LAW ENFORCEMENT TAKES DRUG FIGHT TO THE HIGHWAYS

Officer Chris Craft spotted bad brake lights on a Chevrolet Yukon.
Moments later, he arrested three men on marijuana charges.

The Ozark officer seized about half a pound of marijuana during the
September traffic stop that landed 24-year-old Miles Ansley and two
passengers in jail on drug charges.

Two months later, police charged three men with shooting Ansley to
death during what police called a robbery motivated by drugs.

Ozark Deputy Police Chief Myron Williams said there is a clear link
between drugs and violent crime. It is a link he feels can be broken,
or at least deterred, through the use of highway interdiction.

"The reason I wanted to get the program started is to capture the
drugs before they reach the street level and to go after the money to
take the profit out of it," Williams said. "We had three homicides in
2007 within 33 days, and all three of those homicides had drugs involved."

Cpl. Jimmy Culbreath, who started the law enforcement training
seminar "Spread the Web" in 2003, has been hired to head the
department's narcotics unit.

"We kind of took the spider as our mascot," Culbreath said. "Each
officer represents a spider, and we're training them to recognize the
criminal element" with each spider reaching into the community to
snare the criminals.

Williams said officers trained in the techniques of highway
interdiction help clean up communities, and without a doubt, the
practice takes some drugs off the street.

"When it (drugs) comes in here, you certainly have a rise in your
violent crime," Williams said. "If we can hopefully curtail the drug
trade somewhat, what we're doing is making our community safer."

A multimillion dollar drug bust during a traffic stop in Calhoun
County in November 2007 has raised several concerns about highway
interdiction in the law enforcement community.

Eddie Ingram, who serves as chief deputy for the Barbour County
Sheriff's Office, assisted the Oxford Police Department during a
traffic stop on Interstate 20 in Calhoun County, which netted the
police 40 kilos of cocaine. Ingram had been in Oxford training their
police department.

About a month after the drug bust, DEA agent Greg Borland, an
assistant special agent in charge of the Birmingham office, sent a
letter to several law enforcement agencies reminding them the DEA
would not adopt cases Ingram had been involved in. Borland said the
letter was not meant to defame anyone, but to to show his objection
to the type of interdiction.

Ethics

As an assistant special agent in charge of the DEA, Greg Borland has
several unanswered questions about the ethics of highway
interdiction. Borland said some types of interdiction make if
difficult for the DEA to make a solid case.

"If it's done as training, I understand that. But in the Oxford case,
it's a little bit unclear who seized the drugs, "Borland said. "This
particular case dealt with agencies doing it on a 'for hire' basis,
and that concerns me. That doesn't mean that they can't do it."

The possibility for a large seizure should not be the primary reason
for interdiction, Borland said. He has questioned whether some law
enforcement "subconsciously" lower the reasonable suspicion for a
justifiable search.

"If I'm out there trying to train somebody with the intent to make a
large seizure," Borland said, "that shouldn't be the motivator to do
interdiction so that we could supplement your budget." Borland also
questioned the ethics of whether an agency should offer itself to
help another law enforcement agency solely for the purpose of seizing money.

"My concern is that if agencies use it (interdiction) in ways that
are not appropriate, then somewhere down the road we could
potentially lose it," Borland said.

Since the November drug bust, Ingram has had two other law
enforcement agencies ask him to come train their officers.

He said the issues with the letter sent out by the DEA have created
unnecessary distrust between law enforcement.

"It just puts a barrier between the federal government when it
shouldn't be," Ingram said. "We're just trying to do our job. We all
should be working together."

During Ingram's interdiction course, he teaches officers how to look
for suspicious activity during a traffic stop.

Ingram's mentor and friend who taught him interdiction was shot to
death during a traffic stop nine years ago today. Ingram started the
National Drug Interdiction Association in memory of Robbie Edward
Bishop, who died while working on Interstate 20 near Villa Rica, Ga.,
on Jan. 20, 1999. Ingram said Bishop was shot to death by a convicted
felon transporting drugs from New York.

"I've had more than a dozen officers that have been through my
classes that have been shot and killed during a traffic stop," Ingram said.

Ingram also said he specifically warns officers to maintain their
integrity as law enforcement officers. He said it's important to not
cross the line and "slip to the other side."

"I know of four guys right now that have went to prison because the
temptation just got too great for them," Ingram said. "We don't want
to become what we're trying to stop."

Two of those men, Steve Lovin and James O. Hunt, were arrested by the
federal government in North Carolina on allegations they stole money
seized from traffic stops off Interstate 95. Lovin and Hunt worked as
sheriff's deputies for the Robeson County Sheriff's Office when they
made the traffic stops. Bishop trained Lovin and Hunt how to look
beyond the traffic stop.

"They actually came down to Villa Rica and trained with us before
Robbie got killed," Ingram said.

Ingram later helped Lovin and Hunt set up their drug interdiction
school in North Carolina. But both Lovin and Hunt have pleaded guilty
in federal court.

"It's a line you really can't cross; you've to be honest," Ingram
said. "We always have to act like we may be on public TV."

Williams said his department won't leave the area to do drug interdiction.

"We're not in it to go pull some type of financial gain from some
other jurisdiction," Williams said. "Doing this solely just for the
money - that's not our objective. Our ultimate goal is making our
communities safer and getting the drugs off the streets."

Calhoun County Sheriff Larry Amerson, whose jurisdiction includes
Oxford, said he's had officers from other agencies come train his
men. But he's also sent his officers to other agencies, including Texas.

"We learn from the folks who have more experience and that's a good
thing," Amerson said. Henry County Sheriff William Maddox said a
successful intervention program requires two things: probable cause
to stop the vehicle and the avoidance of racial profiling.

"Some agencies do it a lot different than others," Maddox said. "We
just get out there and look for a probable cause to stop the vehicle,
which can be if they're weaving from one side of the road to the
other, if they have a tail light out or if they're speeding.

It can escalate from there, Maddox said, if officers smell the odor
of marijuana or another controlled substance, or if they believe the
driver is under the influence.

Training

In recent years, Ingram has taken the word interdiction out of the
title of his classes, changing it from Criminal Interdiction Course
to Felony Awareness Course.

"Everybody's an interdiction officer if they work the streets," he
said. Ingram, who has taught multiple classes in highway
interdiction, said four out of five crimes involve mobility. Ingram
called highway interdiction a low cost law enforcement tool.

"Like, for instance, the 40 kilos we hit only took five minutes, but
it takes a lot longer to do an undercover operation," Ingram said.
"It's the most cost effective way to fight crime because the officers
are already out on patrol. So let's teach them how to recognize it."
Interdiction is not only used to get drugs off the streets but to
curtail other crimes, from handling stolen property to catching
fugitives of justice.

"You get a lot of criminals in what we call 'trash in the nets,'"
Ingram said. "You're not just going to catch the big criminals. We
get everything. The team I just trained in Oxford caught a guy Friday
wanted for escape and four felony charges."

Both Culbreath and Ingram have trained officers to use interdiction
on major U.S. highways, interstates, rural county roads and city streets.

About 50 percent of Alabama state troopers have been trained to look
beyond the initial traffic stop. The Alabama Highway Patrol uses a
special unit to work interdiction that moves across the state. Sgt.
Tracy Nelson said it is called the Felony Awareness Program.

"Their job is to work the main corridor for illegal activity such as
illegal human trafficking, a stolen car or money moving illegally up
and down the highway," Nelson said. "The traffic stop a trooper or
police officer makes solves about 90 percent of all crime. That's how
most outstanding warrants on people are served."

Ingram said he will be leading an interdiction class during the week
of Feb. 13 in Barbour County.

Culbreath recently led a "Spread the Web" seminar to help train law
enforcement officers in criminal enforcement, which included highway
interdiction and properly searching vehicles.

Culbreath worked as senior instructor at the seminar last week,
teaching nearly 30 law enforcement officers from nine different
agencies. Officers split into teams spending an hour at five stations
learning how to properly search different types of vehicles like
tractor trailers, SUVs and recreation vehicles.

One of the program's instructors, Jeremy Pelfrey of the Washington
County, Fla., Sheriff's Office, helped seize more than $500,000 cash
from inside the wall of an 18-wheel truck off I-10 last December.

Another aspect of the training is teaching officers to recognize
nonverbal indicators of criminal activity, but he stressed
professionalism is required.

"This is not a fishing expedition for narcotics or money," Culbreath
said. "We don't go out like it's some type of highway lottery."