CRITTENDEN SHERIFF VOWS DATA, DEFENDS DRUG FORCE QUORUM COURT RESTORES
FUNDS - ONLY THROUGH JULY

MARION, Ark. - Crittenden County Sheriff Dick Busby on Wednesday promised
to provide the Quorum Court with whatever information it needs but said its
action last month cutting the budget of his drug task force sent the wrong
signal.

The court later restored the funding, but only through July.

"The thing that really worries me is, the vote you took the last time
convicted these folks,'' Busby said of the panel's May 28 action cutting
the task force's annual budget from $488,000 to $210,000 and the cloud it
placed over the drug unit.

"The FBI's been working on this for eight months and they can't come up
with anything.''

Busby spoke less than a week after FBI and IRS agents searched the homes of
a member and a former member of the drug task force in what appears to be a
widening federal grand jury probe of the interstate drug interdiction
program. The probe appears to be focused on the possibility that money has
been skimmed from cash seized from drug couriers stopped by the task force.

The 11-member Quorum Court, County Judge Melton Holt, Busby and County
Atty. Joe Rogers debated the future of the task force for three tense and
sometimes testy hours Wednesday. Members of the Quorum Court, which
functions like a county commission in Tennessee, said the issue was
accountability, not an effort to end drug enforcement in a county with a
serious methamphetamine problem. Busby said he got the message.

"Anything you need or any report you want, I'll give it to you. Just get
together and put it down on paper and tell me what you want. I'll give it
to you every month, or every day or every two weeks,'' he said.

The court voted last month to cut annual funding for the task force by more
than half and Busby responded by notifying seven employees attached to the
task force that their jobs would be terminated June 30 if the vote stood.
On Wednesday, he acknowledged that the contemplated funding cut would
probably affect sheriff's department employees with the least seniority,
not members of the task force.

"You gave no notice to the people who would actually be (terminated),''
court member Vickie Robertson told Busby, exasperated. "That's what I'm
talking about - trust.''

Rogers warned court members that they were inviting lawsuits if they voted
to cut funding and placed Busby in the "legal dilemma'' of firing staff
members without cause.

But on a motion by court member Horace Cupples to restore the unit's full
funding until the FBI investigation ends, the court voted 7-4 not to do so.
By a 10-1 vote, with member Thomas Burroughs the lone dissenter, the court
voted to seek by the end of July written guidelines for traffic stops and
written procedures for evaluating task force personnel. The court also
agreed to restore $60,000 to the unit's budget, allowing it to operate
through July.

In the course of the debate, some members said the action on May 28 had
been ill-advised. Cupples and Sterling 'Buster' Briggs, who were present
for the May vote, tried to distance themselves from it Wednesday, although
neither spoke up when the vote last month was declared "unanimous'' by the
presiding chairman with only Burroughs absent.

"Things got out of hand,'' said Briggs. "I'm upset that this Quorum Court
has sent a message to the citizens and the state and everybody else that we
think something's wrong with our drug task force. We not only judged them
but convicted them when we cut their money. . . . We went overboard a
little bit.''

Said Cupples: "We've got no facts against the drug task force other than
some of them live in a better house than we think they ought to or drive a
better car. . . . But until it's proved that they got those illegally, I
think we have to act like responsible Quorum Court members and let the
investigation go forward.''

But a majority made no apologies for last month's vote.

"I voted to take away the money to get somebody's attention,'' said member
L. D. Callan. "I'm for doing away with the drug task force and call the
whole department a drug task force. . . . That interstate is a waste of our
time and it's where nine-tenths of our problem's coming from.''

Callan added that the program has become a laughingstock: "Kids say all you
have to do is get on the drug task force and you can retire.''

The court heard from only one member of the public at Wednesday's session,
but she had a unique perspective. Tonya Davis is the wife of task force
deputy Barry Davis, whose home was searched by the FBI last week. She
counseled patience.

"These men have not been charged or convicted of any wrongdoing,'' she
said. "Remember that those who throw stones do not always live in glass
houses. These men have families to support. Despite what you believe, we do
live from paycheck to paycheck.''

Later, after the meeting, she said her husband built 80 percent of the home
the county has appraised at $280,950. In an interview Saturday, she said
she'd been questioned by the Little Rock grand jury about her spending
habits but that the couple hasn't retained an attorney "because I don't
have $12,000 or $15,000 to hand someone.''

Court members Jim Turner and Vera Simonetti told Busby and task force
commander Mickey Thornton that they felt intimidated and harassed when they
were pulled over by task force members in recent weeks.

Turner said deputy Shane Griffin didn't follow procedures requiring that he
call in the tag number on Turner's truck, then refused to give his name
when asked. Turner demanded that Griffin be held accountable. "I'm offended
and I'm going to stay offended,'' Turner said.

Simonetti, pulled over June 4 for a burned-out tail light, put it simply:
"I was stopped for harassment.''

After the meeting, Tonya Davis said she had been pulled over by a West
Memphis patrolman for not wearing a seatbelt. She said she could have
called that harassment. Records show she paid the $25 ticket June 3.