DRUG INTERDICTION IMPORTANT TO SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT

Interstate traffic interdictions are not an active policy of the Lincoln
County Sheriff's Department, according to Sheriff Wiley Calcote, but they
do contribute to efforts in the drug war.

His office does not regularly engage in interstate interdictions, Calcote
said, because he prefers to leave that to the Mississippi Highway Patrol.
His officers do occasionally make traffic stops when deputies are traveling
on the interstate to get from one area of the county to another.

"We do not have an officer assigned to I-55," Calcote said.

Calcote said negative publicity resulting from a recent newspaper article
in the New Orleans Times-Picayune about a $27,000 seizure involving three
New Orleans businessmen will not prevent his deputies from continuing to
make occasional stops on I-55.

The money was returned last week when investigators failed to link it to a
crime. Investigators had suspected the money was being laundered, Calcote
said. They also had concerns about whether taxes had been paid on the
money, which was reported as proceeds from store sales.

"People need to know if they travel through Lincoln County they may be
stopped if they violate the law. We're not backing up because of any
negative article," he said.

Interdiction along I-55 is important, Calcote said, because the interstate
serves as a primary artery in drug trafficking from Texas to other areas in
the South.

"There's a lot of drugs that travel through Lincoln County on I-55," he
said. "It's true that not a lot of those drugs stop in Lincoln County, but
a seizure here can still help someone up the road. The war on drugs is a
national one, not regional."

However, Calcote said he does not feel justified in allotting county
resources to a concerted effort to stop the trafficking on the interstate
when the MHP is already conducting those operations.

"We try to put all our attention on the county communities, not the
interstate," he said.

Drug interdiction efforts, whether done in the county or on the interstate,
provide law enforcement agencies with needed funds to combat drug abuse,
Calcote said.

Eighty percent of the money seized in drug cases under the state asset
forfeiture laws is returned to the agency that made the arrest. Twenty
percent goes to the district attorney's office, according to Robert Byrd,
an assistant district attorney with the 14th District.

In some cases, such as when more than one agency is involved in the
seizure, the money is distributed differently, but 100 percent of the
seizure is returned to law enforcement, he said.

"We've got to have it," Calcote said. "The four vehicles we purchased this
year were purchased with drug-seized money. If we did not have this drug
seizure money coming in, we would have to cut back on staff and in other
areas. It's crucial we have this money coming in."

Lincoln County Sheriff's Department Narcotics Capt. Dustin Bairfield, who
handles the paperwork on the seizures, said the department has made a total
of 35 seizures since Jan. 1, but only three or four were made on I-55.

The vast majority of their seizure cases result from stops made on county
roads, he said. The number of seizures varies from month to month, but the
department averages about seven a month.

Occasionally, Bairfield said, money seized when drugs are found is proved
not to be linked to the illegal substances, and in those cases the money is
returned to the suspect.

This most commonly occurs during the tax refund season, he said, when
people cash their tax refund checks and are stopped soon afterward in
possession of drugs. When the suspect presents his income tax check, and
the time and date it was cashed is verified, the money is returned.

"We try to screen them pretty well," he said. "We're after drug money,
nothing else."

Once a seizure case makes it to court, however, Bairfield estimated that 95
percent or more of the rulings are in favor of the sheriff's department.