FAKE DRUG CHECKPOINT ANGERS ROCK COUNTY SHERIFF

An undercover drug unit's pretend drug checkpoint on Interstate 90/39
north of Janesville made Rock County Sheriff Eric Runaas angry
Thursday afternoon.

"Personally, I think they're illegal," Runaas said. "I'll be bringing
it up at the next board meeting."

Runaas has an undercover deputy assigned to the Stateline Area
Narcotics Team, and he's a member of the oversight board for SLANT,
which ran the operation Wednesday and Thursday at the rest stop north
of Janesville.

Runaas declined to comment further.

Chief Deputy Robert Spoden said the sheriff's department has "serious
concerns" about the operation.

Brad Altman, sergeant with the Wisconsin State Patrol, didn't like the
false warning signs posted along the Interstate. The operation was
intended to make drug couriers think they were approaching a drug checkpoint.

"There were signs out on the road that were untrue," Altman said.
"Checkpoints are illegal in Wisconsin. You can't have them. Where we
have a problem with that is we're providing motorists with information
that is not true.

"It's like going into a movie theater and yelling 'Fire!'"

Janesville police also have an undercover officer in SLANT, but Deputy
Chief David Moore did not express concern about the operation.

"I know of no state law in Wisconsin that would prohibit it," Moore
said. "Given the nature and complexity of drug investigations, it
seems like a reasonable investigation method."

Wisconsin courts have made police checkpoints virtually illegal, and
the SLANT operation Wednesday and Thursday did not include a checkpoint.

The signs only said there was a checkpoint.

The SLANT officers posted three pair of orange, diamond-shaped signs
along both shoulders of the southbound lanes of I-90/39.

- -- The first pair of signs, located less than a mile north of the rest
stop, read, "Caution Be Prepared To Stop."

- -- The second pair about a quarter mile later read, "Drug Checkpoint 2
Miles Ahead."

- -- The third pair, just north of Manogue Road, read, "All Vehicles
Subject to Search."

Marty Zamudio, Illinois State Police master sergeant and head of the
SLANT unit headquartered in Beloit, said the signs were intended to
scare drug couriers into turning into the rest stop believing that a
drug checkpoint was ahead.

At the rest stop, plainclothes officers watched motorists after they
parked.

Zamudio declined to say how many officers were involved, but it
appeared at least a half-dozen plainclothes officers were part of the
operation. Also, a Rock County Sheriff's Department squad car was
parked at the rest stop exit, and a Loves Park, Ill., police squad car
was parked on the Interstate.

Zamudio said it was the first "consensual encounter" operation that
any SLANT unit had conducted.

He said officers watched for unusual behavior.

"When you come to a rest area, a regular person is going to stop
and-especially if you have to go really bad-run inside," Zamudio said.

"The tendency for a lot of people who are carrying large amounts of
illegal drugs or cash, you see those signs of them being more
nervous," Zamudio said Thursday afternoon.

The undercover officers approached the motorists they felt appeared
nervous, identified themselves as police officers and asked the
motorists several questions. Based on the answers, officers sometimes
asked permission to search the motorists' vehicles, Zamudio said.

"Some have legitimate stories; they're just a nervous-type person,"
Zamudio said.

He said officers thought one man was suspicious because he appeared to
do Tai Chi martial arts stretches and practiced his golf swing without
a club while looking up and down the highway.

"We approached him and talked to him," Zamudio said.

But when officers asked permission to search his vehicle, the man
declined.

"That was the end of it," Zamudio said.

Without consent and without evidence of a crime, officers cannot
search a vehicle.

Why would a drug courier give permission for police to search his
car?

"They think that we're not going to find it," Zamudio
said.

And some couriers, such as semi drivers, might not know that their
vehicle contains drugs, he said. Drugs sometimes are hidden in trucks
without the driver knowing, he said.

Zamudio estimated that officers had questioned an equal number of semi
and car drivers Wednesday and Thursday.

On Thursday, Zamudio said, the undercover officers had interviewed six
or eight motorists and searched "a couple" vehicles by 12:30 p.m. He
said he didn't know how many motorists were interviewed or vehicles
searched Wednesday because he wasn't there.

By early Thursday afternoon, the two-day operation had yielded no
arrests or citations and no drug seizures.

Zamudio said similar operations in Iowa and in southern Illinois have
resulted in big drug seizures.

In southern Illinois, he said, officers seized $600,000 in drug money
that was being driven south from Rockford, Ill. In Iowa, he said,
police seized a large amount of marijuana that had come from Milwaukee
"and drove right through this area here."

Zamudio said information from other drug units indicates I-90/39 is
used to transport large amounts of marijuana and drug money through
Rock County.

"We may come out here 10 times this summer," Zamudio said. "If we're
able to take off a large load (of drugs) once, it's worth our time."