SomeGuy
668, Neighbor of the Beast
Atlanta Journal Constitution
Lt. Steve Bannister’s police cruiser idles on the shoulder of I-85 as he eyes traffic whizzing past.
“We’ll find something,” he says confidently.
Any one of the passing vehicles could be transporting drugs, weapons or money. Wads of cash could be stashed in a shoe box under the driver’s seat. Cocaine could be squirreled away in a spare tire, a secret compartment, a door panel.
Bannister has seen it all.
Just since February, he and the other two officers in the Jefferson Police Department’s criminal patrol unit have seized about 8 pounds of cocaine, more than 60 pounds of marijuana and more than $200,000 in assets.
All this on a 2.5-mile section of I-85 in Jackson County about 60 miles northeast of Atlanta.
Authorities say metro Atlanta and its surrounding counties are situated along an interstate system exploited by drug smugglers.
And a growing number of Georgia law enforcement agencies are forming specialized teams of officers to intercept them. Jefferson and Gwinnett County formed units earlier this year.
In its first eight months of operation, the six-member Gwinnett Highway Interdiction Team seized more than $12 million worth of drugs and arrested more than 60 people on a variety of charges, Sgt. Jim Price said.
“Honestly, I think that’s more than we ever expected,” the supervisor said.
The Georgia State Patrol started a criminal interdiction unit on a full-time basis in 2003 that is now staffed with 13 troopers. Similar squads now operate in Banks, Henry, Franklin and Lowndes counties and the cities of Braselton, Commerce and Gainesville.
By all indications, there’s plenty of work to go around.
The Office of National Drug Control Policy has identified Atlanta as the “new Miami” for drug trafficking and designated the counties around it as high-intensity drug trafficking areas, or HIDTA.
Jack Killorin, the director of the Atlanta HIDTA program, began coordinating a nationwide crackdown on the interstates in 2006. Initially he worked just with state law enforcement agencies. But Killorin says the program is increasingly reaching out to police agencies at the county and city level.
“Many of these efforts are kind of starting up now, and we’ll reach out and embrace them if they’ll do the right thing,” Killorin said.
The right thing is to take part in shared planning with federal and state law enforcement agencies and provide information on seizures and intelligence, he said.
“We’ve got to collect the dots to be able to connect the dots,” Killorin said.
Authorities say most of the large drug shipments come from Mexico and flow east into Atlanta along I-20. From there, the smugglers follow I-75, I-85 and I-985 north. They return along the same routes with large amounts of cash.
What makes the highway interdiction teams different from ordinary patrol officers is their training and equipment. Officers often travel with drug-sniffing dogs and tactical weapons. Some carry special equipment such as video scopes, flexible sticks with a camera on the end that can maneuver behind car panels and dashboards to see what eyes can’t.
Highway interdiction officers stress that they are focused not only on drugs, but “all crimes, all threats, all hazards,” which could mean anything from terrorism to road racing, Killorin said.
The officers are taught to “look beyond the ticket” after they pull over a driver for a traffic violation, said Lt. Kermit Stokes, who supervises the Georgia State Patrol’s criminal interdiction unit.
They look for drug paraphernalia in plain view and smell for the odor of marijuana. They hone in on inconsistent statements from drivers and passengers.
Unusually nervous behavior could be a signal that something is awry.
“People can’t control their bodies,” said Price, the supervisor of the Gwinnett interdiction unit. “Their bodies will tell the story of what they’re doing.”
Jefferson police Officer Johnny Wood says he often asks drivers simple questions such as where they’ve been, where they’re going and where they stayed on the way. Conflicting statements or stories that don’t make sense could prompt him to request permission to search the car.
Once, Wood said, a driver claimed a female passenger was his mother. When asked whether his mother spoke English, the driver replied, “I don’t know,” Wood said.
“That’s a pretty good indication that it was not his mother,” Wood said.
Even if the driver refuses a search of the vehicle, the law allows police to use a drug-sniffing dog to smell the air around it. If the dog indicates the presence of drugs in the car, police gain probable cause to search it.
Interdiction officers say their methods don’t involve profiling —- drug traffickers are too smart for that anyway. Smugglers have been known to send lookout vehicles ahead to gauge police activity along their route.
“It’s a cat and mouse game,” said Lou Solis, Braselton’s assistant police chief.
Drug smugglers exploit any weakness in the system, and they alter their methods to stay a step ahead, he said.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that police can stop cars for minor traffic violations even if they have another motive, such as a drug investigation, defense attorney Herb Shafer said.
Yet Shafer says overzealous officers often abuse their powers —- trampling constitutional rights that protect citizens from unreasonable search and seizure.
“Once there’s a traffic violation they’re given the license to do whatever they want, and they exercise that license,” Shafer said.
Charles Wrinkle, a Gwinnett defense attorney, said police will use anything to justify a traffic stop.
“My brother is a sheriff. He told me, ‘I guarantee you if I follow somebody for five miles, they’ll do something wrong,’ ” Wrinkle said.
Gwinnett’s interdiction team pulled over one of Wrinkle’s clients last month. A dog detected narcotics in the car, and 2 kilograms of cocaine was found inside. The reason for the stop? He was driving too slow.
“It’s got to go back to why was the car pulled over. They’re not doing it for traffic control, they’re doing it to search the car,” Wrinkle said. “It’s just a way to do profile stops on the interstate.”
Price, the head of the Gwinnett unit, said his officers follow the law.
“What gets people in trouble is when they let integrity lapse because they want to make a case,” Price said. “None of these cases are worth trying to skirt the limits.”
There’s no denying, however, that drug interdiction is a profitable venture. Police make no apologies for it.
Jefferson police have used drug forfeiture money to help buy two sport utility vehicles. Federal rules mandate that money seized from drug investigations can be used only for training, equipment and public relations. Jefferson police plan to designate some money toward officer training and community outreach programs about drug abuse, Chief Joseph Wirthman said.
The Braselton Police Department has used drug forfeiture money to build a shooting range and a $350,000 live shoot house where officers can practice on targets. The money also bought a fleet of Dodge Chargers, Solis said.
“Budgets are tight, so this is where police departments are getting money,” Solis said. “The drug dealer is paying for a lot of stuff.”
