OFFICERS GET CLUES ON STOPPING DRUG TRAFFIC

LUMBERTON -- Almost four years to the day after Robbie Bishop, a sheriff's
captain from Georgia, was shot and killed during a traffic stop, his wife
and friends are continuing his legacy of fighting drugs and crime.

On Tuesday, about 250 law enforcement officers from across the country
gathered at the Southeastern Regional Agricultural Center to learn traffic
stop techniques during the fourth annual National Criminal Enforcement
Association training conference. The conference continues through Friday.
This year's conference is the first to be held outside of Georgia.

Bishop was shot and killed on Jan. 20, 1999, during a Georgia traffic stop.
He had worked closely with Robeson County deputies teaching them his
techniques. In September 1998, he suffered a gunshot wound while working in
Robeson County. That happened during a stop in which sheriff's Deputy James
O. Hunt was shot and almost killed.

"Robbie had a way of networking," Lisa Bishop said. "He told every officer
he met what he'd found and how (he found it) in a traffic stop ... ."

In February 1999, soon after Bishop's death, the National Drug Interdiction
Association was formed in his memory. Lisa Bishop is executive director of
the organization, which has changed its name to the National Criminal
Enforcement Association.

She said the 2003 conference is the first to have seized vehicles to
demonstrate for officers how drugs can be hidden in secret compartments.
The Robeson County Sheriff's Office provided seven seized vehicles that
have false floors and secret compartments.

Sheriff Glenn Maynor, who could not be reached for this story, said the
conference was brought here because of Bishop's relationship with the
county and because of his office's successes in intercepting drugs
traveling through the county on Interstate 95.

Bishop said that officers will learn how to properly report and prepare an
arrest for court and how to properly handle the forfeiture of assets when
drugs or other illegal contraband are seized. And, she said, they will
learn about designer drugs like Ecstasy.

James O'Dell, a board member, said officers will leave the conference with
the knowledge of how to find illegal contraband in motor vehicles.

"It's being able to recognize things that don't belong," O'Dell said.
"We're trying to teach the officers to pay attention to detail."

O'Dell, an interstate criminal enforcement agent with the Charleston County
Sheriff's Office in South Carolina, said that board members will show
officers how to find drugs, guns and money in false floors and hidden
compartments of vehicles. Almost all of the 25 board members are law
enforcement officers.

Motor vehicles are the No. 1 form of transporting drugs across the United
States, O'Dell said. He said that it can cost as much as $10,000 to add a
hidden compartment to a motor vehicle.

"We try to teach every aspect of it: the stop, search, arrest and the
courtroom," O'Dell said.

Bishop said that officers from as far away as Florida and New York are
attending the conference. She said that the association has more than 1,300
members from the United States and Canada.