Officials say the large-scale drug bust announced Tuesday was only the first installment of what’s to come. The ongoing partnership between local and federal agencies has opened up new avenues of investigation as law enforcement continues to wage the war on drugs in the Owensboro-Daviess County area.
“We were here in November to meet — federal, state and local — to talk about being better partners, to talk about the feds being more present here,” said Russell Coleman, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Kentucky. “This is what you’re going to continue to see out of those partnerships.”
It starts with boots on the ground from local law enforcement. No agency is going to know the community better than the Owensboro Police Department and Daviess County Sheriff’s Office.
But taking down a major drug trafficking organization requires more help from agencies like the DEA, ATF, FBI and Homeland Security.
As proven in the historic seizure announced Tuesday, those collaborations help take down entire operations rather than low-level criminals.
Sgt. Kris Collins, who helped lead the OPD unit that played a role in the recent bust, said the federal agents were a huge asset.
“This is kind of a new form of investigation for us,” he said. “Working with the DEA and ATF has been a huge impact for us because they are experienced in these types of investigations in other areas, where this is all brand new to us. They brought the technology to us and then taught us how to use it. We took the ball from there and ran with it.”
In November, law enforcement agencies from the local to federal level held a summit to discuss the current drug threat and associated violence occurring in the area.
Chief among those discussions was finding a way for Daviess County to receive a High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) designation, which would allow federal resources to be allocated to help mitigate the threat.
Daviess County Sheriff Keith Cain said Tuesday’s announcement underscores the need for the HIDTA designation in the community.
“We continue to work towards that end,” he said. “Even in the absence of that, these individuals are willing to come together and work with us, and provide very much needed resources and technology and equipment that is not available to us. Without that, the arrest would probably not have been brought to the success and fruition that it did.”
Owensboro Mayor Tom Watson has long said the HIDTA designation would be a huge next step in helping combat the rising drug and violence issues locally.
“I think the federal funds (from HIDTA) is what we need more than anything so we can do our job even better,” he said. “I think the additional federal funds would be a welcome addition to an already very efficient group of folks trying to protect our community.”
Watson said as an elected official, public safety is his main objective. He said he was “blown away” to see the quantity of drugs and weapons seized recently, and it’s a two-edged sword admitting there’s a problem locally.
“You don’t want to highlight that you’ve got that big of a problem in your community, but you can’t hide from it either,” he said. “You have to bring it forward. It’s the old saying ‘if you see something, say something.’ That helps law enforcement as well.”
Though local officials are still waiting on a HIDTA designation — which they said is hard to receive — they said the partnerships will continue on.
“This collaboration will continue whether there is a HIDTA designation or not,” Coleman said. “This work has occurred because of the nature of the leaders. What HIDTA would do is provide additional resources and training and all of those tools that we talked about to be an additional overlay.”
Coleman told the community to stay tuned, saying Tuesday was only a taste of what’s to come down the road.
“Our goal is to make it harder to buy dope,” he said. “Our goal is to drive the price of some of these poisons up to make a little space to hopefully get some treatment to these addicts. We don’t want to mindlessly lock up those drug addicts that are addicted to these substances. We want to make it harder for them to get access to substances. We want to go after the traffickers that are profiting from their death.”
OPD Chief Art Ealum said despite his agency being understaffed and working long hours, everybody stepped up and nobody has complained — and they’re still eager to press forward.
“They work their butts off and I feel for them because I know they’re tired,” he said. “But something like this kind of kicks them in the rear and says ‘ok let’s go again. Get a breath of fresh air and let’s get started again because we know that our job does not end with one arrest.’”
Cain said that while it may not look like much is being done for long stretches, it’s for good reason.
“Drug investigations are covert and they are secretive in nature,” he said. “When people don’t see what is being done every day, they mistakenly assume that nothing is being done. That is extremely frustrating to these officers and detectives that work these cases. It’s an ongoing effort.”
He said law enforcement won’t ever give up the fight to keep the streets clean.
“People say we’ve lost the war on drugs. We haven’t lost the war because the war continues to be waged,” Cain said. “We win battles along the way, and we lose battles along the way. But we continue to stay engaged in the fight. Anything other than that is akin to giving up, and that’s something that law enforcement just simply can not and will not do.”
