DRUG GEAR DISPUTE LEADS TO INVENTORY

ROGERS -- State auditors were at the Rogers Police Department on Monday
inventorying more than $100,000 worth of drug-fighting gear caught in a
bureaucratic tug-of-war.

The Arkansas attorney general's office, which has threatened to sue Rogers
for the return of the equipment, asked the Arkansas Division of Legislative
Audit for the inventory. The Rogers-based 19th Judicial District Drug Task
Force purchased the equipment before disbanding in 2001.

"We're attempting to get an accounting of what equipment is there and what
condition it's in," attorney general spokesman Jim Pitcock said.

State Drug Director Bill Hardin said he's been asking Rogers Police Chief
Tim Keck to turn over the surveillance cameras, night-vision gear and other
equipment to the state for more than a year. Hardin oversees distribution
of grant money and operations for the state's drug task forces.

Keck said Rogers bought some of the equipment in question with city money.
The rest was paid for with a combination of city funds and U.S. Department
of Justice grants that funded the task force before it disbanded, he said.

Hardin's position is that once a task force disbands, federal regulations
dictate that the equipment goes back to the state.

But Rogers City Attorney Ben Lipscomb has said that terms of the task
force's 2000 grant don't definitively state who gets the equipment. Some of
the equipment has been upgraded with Rogers money, compounding the ambiguity.

Lipscomb said in May that the attorney general's office put him on notice
that the agency will sue to settle the dispute. Pitcock said Monday that
the attorney general's office would prefer to resolve the case without
litigation.

"We're still trying to resolve the situation through all means, including
discussion," he said.

Keck has said he offered to return some of the items to the state if Rogers
police could keep others. Hardin turned down the offer, Keck said.

Keck worries that losing the equipment will put Rogers police at a severe
disadvantage with organized methamphetamine operators.

The task force, which operated in Benton and Carroll counties, disbanded in
March 2001 after Rogers police didn't resubmit an annual grant application.

Keck decided in December 2000 not to sponsor the task force, which Rogers
police had led since its inception in 1990.

He made the decision after two of Benton County's larger police agencies,
the Bentonville Police Department and the Benton County sheriff's office,
withdrew their officers from the task force in late 1999.

Keck reassigned the Rogers Police Department's three task force officers to
work drug cases inside city limits.