MANY DRUG TRAFFICKERS FELL TO RETIRED COP

BRUNSWICK - Ray Starling built his career on secrecy. Many a night, he
dozed on a surplus Army cot in a small, dingy office, waiting for word of
someone looking to buy or sell some marijuana, heroin, crystal
methamphetamine or cocaine. He has spent hours hunkered down in woods,
cloaked in darkness and mosquitoes, patiently waiting for smugglers to come
ashore with a clandestine cargo of pot. And for 30 years, Starling's
easygoing demeanor and disarming grin were the downfall of more than a few
drug traffickers. ''One of the things that I'm going to miss,'' he said,
''is the thrill and excitement of knowing that if you're a dope dealer and
I've just bought from you ... you don't know it yet, but you're going to
get busted.'' Starling, 54, retired this month from the Glynn County Police
Department, where he worked his way up through the ranks to become captain
and served as commander of the Glynn/Brunswick Narcotics Enforcement Team.
He was recently honored with a retirement celebration by colleagues and
area law enforcement officials. Starling began his 31-year career
patrolling a beat in the county's toughest neighborhood. As a narcotics
investigator and supervisor, he has worked some big drug cases.

Those cases included the seizure of 21 tons of marijuana smuggled in on a
shrimp boat and the arrest of drug traffickers flying planeloads of pot
from Key West to Vermont. ''In my career, we've seized five shrimp boats,
three sailboats, two airplanes and a lot of dope,'' Starling said. Police
Chief Matt Doering has worked with Starling for about 20 years. ''He rises
to that pinnacle where we're never really going to be able to replace
him,'' Doering said. Starling cut his teeth on some of the county's biggest
cases. In the mid-1970s, he and then-chief Carl Alexander became suspicious
of two men hauling a sport-fishing boat registered in the Grand Bahamas up
to St. Simons Island. Starling and Alexander followed the men around the
clock for five days before the men met up with several other people who
then led them to a secluded stretch of beach on the northern side of the
island. ''It was just pure gut instinct that something wasn't right with
those guys,'' Starling recalled. Their suspicions were confirmed when they
learned one of the men was acquainted with a suspected drug smuggler.
Starling and Alexander teamed up with agents from the Georgia Bureau of
Investigation, U.S. Customs Service, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration
and Camden County Sheriff's Office to keep the group under surveillance. At
about 3 a.m. one night, the investigators, concealed in nearby woods, saw
that they had spent several hours waiting for: the men unloading bales of
marijuana from a shrimp boat at a private dock. ''By then, we'd gotten smart.

We waited for them to unload the boat before we arrested them. That way we
didn't have to do all that heavy work, too,'' Starling said. They got 21
tons of marijuana and arrested 13 people. In another major case, the
investigators intercepted a private plane carrying 7,000 pounds of
marijuana when the pilot landed to refuel on St. Simons Island. An airport
worker tipped them off to the shipment. Starling said the seizure and
related investigation led to a drug kingpin with a smuggling operation
along the eastern seaboard. After testifying against him during a trial in
Burlington, Vt., Starling received what he considers one of his highest
compliments. ''The defense attorney came up to me and said he didn't
believe 'a bunch of country hicks' like us could put together as good a
case as we did.'' Because smugglers often had better equipment, Starling
said the investigators had to be twice as sneaky to catch them. He and
Alexander once eased into the surf and swam up to catch drug dealers in the
middle of a transaction on Jekyll Island. ''Me and Carl, we thought we
could catch every bad guy back then,'' Starling said. ''At one time, we
moved Army cots into the old drug squad office and slept there because we
were afraid we'd miss a phone call with a tip about a drug deal.'' Because
he was single, Starling said, it was easier for him to work undercover. He
spent several Christmas holidays on the job - sending others home to be
with their families. ''Working narcotics is hard on a marriage and
family,'' he said. ''You might be gone two or three days and not be able to
tell your wife where you are or what's happening.'' It was lonely work
sometimes. ''But we stayed busy, and we all were like a family.'' Starling
said he always emphasized a simple rule for officers under his command.
''We try to teach the new people that if a guy deals dope today, he'll deal
dope tomorrow, too, so you build your case until you have enough
evidence.'' Uncertain if he's really ready to retire, Starling is
considering a second career in sort of the same type of work, as a hunting
and fishing guide.