TRAVIS COUNTY LEAVING ANTI-DRUG TASK FORCE

Sheriff Says Officers Can Work Better Outside Of Shrinking Group

With four of its five partners abandoning a Travis County-led anti-drug
coalition, Sheriff Margo Frasier has been forced to pull out of the Capital
Area Narcotics Task Force - a dwindling consortium of Central Texas
agencies involved in two deadly drug raids in little more than a year.

Frasier said Friday that despite the loss of her partners, she already had
made up her mind to yank her officers from the troubled unit that was never
"as successful as it could have been."

A state official said Frasier had no choice.

The county's withdrawal means that just more than $600,000 that would
largely have been spent fighting drug trafficking in Travis County now will
be spent on anti-drug efforts in surrounding rural counties and for
substance abuse programs in Travis County.

The Travis County sheriff's office had led the six-county group since
January 2000. Of the 417 task force operations conducted in 2000 and 2001,
208 of them were in Travis County. From June 2000 through May 2001, the
task force filed 131 felony charges and seized about $2.8 million in
narcotics and more than $223,000 in cash assets. The numbers dropped from
June 2001 through the rest of the year, with 81 felony cases yielding
around $565,000 in narcotics and $37,729 in seized assets.

"I just felt it would make for better supervision and control if we just
deal with the issues in Travis County and not try to solve the problems in
other places," Frasier said. "I think we operated it as efficiently as we
could. The problem is it's just too large a geographical area with too few
people."

Jay Kimbrough, director of the governor's criminal justice division, said
Travis County's withdrawal was inevitable because officials in Caldwell
County, one of the three remaining participants in the task force, had
recently indicated that they wanted to collaborate on narcotics enforcement
with other rural counties. The criminal justice division combines state and
federal money to support more than 40 regional anti-drug coalitions around
the state.

Caldwell's departure would have brought an end to the Central Texas task
force because the only counties that would have remained - Travis and
Fayette - are not contiguous, and the state's rules will not fund a
single-county enforcement team. Fayette County Sheriff Rick Vandel could
not be reached for comment Friday.

In January, Bastrop County Sheriff Richard Hernandez announced his
withdrawal, saying that two deputies he had on the team were not spending
enough time in his county

"We weren't getting nearly what I wanted for our money's worth," he said.

In 2001, Williamson and Lee counties left the task force.

Kimbrough said it's understandable that sheriffs would not want to devote
personnel to an operation primarily conducted in another county.

"I think what happens is the rural communities ultimately recognize that
their issues and needs are somewhat different from the major metropolitan
areas," he said. "Coordination for them is a much more complex issue than
it is for the people in the urban areas."

In February, Frasier said a large share of task force operations were
conducted in Travis County because it was the largest of the group and is a
hub of drug trafficking in Central Texas.

Over the past 14 months, the task force has been embroiled in controversy
and tragedy. The deaths of Travis County sheriff's Deputy Keith Ruiz, who
was shot during a raid in Del Valle in February 2001, and 19-year-old Tony
Martinez, killed by a deputy during a raid in December, sparked public
outcry over the aggressive SWAT team methods. Last May, Travis County
deputies raided a Spicewood home and were later accused in a civil rights
lawsuit of mistaking ragweed for marijuana and holding residents at gunpoint.

Frasier said those incidents, while they made officials reassess their
methods, did not force the end of the task force. "I don't think the
participation in the task force was the reason for either one of those
tragedies," she said. "What it said to me was, this is an area where I
really want supervisors to not be spread thin."

State Rep. Terry Keel, R-Austin, a former Travis County sheriff, lauded
Frasier's decision. "I think it is a good development that this task force
has collapsed under its own weight," he said.

It was a decision Keel himself made almost immediately after becoming
sheriff in 1992. At that time, he said, the county had outgrown its place
in a regional unit, which was created to provide enforcement in rural
areas. Keel also questioned the unit's effectiveness and professionalism
and found that collaborating with Austin Police Department's narcotics
division was more productive.

"(The sheriff's office) should try to re-establish a joint narcotics unit
with (Austin police)," Keel said. "In my opinion, it was a mistake for the
sheriff's office . . . to forego that joint program and instead get back
into a problem program."

Frasier said her agency works closely with police departments around the
county.

Over the past year, Travis County residents have complained to the county
Commissioners Court and called for an end to SWAT teams and aggressive drug
raids. Some showed up at Tuesday meetings to voice outrage. Others sent
postcards. County Judge Sam Biscoe said he received about 100 cards with
the same message.

"They didn't believe county money should be spent to support projects such
as those SWAT teams initiatives," he said.