $3.5 million in
seized drugs fell well short of the goal of $5 million.

The explanation: The task force was down one of its eight detectives for
the entire year, and three detectives were new, with limited experience in
narcotics investigations.

Source: Eastside Narcotics Task Force Compiled by reporter Mike Ullmann

TRAFFIC POSSESSION LEGAL ETHICS CRIMINAL LAW FINANCE PHOTOS by Maxwell
Balmain: 1) Task force prosecutor Sheila Weirth works with police during
investigations and after arrests to ensure convictions of drug dealers and
seizure of their property.