DUELING DRUGS: FIGHT AGAINST DRUGS TAKES MONEY, MANPOWER

If the war on drugs in Cape Girardeau County is going to be won, it will need more soldiers on the front line, said two of the county's top law enforcement officials.

Cape Girardeau County Sheriff John Jordan and Cape Girardeau Police Chief Rick Hetzel said this week their departments are now and will be in the future dedicated to fighting the sale and manufacture of illegal narcotics.

But to effectively combat the continuing drug problem within the area, the departments are reviewing their manpower and trying to anticipate their need for additional officers in the future.

Both Jordan and Hetzel pointed to estimates of between 70 percent and 80 percent of all crime is related to drugs.

"There are very few people whose lives are not touched by drugs in some fashion," Hetzel said.

Jordan agreed, adding: "If 70 to 80 percent of all crime is related to the drug trade, guess who we need to be going after -- the drug dealer."

But the biggest problem facing law enforcement in drug interdiction is the amount of time and manpower it takes to fight drugs, and time and manpower require money.

Most of the effort in fighting crime in the county comes through the work of the Southeast Missouri Drug Task Force.

The city has three officers who work exclusively in narcotics investigation. One officer works with the task force throughout the region. The other two work exclusively in Cape Girardeau.

The sheriff's department does not have an officer working specifically in narcotics investigation either just within the county or as a part of the drug task force. The county does give $5,000 a year to the task force to support its efforts at drug interdiction. The county also provides manpower support to the task force during investigations or arrests in the county.

Both departments report the majority of their drug arrests comes not through officers working full time at combating drugs but through the work of patrol officers.

"All patrol officers are trained to look beyond the violation even when making a routine traffic stop, to look for drugs," Hetzel said.

He added that the patrol division is vital in fighting illegal drugs because the officers on the street know who the dealers are and know their cars. A lot of information for investigation comes through the patrol officers.

One Cape Girardeau police officer made an arrest when he made a stop in a local convenience store. When a customer reached into his pocket to get money to pay for a soda, he pulled out not only the money, but a bag of marijuana. The patrol officer saw it and arrested the man.

"Our officers are ever vigilant in looking for drug violations," Hetzel said, but the increase in drug-related incidents, particularly the increase in methamphetamine-related cases, puts a strain on the manpower of the departments.

"Manpower is tight," said Jordan, whose department has, in addition to the sheriff, 11 officers in the patrol division and three in the detective division.

At times during the midnight shift, Jordan said, there is only one officer on duty for the entire county with more than 66,000 people and that covers 577 square miles.

Yet the number of drug-related incidents continues to go up. The number of incidents involving methamphetamine in the county during 1998, for example, has already exceeded 1997 figures.

In 1997, the sheriff's department reported 18 incidents involving methamphetamine. Of those 18 incidents, seven involved either the attempt to manufacture methamphetamine or an actual meth lab.

In the first eight months of 1998, 19 meth cases have been reported by the sheriff's department, with 12 labs or attempts to manufacture reported in those 19 cases.

Jordan said his office plans to ask for two additional officers for the upcoming budget year.

The lack of adequate staffing within the patrol division is also becoming a problem within the city police department and with its efforts to combat illegal drugs.

The department tries to work with what Hetzel called "the rule of thirds." Ideally, one third of the time should be spent in reactive patrol, responding to calls from citizens. One third should be spent in proactive patrol, trying to prevent crime in the city through education and community contact. The final third should be used for administration, filling out and filing reports.

But, Hetzel said, as the caseload has evolved and grown through the years, the demands on police time have increased. The chief estimated the department spends about 60 percent of the time in reactive patrol and, because of the increased number of calls, about 40 percent in administrative duties. Little or no time is left for prevention of crime.

The department is undertaking an analysis of the manpower needs of the department. Although Hetzel is not certain what the results of the study will be, he anticipates he will ask for more manpower in the upcoming budget.

An increase in manpower will impact the work patrols can do in fighting drugs, he said, but he admits that, give the enormity of the drug problem, the work of combating drugs will not be complete even with the addition of more officers.

"We could assign 12 more officers specifically to do drug interdiction," Hetzel said. "We could continue to throw manpower at the problem, but in a reasonable amount of time we would feel as if we needed more."