When it comes to the Columbus-Lowndes Metro Drug Task Force, Sheriff Eddie Hawkins doesn’t want to mess with success.
“I’ve been working narcotics in this county for 30-plus years, and I’ve seen it worked both ways,” Hawkins said. “This is the best that we’ve ever seen it, when it’s a joint unit.”
The task force is staffed by both Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office deputies and Columbus Police Department officers, and it has lived and died several times over the years.
It was established in 2007 and disbanded in 2012 after a manpower dispute between then-Sheriff Mike Arledge and then-Police Chief Selvain McQueen. In 2017 the current unit was formed under Arledge and then-Chief Oscar Lewis, and it is composed of four agents from CPD and four agents and a supervisor from LCSO. It is jointly funded by the city and county, but the task force commander answers to the sheriff.
The task force hit another bump earlier this week, when Chief Joseph Daughtry announced he was temporarily pulling his officers out of the task force. He said the move was driven by manpower issues within CPD, and the need to more closely control overtime. Daughtry said CPD has about 45 officers now, and is budgeted for 55.
Daughtry offered no timeline on when the city would rejoin the task force. But on Friday he told The Dispatch that CPD would partner with other agencies for drug enforcement in the interim rather than rely on the task force to handle it.
“I didn’t want to add any heavy load on the sheriff’s office, so I’ve asked (the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics) to assist us with felony cases,” Daughtry said. “Our guys can handle the misdemeanor cases.”
The city is already putting that principle into practice. According to a CPD press release sent out Friday morning, officers worked with MBN and federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms members on Thursday to serve warrants. “Operation Watchful Eye” resulted in eight arrests and the seizure of one gun.
Hawkins said he intends to move some of his own deputies into the task force while the city officers are away.
“My plan is to readjust some of my guys to continue combating the drug problem,” Hawkins said. “Although I am going to have to readjust in my department to do something like that. … It’s a shell game. You have to move people around, and it’s challenging to find the right fit.”
The task force will also continue to work in the city, he said, and it doesn’t have to wait for a call from the city for assistance to do that.
“The city does fall within the county,” Hawkins said. “A majority of the drug cases are in the city because that’s where people congregate to sell drugs. … I have constituents in the city, and I’m a city resident. I care very much what happens to the city.”
A violation of the interlocal agreement?
The task force was formed via an interlocal agreement between the city and the county. It requires that either party give 90 days notice before dissolving the task force.
While Hawkins said unequivocally that he believes Daughtry’s withdrawal of his agents was a violation of the agreement, attorneys for the city and county are less sure.
County Attorney Tim Hudson told The Dispatch he thought the situation requires “common sense understanding.”
“If you’re talking about pulling out for a month or two, I don’t know if that would be anything,” Hudson said. “But if you’re talking about for the next year, then basically you’ve ended (the task force).”
Hudson said he doesn’t think the task force is being permanently dissolved.
“It’s my understanding that their position is they are not pulling out,” he said. “They are just reassigning them temporarily to get more officers on the street.”
City Attorney Jeff Turnage went a step further and said that Daughtry is within his rights under the agreement.
“The agreement states that if patrol obligations are impaired or impeded as a consequence of the assignment to the task force, they may not be assigned,” Turnage wrote in an email to The Dispatch. “I think it would be a reasonable interpretation that if their continued deployment for the task force impairs or impedes patrol functions, they should be able to be pulled back to the city.”
Turnage, too, said he doesn’t believe the intent is to dissolve the task force.
“My understanding is that the chief has not attempted to terminate the agreement, but needs the task force members at the (police department) for the time being,” he said.
Who benefits more?
Hawkins said he understands where the chief is coming from, but thinks that pulling out is a mistake.
“He’s looking at his department and the number of men that he has and where they’re assigned and how they’re utilized,” he said. “He wants to make a difference for the citizens of Columbus, and I completely understand that. But I think pulling his agents out is a mistake. Long-term, it’s not going to be beneficial for the city or the county.”
Hawkins feels that the task force has been an unqualified success and is coming off of a very strong year.
“Last year we were very successful,” he said. “We had 238 cases, which is a significant amount in this area. Those are all felony cases, felony amounts of drugs that have been seized.”
Taking drugs and dealers off the street may be the most obvious benefit of a joint task force, but Hawkins explained there’s more going on under the hood than is readily apparent.
“It’s not wasting money or time,” he said. “Everybody’s on the same page. They can concentrate on the same violators. … (With two narcotics teams) you’ve got one informant trying to work for two different entities, and that informant only knows a limited number of people.”
It’s also more expensive, he said, with both agencies having to put up taxpayer dollars to pay informants and make controlled drug buys.
Two teams working parallel cases can easily overwhelm the court system, he said.
“When these cases get to court, you’ve got one bad guy that the city and the county have buys on, and that gets confusing for the courts as far as who made what buy and when,” he said. “Then the different cases get presented at different times, and it clogs up the court.”
Agents are all deputized, allowing them to work across city and county jurisdictions. This was especially a benefit to the city, according to former police chief Fred Shelton, because it allowed city officers to follow cases wherever they led.
“It was some of the same players who were selling dope in the city and in the county,” Shelton said. “The problem was the (police department) had jurisdictional boundaries, so if a case led in the county we couldn’t investigate it. Drug dealers don’t have jurisdictions.”
Shelton said the task force was effective, but he argued that it worked more cases in the county.
“At the beginning it worked really well,” Shelton said. “But later the focus changed some. It was working more county cases, and the city wasn’t necessarily benefitting from those cases.”
The door is still open if CPD needs help in any capacity, Hawkins said.
“If the chief of police calls me today and says he needs help, we’re coming,” he said. “Whatever we can do to help the citizens of Lowndes County and Columbus, we’re going to do it. I’m not upset (Daughtry) pulled his men out. He’s got to do what he’s got to do for his department, but I think he should have gone about it a different way.”
Brian Jones is the local government reporter for Columbus and Lowndes County.
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