Thread: DPS boosts patrols to stop drugs at source

DPS boosts patrols to stop drugs at source
Truck drivers face extra scrutiny on Arizona highways
12 comments
by JJ Hensley - Aug. 30, 2009 08:41 PM




Five members of a relatively new Arizona Department of Public Safety unit are responsible for confiscating nearly 15,000 pounds of pot, more than 300 pounds of cocaine and about 20 pounds of heroin in the past 18 months.

The officers are part of a DPS unit - the only one of its kind in the country - that combines the talents of some of the agency's more successful drug-interdiction officers with the technical skills of those who understand the smallest of details involved in commercial vehicle enforcement, said department director Roger Vanderpool.

More drugs are seized along the Arizona border than any other stretch of the international border in the United States, but the state's highway system and easy access to other major markets still makes Arizona an inviting thoroughfare for drug runners. And more of them are using semitrucks and other commercial vehicles to move their shipments in bulk. The recession also has made out-of-work truckers targets for drug dealers looking for
drivers to move large loads, Vanderpool said.

"It's all about money, and the cartels have much more money than we have," he said, adding that 45 percent of the drugs taken off the streets in the United States are seized in Arizona.

Last month, officers arrested two men driving a semitruck on Arizona 87 near Payson with 300 pounds of marijuana, 110 pounds of cocaine and 19 pounds of heroin.

There were few overt signs that the two men arrested, Albert Chrzaszcz, 36, of Surprise and Jayson Lyle Shawd, 41, of Mesa, were hauling $2 million worth of drugs.

The officer who made the stop said he pulled the two over because the truck company had a history of safety violations.

"It is safer and more cost effective if we can stop it before it gets to the Midwest and the East Coast," Vanderpool said, noting the unit shared their techniques with others at an awards ceremony in Indianapolis earlier this month. "That's when it destroys neighborhoods and kids and becomes a problem for law enforcement."

A recent case in the Pittsburgh area shows why.

Two weeks ago, authorities shut down a ring that moved up to 400 pounds of marijuana a month from the Tucson area to western Pennsylvania. Authorities say Larry Catlin, 55, of Tucson, and his brother, Richard, 50, of Benson, delivered hundreds of pounds of pot each month from Mexico to a cycle shop in the Pittsburgh area.

"This organization allegedly pumped more than 10,000 pounds of marijuana onto the streets of western Pennsylvania during this operation," Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett said in a statement.

Pennsylvania authorities said the organization had operated since the early 1990s with the drugs frequently stashed in wheel wells and under false panels in cars the Catlins' hauled on trailers.

It's trucks like those that Officer Nick Mitchell says he stops on a daily basis.

On Wednesday, Mitchell had barely come to a stop on the westbound shoulder of Interstate 17 before a semitruck flew by and he immediately noticed two possible violations: a lack of reflective tape at the top of the trailer and a mud flap that was flying too high off the road.

A similar mud-flap violation last month led a DPS officer to discover a load of nearly 100 immigrants in the back of a truck near Nogales.

The Canadian driver Mitchell pulled over on Wednesday wasn't carrying anything illegal, just drums and bags of food additives. But the stop goes to the heart of Vanderpool's theory with the cross-trained unit.

"Ninety percent of the people are just good folks going down the road who came into contact with one of our officers," he said. "The other 10 percent use the highway for criminal means. We want to establish making Arizona highways inhospitable to the criminal element."



http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... t0831.html

""It's all about money, and the cartels have much more money than we have,""

Yeah, but Obama said WE ARE RICH'

Pffft

It's trucks like those that Officer Nick Mitchell says he stops on a daily basis.

Uh Oh that's profiling! How long before this group is protested like Sheriff Joe?