METH RESPONSE TEAM GETTING AHEAD OF PROBLEM

DU QUOIN - A few months into service, the region's new Meth Response Team
appears to be producing results.

The three people who were arrested in Carbondale last Wednesday and charged
with possession of meth-manufacturing chemicals joined a growing list of
arrests made by the MRT, which was commissioned by the Illinios State Police.

Lt. Steve Shields, who heads up the Du Quoin-based MRT investigative zone,
said the special unit is doing what it was created to do - get ahead of the
region's methamphetamine problem.

Since the team began its effort on May 15, approximately one-third of the
arrests they have made have been for possession of meth precursors - meth
ingredients before they become meth, he said.

"There were so many (meth labs and dump sites) we were responding to the
fire after the fire," he said. "Now we are focusing on the cookers - We
want to target these guys before they cook, before they put the toxins out
there, before they endanger children."

Shields said the MRT in Du Quoin is made up of 12 team members who work all
shifts.

"Normally, a lot of detectives work pretty standard shifts," he said. "We
might be out there at 3 a.m."

The MRTs are aligned with the region's other drug enforcement agencies,
such as the Southern Illinois Enforcement Group and the Southern Illinois
Drug Task Force. What distinguishes the MRTs from their parners is the
focus on the single drug - meth.

"I've been a police officer for more than 20 years and I've never seen an
agency commit to just one drug," Sheilds said.

"I can take two officers and arrest a crack-head," he said. "It takes four
to clean a lab. If there is an arrest, that's another two, so that's six
officers."

Shields said several new laws enacted in Illinois have made fighting meth
easier. Notably, he said, legislative regulation of ingredients commonly
used in meth manufacture - notably ephedrine and pseudoephedrine (PSE) -
have made it easier to prosecute meth offenders.

A recent call to arms by Attorney General Lisa Madigan to make those laws
even stronger in light of stronger laws passed by states bordering Illinois
is echoed in Shields observations about out-of-state residents arrested in
Illinois.

"We are seeing a few arrests coming from out-of-state," he said. "One of
the reasons is that the laws are stricter (about buying ephedrine and PSE)
in Missouri and Iowa."

Shields said other crimes that tend to accompany meth use - including
weapons offenses, domestic violence and child abuse or neglect, theft and
burglary - make it even more imperative to get the drug under control.

"The bad guys know we're looking at them," he said, referring to the
notorious paranoia of meth users. "And we are looking at them, and we are
arresting them."