EL RENO TOUGH ON DRUGS

EL RENO - Since the El Reno Police Department began housing a District
Attorney Council-funded drug task force, officers have been free to
aggressively pursue drug dealers.

As a result, Sgt. Carl Weder said his department has made about 300
drug-related arrests in the last year alone.

Those arrests, Weder said, can be partially attributed to the work of task
force officers. But he said the future of the task force depends on
obtaining grant money for the coming year.

The department submitted its task force grant application last week. Weder
said officers will not know until May if the grant will be renewed. The
grant must be renewed annually.

"This year we are trying to get a third person and trying to make it
bigger," he said.

Weder said a the third officer would come from the Canadian County
Sheriff's Office.

When the task force began in El Reno four years ago, it was without the
benefit of grant money. Weder said it was run part-time by two officers,
and the officers worked on drug cases after their regular shifts.

But when the grant came in a year later, the task force was able to take off.

"We did pretty good, but once we got the grant and people were able to do
it full-time, it just sort of multiplied and kept going up," he said.

Although the task force can't take credit for all 300 of the last year's
arrests, Weder said many of the arrests would not have been possible
without the task force.

"If it wasn't for us having this grant there would be a lot of cases that
would not have been busted," he said. "You can't do it if you don't have
somebody working it full-time."

Weder said such task forces are unique because they work with other task
forces to track people involved in the drug trade.

"We assist everybody," he said. "We are doing a more effective job because
we are able to get more sources in to be able to fight it. It is like a big
information ring."

This "information ring" was put into effect in El Reno recently when Weder
said several law enforcement agencies collaborated to break a large drug
chain.

Weder said the District 4 and District 26 Drug Task Forces, the Canadian
County Sheriff's Office, the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and the FBI
worked together to arrest Manuel Nava- Casas, 23, of Mexico on March 7. He
was charged with trafficking cocaine.

The charges came after a buy was set up between Nava-Casas and an
undercover officer for more than a half-pound of cocaine. Weder said
Nava-Casas sold the cocaine to the officer for $5,000.

He said the El Reno buy was made after he was contacted by the District 26
Drug Task Force, which covers parts of northwest Oklahoma. Weder was told
that a person living in El Reno was involved in a drug chain that was
selling cocaine to people in Guymon and Woodward.

"They described the guy and we went out and began looking for this person,"
he said. "We were finally able to identify the pickup we were looking for
and were able to set up a buy for that day."

Weder said Nava-Casas was selling drugs to the Hispanic community and was
the sixth person arrested in what was described as an Hispanic drug chain.

"He has been identified as a main supplier," he said.

After Nava-Casas' arrest, Weder said officers went to his home at Amberwood
Apartments, 801 Willie L. Miner, and recovered large amounts of money, gold
and a firearm. Police seized these items plus his pickup, he said.

Weder said that Nava-Casas could face federal charges because of the amount
of cocaine he tried to sell. Nava-Casas is being held at the Canadian
County jail.

"Anything over one ounce is trafficking, and we can tie this guy back to at
least four other deliveries," Weder said.

If Nava-Casas is charged and convicted on federal charges, he could face
federal prison time and deportation.

Weder said the sting is a good example of how drug task forces can work
together.

"This investigation is an example of how the DAC-funded drug task force can
work together across jurisdictional lines, which allows us all to be more
effective in fighting the war on drugs," he said. "This is a good example
of everybody coming together and working and doing a good job.

"The bad guy goes to jail and we recover a large amount of cocaine."