SBI QUITS BUNCOMBE CRIME TASK FORCE

ASHEVILLE - State investigators are dropping out of a multi-agency
task force created to fight illegal drugs in Western North Carolina's
largest county, authorities said.

The N.C. State Bureau of Investigation will pull its two agents from
the Buncombe County Anti-crime Task Force by the end of the year,
agency spokeswoman Noelle Talley said.

The SBI instead will focus on high-level drug trafficking cases. Law
enforcement leaders called the split "amicable" and said it won't stop
the year-old task force.

"We will remain effective," Sheriff Van Duncan said. B-CAT, as it is
known, was started by Duncan and now-retired Asheville SBI supervisor
Charles Moody last year in response to what both men said was a
growing problem of street-level drugs.

They also said the task force would improve communication among law
enforcement agencies investigating drug dealers.

The group was the successor to the Metropolitan Enforcement Group, or
MEG, which was made up of the Sheriff's Office, Asheville police and
the SBI. The focus of the new task force shifted from investigating
larger-scale dealers to busting street-level operators, Duncan and
Asheville Police Chief Bill Hogan said last week.

Duncan said voters were demanding that sort of enforcement in the
county. Hogan said Asheville City Council directed him to focus on
street-level drug interdiction when he was hired in 2004. He pulled
out of MEG a year later to start his own drug suppression unit focused
on crack cocaine. Street-level enforcement tends to have a bigger
impact on the crimes that surround drugs, like theft and assaults,
officials said. Also, the new task force was geared toward anti-crime
interdiction. That meant that if a string of robberies were reported
in a community - even if they were not directly tied to drug activity
- - the task force could assign agents to help.

The SBI, already short staffed, couldn't afford to commit agents to an
operation that wasn't focused on major traffickers, Hogan and Duncan
said Asheville SBI supervisor Toby Hayes had told them in giving
notice of the departure last week.

"I can appreciate what Toby Hayes is saying," Hogan said. "They got
manpower shortages, and that becomes a significant issue." Hogan said
the city's decision to leave MEG three years ago was similar. "It's a
business decision," he said.

After the SBI leaves, the task force will have 13 agents. The majority
of members are assigned from the Sheriff's Office.

Hayes wasn't available for comment. SBI agents and supervisors do not
normally make public statements about department policy. Talley said
Attorney General Roy Cooper, who oversees the SBI, asked state
lawmakers for 17 new field agents, but none of the positions were
filled in this year's budget.

Duncan and Hogan said Hayes had hoped to get three new positions in
Asheville but got only one.

The SBI is what's known as an assisting agency - meaning it helps
local police or sheriffs with special equipment or expertise at the
request of a District Attorney.

The 23 SBI agents in the 16-county WNC area are routinely called to
help smaller police departments with murder investigations, crime
scene processing and computer sex crimes.

The SBI has original jurisdiction over six types of investigations,
including drugs.

The SBI, unlike the other member agencies, wasn't paying for task
force operating expenses, which include materials and the cost of the
BCAT offices. Although the task force does cost its member agencies,
it can also bring a significant amount of money back to the
departments. Since 2006, the Sheriff's Office has received a little
more than $77,000 from drug seizure money.

Task force member agencies must apply to the group's executive
committee, which was Hayes, Hogan and Duncan, for seizure money. The
money can be spent on federally approved equipment and training.
Duncan's office bought body armor, night sights for weapons and
ammunition with part of the money.

The rest went to communications equipment, batons, weapons sights and
weapon-mounted lights for the tactical team and training for homicide
detectives.

Asheville Police, a task force member for only three months, said it
has not yet received drug seizure money.

All of the agencies will continue to share narcotics intelligence as
part of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency task force, Duncan and Hogan
said. "They are great and we are going to miss them," Duncan said of
the SBI. "But I think what they have decided to do is participate in
the DEA task force, and basically participate at that level instead of
the B-CAT level. They just have a limited number of resources they can
put forward."