DRUG TASK FORCE SWEEPS COUNTY ON RAIDS

Wednesday night clouds obscured a nearly full moon and drizzling rain began
to fall as the men of the 21st Circuit Judicial Drug Task Force started
planning their night's rounds.

Gathered at the Task Force office in Brewton, they were ready to go, the
talk, loud and tough, they used nicknames, street names to identify the
people they would be looking to bag.

"It's starting to rain, and that always puts a damper on the street drug
trade," said Keith Hutchins, commander of the task force. "But we'll go and
shake 'em down. See what we get."

Loading into unmarked vehicles with a K-9 unit trailing, five of the task
force members began a night's sweep planned to start in Brewton and head
west across the county, picking up street dealers, users, and maybe, by the
night's end, a meth lab.

Driving through the neighborhoods of Brewton and East Brewton the task
force vehicle swings in to a stop at a corner the agents say is known for
drug dealing. There's a group of young men hanging at the corner. One of
them runs. The others are clean.

"Sometimes they send a runner just to distract you," Hutchins said. Next
stop, the projects.

Pulling in to the entrance, agent Jared Leachman in the K-9 unit slams the
Ford Crown Victoria to a stop as an unremarkable VW passes going the other
way. Leachman spins the tires on wet pavement as he swings around and
catches up to the car.

The driver wasn't wearing a seatbelt. Not usually a violation that would
interest the agents, but they recognized the offender as a local thief and
drug pusher. They question the man. The questioning is a combination of a
little street slang and standard police questioning mixed with a healthy
dose of psychology coming from up to three agents at a time, all with the
hopes of getting information, information that could lead to an arrest, or
maybe a large bust.

"We have to be a little more aggressive than the others, because sometimes
they will try things," Hutchinson said. Back at the stopped car, agents are
looking through it with flashlights while one is facing the driver, his
hand holding a taser.

This time, the suspect has nothing to make an arrest. A couple of the
agents have been working with informants to set up a small sting operation.

As one agent works undercover, at a small house, others wait to make
arrests, Leachman and his drug-sniffing dog have to wait out of site in a
marked car. They work the scene for several hours, making three arrests. By
the end of the night Wednesday, agents made three arrests on drug charges
and seized several packets of marijuana and other drugs. Thursday night
Atmore received a little visit from the task force. Atmore Director of
Public Safety and task force agent Glenn Carlee headed up the crew Thursday
night.

Carlee is a veteran policeman who served as the Atmore Police Chief for a
dozen years.

"The program has been around for about 14 years now," Carlee said. "We did
our first round up in 1989 and arrested 188 suspects. That shocked people
around here."

The task force is formed through the help of the Escambia County Sheriff's
Office, the Atmore Police Department and the Brewton Police Department. All
three agencies have officers assigned to the task force. Most of the task
force's funding comes from a grant from ADECA, the Alabama Department of
Economic and Community Affairs.

The grant pays for equipment, offices and cars and 75 percent of the
agents' salaries. As an incentive, participating departments even divide
any cash or other items seized by the task force. That money can be used to
purchase equipment for the department.

For the night's patrol, everyone loads up in another unmarked vehicle,
Carlee at the wheel.

Soon, the group is cruising the neighborhoods and parks of Atmore. They
pull up to a group of young men sitting in front of a house, the car is
just stopped in the street, they're watching the young men, finally, Carlee
says, "one or two of them are looking a little nervous."

Quickly, agents jump out of the vehicle from behind tinted windows and are
upon the men, asking them questions, looking around. This time, they find
nothing. On Patterson Street in Atmore sits a former federal housing
project, long since taken over by a private company and left to rot. Grass
grows knee-high, shingles are warped, windows broken in a dozen units.
"We've been trying to get this place condemned for years," Carlee said.
"Over two-thirds of the units here are unlivable."

They jump out and talk to some young men. They find drugs in a car parked
nearby and call a tow truck. One man is arrested. While working the
project, a truck with a family pulls into the complex and tries to make a
quick turn around. Agent Heath Jackson races to the truck.

It's a family from Bay Minette cruising through an Atmore project. After
questioning the passengers, Jackson lets them go with a warning, "Don't
come back here."

This is the part of the county Leachman is familiar with, and he's in his
element. "The key to policing is knowing the people. If you don't know your
area and the people in it, you might as well stay home." The night rolls
on, more arrests and drug seizures are made. It's closing in on midnight
and time to work a "paper," a search warrant in Flomaton. It's more than
just serving a search warrant, it involves, like many busts, working with
unsavory characters, working informants, pressing for information from
arrested.

It takes about an hour to set up the search, the agents unsure of what
exactly they will find and whether or not their key targets will be at the
business on U.S. 31.

There can be a lot of waiting around and ditched plans when dealing with
drug users. "It's unbelievable that dopers would be unreliable," Carlee
said sarcastically.

About midnight, agents swoop in on the repair shop. Two men, two women and
minor children, two boys under the age of 13 are inside. A search reveals
crack, methamphetamines and paraphernalia for smoking it, literally dozens
of glass pipes stashed around the shop. Earlier in the week the task force
was involved in a bigger bust. Agents discovered a meth lab near Brewton
after serving search warrant. A meth lab is a kind of devil's kitchen used
to brew crystal methamphetamines. Wednesday and Thursday night the haul the
agents were hoping for, but it will do. "It's really disturbing when you
see kids put in that situation," Carlee said. "What are they going to carry
with them, seeing agents coming in yelling search warrant? But what effect
is it having on them being around that drug use?"