Thread: AZ: Drug Task Force Out in Force Along Border

Drug Task Force Out in Force Along Arizona-Mexico Border
April 3rd, 2007 @ 6:17am by Bob McClay/KTAR

The DPS and other police agencies have reported several large drug seizures in southern Arizona recently.

The harvest season for marijuana usually puts more drugs on the streets this time of year, but DPS spokesman Tim Mason thinks the large hauls are because police agencies have more people along the border.

He says the reality is that there isn't "an incredible amount of increased narcotics coming across the border," but says the amount of officers has increased.

"There is so much manpower on the Arizona-Mexican border right now," says Mason. "If you're a crook, you can't get it across. It's just so hard."

He says 100 members of the state's GITEM task force are randomly moving through Arizona's border cities. That puts more officers on the street in places like Nogales.

"If you want to know what it looks like to have 100 extra cops in patrol cars in the city of Nogales, it's a site to be seen because there's two on every corner or every intersection."

"If you're a crook and you're in Nogales that day, you're going to jail."

He says the agencies are making both big drug busts and arrests of illegal immigrants and their smugglers.

Mason says police are getting the funding from the state legislature...and are putting that money to good use.

http://ktar.com/?nid=6&sid=437805

Isn't this also the area the Minutemen are at now too?