CITY, REGIONAL DRUG FIGHTERS TO MERGE

EVERETT -- Overcoming years of turf wars, the Everett Police
Department's narcotics unit will merge with the Snohomish Regional
Narcotics Task Force this month.

"It's going to give us more latitude in how we deal with the mid- and
upper-level dealers by getting them off the streets," Snohomish County
Sheriff Rick Bart said Friday. "I've got no mercy for drug dealers."

Bart's own brother has been charged with drug offenses.

"We've worked for years to get this thing combined," Bart said. "It's
been such a territorial thing, but we finally got it worked out. I
think it's going to be a precursor of things to come in Snohomish
County. They will bring even more resources to the table.

"With the limited resources that law enforcement has all over the
country, the wave of the future is going to be more and more
combinations like this. This is just the beginning."

Snohomish County also has been designated as a High Intensity Drug
Trafficking Area (HIDTA) by the federal government, which brings in
federal grant money to help combat drugs.

And Snohomish County authorities say the federal Drug Enforcement
Administration may assign an agent to the task force.

DEA officials in Seattle could not be reached Friday for
comment.

Previously, the task force focused on mid-level dealers and left
investigations of street-level dealers up to patrol officers, Bart
said. Patrol officers have too little time to track drug traffickers,
and enlarging the task force will take some pressure off them, he said.

Combining forces is the wave of the future because of increasing drug
problems and the need for more shared intelligence, Bart said.

"We're starting to see an increase in gang activity, too," he said,
including drug activity connected with gangs.

Everett police have worked with the task force all along, but the
officers were not assigned to the task force and the city's whole drug
investigation unit wasn't involved, he said.

One of the stumbling blocks in previous negotiations was how money
seized from or forfeited by drug traffickers would be divided, Bart
said.

Currently, the sheriff's office gets most of the money and the rest is
shared with the county's smaller police agencies that participate in
the drug cases.

Now, the sheriff's office and Everett police each will get 40 percent
and the remaining 20 percent will be shared among the smaller
agencies, he said.

That's no small change.

"We've seen as much as $500,000 in one year in seizures," Bart said.
"We're talking about a lot of money, which we put right back into the
task force."

The money is used to buy drugs from suspects, as well as to purchase
equipment and vehicles.

The task force is almost a self-sustaining unit now except for
officers' wages, he said.

Bart attributed the success of the merger to Al Shelstad, task force
commander, the agents' hard work, and strong leadership from Everett
Mayor Ed Hansen and his staff.

Shelstad, who is on vacation and unavailable for comment, plans to
retire in June, Bart said.

Other agencies that participate in the task force, which was created
in 1988, are the cities of Arlington, Bothell, Darrington, Edmonds,
Gold Bar, Granite Falls, Lake Stevens, Lynnwood, Marysville, Mill
Creek, Monroe, Mountlake Terrace, Snohomish, Stanwood and Sultan. Not
all of the cities have officers actively working in the task force at
one time, said Sgt. Mark St. Clair.

Before the merger, the task force had seven investigators and two
supervisors, including one from Everett, St. Clair said. Now, Everett
will contribute six more investigators, a sergeant and a supervisor,
he said.

The primary drugs trafficked in Snohomish County are marijuana,
cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine, St. Clair said.

You can call Herald Writer Cathy A. Logg at 425-339-3437 or send
e-mail to ray@heraldnet.com