GRAPPLING WITH METH: HOW DID IT GET HERE? PART 1 OF 5

Law Enforcement Has Fought The Constantly Evolving Threat Of Meth Addiction
And Manufacturing Since Its First Appearance In 1988.

ELKHART -- Less than a year after a series of significant arrests in 2005,
members of Elkhart County's undercover law enforcement unit concluded they
had crippled a drug-trafficking organization importing Mexican
methamphetamine into the area.

But in that eight months, the market for meth had been established. The
drug began affecting Elkhart County in a violent new way. Small, volatile
and dangerous homemade labs began cranking out meth.

Now, the offenders are also the victims: members of our own community,
addicted to a cheap and readily available drug.

JUST A TASTE

Indiana State Police first reported meth in Indiana in 1988. By 2003, the
Elkhart County Drug Task Force knew it was fighting a different battle than
the rest of the Midwest.

"At that particular time, most of the meth that you would hear about in the
Midwest was meth-lab related," said Elkhart County Prosecutor Curtis T.
Hill Jr. "While people were talking about meth labs in many of the rural
parts of Indiana, we were talking about the imported meth that was coming
here."

Members of drug-trafficking organizations were smuggling the drug from
Mexico or from super-labs along the United States border and Pacific Coast,
Hill said, and bringing it to Elkhart, Ind.

The meth was "good quality, low-priced and lot's of it," Hill said.

A WAR WITHOUT BOUNDARIES BEGINS

In 2003, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Elkhart County Drug Task
Force, and South Bend and Elkhart police began investigating the
drug-trafficking organization led by Francisco Aguirre.

A cell of the Oregon-based drug-trafficking organization had been
trafficking bulk methamphetamine at low prices from 2002 to 2006 to
establish new markets, Wichern said. They used Elkhart, largely because of
its location between Detroit and Chicago and its access to the Indiana Toll
Road, said Dennis Wichern, assistant special agent in charge at the
DEA-Indianapolis.

Police arrested seven members of Aguirre's gang in 2005 and seized 12
pounds of methamphetamine in Elkhart, Wichern said. Over the next three
years, police in northern Indiana arrested eight more members -- including
Aguirre -- and seized 48 pounds of meth, 30 kilograms of cocaine, 2 ounces
of heroin, $75,000 cash and six weapons.

"Often when law enforcement seems to dismantle an organization, someone
steps up and quickly reorganizes it," Wichern said. "But in this case, it
was done."

THE FIGHT CAN'T CURE THE FIX

During the meth investigation, the newly-formed Elkhart County Organized
Crime Drug Enforcement Unit decided to branch off and initiate its own
assault on Mexican methamphetamine, Hill said.

"They're looking to build a historic case that may take months, years going
back to the source," Hill said. "While that happens, a local community like
Elkhart can really get the brunt of it."

Within a couple of years, the effort wrapped up with series of major
arrests and significant drug and money seizures, he said.

The price of meth climbed from $4,000 to $17,500 per pound, essentially
putting "an end to that huge influence of methamphetamine from the Mexican
market," Hill said.

But it also was the beginning of a new phenomenon, at least for the Elkhart
County area.

The supply had suddenly shrunk, but the demand remained, Hill said. When
users could no longer buy on the streets, he said, they start looking for
alternative sources.

"Then you start to see the shift," Hill said.

WHEN THE BATTLEFIELD IS THE BACK YARD

"When you have a significant demand for such a nasty thing as meth, that
tells you something about your community that you just don't want to hear,"
Hill said. "But we have to all listen to it and recognize it because it is
the focal point of trying to address the demand."

Earlier this year, the prosecutor's office produced multiple
public-awareness commercials depicting meth labs in an average home, not
the "nasty facade" that people often imagine for a lab setting, Hill said.
Anyone can get hooked on meth, Hill said, and meth labs can be right next door.

"The problem is going to be when that house blows up and it has someone in
the house that is innocent, like a child, or someone next door," Hill said.

Neighborhoods decline when people lose their property and houses are
sitting vacant for months or years because they were raided and condemned,
Hill said.

"It is a huge trickle effect in terms of how you want your community to be,
to look, to feel at the end of the day," Hill said.

FIGHTING ON MULTIPLE FRONTS

Numerous statistics say Elkhart County is the top county in Indiana when it
comes to meth labs, but Hill isn't so sure.

"I can't tell you if we have more meth than other locations in Indiana.
What I can tell you is that we have apparently discovered more or exposed
more," Hill said.

The goal now, Hill said, is cracking down on those who manufacture and
distribute methamphetamine while fighting the ongoing battle against those
trying to bring it in.

Even broader challenges than arresting offenders, though, is attacking the
demand for meth, Hill said. That demand -- the addiction -- proves to be
one of the worst, which makes fighting this epidemic from a treatment
standpoint nearly impossible on the government level.

"The statistics that I've heard are so low that throwing a great deal of
resources at it trying to treat people from this addiction is really
problematic," Hill said.

That leaves users, even those trying to recover, vulnerable to the
drug-traffickers that started the meth plague in Elkhart County.

In November 2008, the ICE unit uncovered a plot to get Mexican meth back
into Elkhart County. That meth made it to a home on C.R. 22, where police
confiscated 18 pounds of pure Mexican methamphetamine with the potential
street value of $1.6 million in January.

People need to realize how close meth is to them, their homes and their
families, Hill said. When they know "they have skin in the game," he said,
people tend to get more vested in the solutions -- largely by picking up
the phone and reporting suspicious activity.

"Those challenges are not insurmountable if we are all working on the same
page," Hill said.

METH TIMELINE

- - 1987: Elkhart County Drug Task Force, mostly formed to react to drug
incidents, is formed.

- - 1988: Meth and meth labs are first identified in southern Indiana.

- - 1994: Indiana State Police have worked three meth labs and know of 401
meth-related cases throughout the state.

- - 2002: For the first time, the number of meth-related cases submitted to
state police exceeds the number of powdered cocaine cases reviewed by ISP.

- - 2003: Curtis T. Hill Jr. is elected Elkhart County Prosecutor and the
Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Unit is formed to take a new, direct
approach to drug problems.

Also in 2003, the unit, under the Elkhart County prosecutor's office,
begins working with the Drug Enforcement Administration and other federal
entities investigating a drug-trafficking organization (DTO) dealing large
quantities of meth in Elkhart.

- - 2004: Hill testifies to the House of Representatives, Committee on
Government Reform about the growing problem of methamphetamine.

- - 2004 - 2005: The Elkhart County Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Unit
launches an independent investigation into the DTO targeting Elkhart.

- - 2005: Seven members of that DTO are arrested. Over 12 pounds of
methamphetamine is seized in Elkhart.

- - 2006: The Interdiction and Covert Enforcement Unit forms under the
supervision of the Elkhart County prosecutor's office with the aim of
proactively fighting drug crimes by targeting upper-level subjects in
organized crime.

Also, in 2006, four more members of the DTO are arrested and charged in
South Bend federal court.

- - 2007 - 2008: Four more members of the DTO are arrested, concluding the
investigation.

- - 2008: In March, Elkhart Mayor Dick Moore pulled four of six city officers
off the ICE unit. On the same day, Hill asked that all of Elkhart officers
leave the ICE team, calling Moore's move "the single most devastating
setback in public safety in the last 10 years."

Also, Indiana State Police reports that Elkhart County ranks second in the
state for the most meth labs seized in 2008. There were 50 meth labs in the
city of Elkhart, making the City with a Heart the top city in the state for
meth labs in 2008.

- - 2009: In January, the ICE unit seizes 18 pounds of pure Mexican
methamphetamine with the potential street value of $1.6 million. This is
the first known attempt of drug cartels to establish a market in Elkhart
County since 2007.

In February, the Elkhart County prosecutor's office launches its "We Won't
Stop" campaign with public awareness television and radio commercials about
meth labs in average neighborhoods.