POLICE OFFICER GOES BACK TO HIGH SCHOOL AS UNDERCOVER DRUG AGENT

Associated Press

O'FALLON Dave Matevey was the new kid at O'Fallon Township High School,
and a problem student at that.

>From what he told his classmates, he'd gotten into trouble in Chicago and
was sent to live with a strict uncle who was stationed at nearby Scott Air
Force Base.

What Matevey didn't tell them was the truth that he was an undercover cop
assigned to the school in a drug investigation.

For eight weeks until he was discovered, Matevey, 23, attended classes, ate
lunch in the cafeteria and hung out with friends after school. No one
suspected a thing. Not the students. Not the teachers. Not even the police
department's school liaison officer.

"There were a couple of coaches who approached me about going out for sports
track and football," Matevey said. "I had a p.e. class and they saw me
running. I guess they liked what they saw."

But Matevey wasn't there to play football. He was there to find out whether
drugs were being sold.

"I found out the only problem they had is that after school, kids were
partying and making drug purchases," he said. "But inside the school, there
really is no problem."

Nonetheless, authorities say the arrests of more than 10 people students
and nonstudents are pending, and Matevey's investigation has been declared
a success.

"We actually had this in the planning stages for a couple years," said
Principal Dennis Grimmer, on of only a handful of school officials and
police to know Matevey's true identity. "It's not easy to find someone that
you can bring into this building. They've got to look like a student."

Matevey, a 1992 Edwardsville High School graduate with a bachelor's degree
in justice administration, was fresh out of the police academy when he began
the investigation Sept. 8. He grew his hair out, wore baggy clothes and
drove to school in a 1980 Oldsmobile.

Matevey's first task was to befriend students involved in drugs. In no time
at all, he was hanging out with the right wrong crowd. Fitting in included
drinking some alcohol and simulating the smoking of marijuana.

"We just put him out there and let them all come to him," Police Chief Don
Slazinik said. "He didn't ask about drugs. He didn't ask about booze. If it
happened in the course of an evening, he was there to survey it."

In the classroom, algebra posed a special problem because Matevey had taken
classes throughout high school and college, and he didn't want to come off
knowing nearly as much as the teacher.

"I had to find a way to mess the problems up," he said. "The element I was
trying to get with, they're not straightA kind of people."

Matevey was well into the school routine when on Nov. 1, while he was out
with a group of students, he was spotted by someone who knew he was a police
officer. When he showed up at a party later, the group of students stopped
being friendly.

Last Monday, Matevey walked into the school in uniform.

"I wanted to let everybody see me and know for sure that I was a police
officer," he said.