SUBURBAN DRUG FORCE DISBANDING

The Cook County Metropolitan Enforcement Group, an alliance of state,
county and local police officers that for years was smaller suburbs'
only weapon to battle drug dealers, announced Wednesday that it will
disband at the end of the month after 21 years.

Talk of MEG's demise had surfaced before, including in 1990, when the
General Assembly dramatically cut the group's state funding. Its
future fell into further question over the past two years, as the
number of officers assigned to the group dwindled from 48 to 25.

But the final blow came during a closed meeting Wednesday, when
Illinois State Police made official their intention to pull nine of
its 10 officers from the alliance on Dec. 31.

With that, the group's policy board voted unanimously to close down.
Except in emergencies, the Cook County MEG will quit taking new cases
beginning Jan. 1, though the group will keep a skeleton staff on duty
to wrap up pending cases.

For all practical purposes, however, several top MEG officials
acknowledged Wednesday that the group, begun in 1977, is dead unless a
rescue plan can be devised.

"There has been a steady decline in personnel and equipment," said
Col. Tom Yokley, head of operations for the state police. "When you
come to a point in time when you're not effective, you can get to the
point where you put officers' safety in danger. I'm not saying we're
there yet, but we're headed in that direction."

He added: "The bottom line is you have to make business decisions.
This has been coming for some time. This was not a decision by just
the state police."

MEG is a state-funded task force that chiefly works on undercover
cases throughout Cook County and targets smaller drug operations that
don't meet the threshold for federal agencies to become involved. The
Cook County group, one of about a dozen MEGs statewide, is composed of
officers from 10 Cook County suburbs, including Palatine, South
Holland, Hazel Crest and Mt. Prospect, as well as from state police,
the Cook County sheriff's department and the Cook County Forest
Preserve District police.

Yokley said the board's decision to shutter the Cook County MEG will
have no effect on the state's other MEG units, including those in
DuPage and Lake Counties.

The Cook County group, which has made nearly 340 arrests so far this
year and recorded drug seizures totaling more than $100 million
through September, receives about $388,000 in state funds. It also
receives membership fees ranging from $1,000 to $10,000 from about 50
local departments that call on the group for investigative help but
that don't lend any of their own officers.

Officials gave many reasons for the group's slow death over the last
two years, including the proliferation of law-enforcement task forces
at the county, state and federal levels--some of whose duties overlap
those of MEG. Often, said Lynwood Police Chief David Palmer, the
chairman of MEG's policy board, these larger task forces focus on more
lucrative drug traffickers selling higher volumes of drugs.

As these task forces have formed, some of the local departments that
assigned officers to MEG pulled them out and redeployed them to the
other groups. The reason, said Palmer, is simple economics: By having
officers take part in task forces that seize more assets, local
departments typically get more money.

The other task forces, he added, "have worked very well. But in some
cases, they're wrecking the efforts of local law enforcement because

the bodies are shrinking at the local level."

Some MEG officials on Wednesday privately questioned the timing of the
state police decision, coming just a month before governor-elect
George Ryan takes office and in the absence of a permanent state
police director.

But Yokley said: "The diminishing resources pretty much dictated
this."

In MEG's absence, officials said, other task forces at the county and
state levels likely will fill the void.

"We'll survive," said Bartlett Police Chief Dan Palmer. "We'll still
deal with the issues. (But) I prefer the status quo."

Others were less certain.

"We will lose the capability of fighting drugs on the street level,"
said Hazel Crest Police Chief Peter Fee. The smaller dealers, he said,
are "the most visible. That's what citizens see. If somebody sees what
they believe to be a drug transaction in their community, they want
that stopped. MEG has been our tool."

Checked-by: Rich O'Grady