Pubdate: Fri, 24 Aug 2001
Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer (WA)
Website: http://www.seattle-pi.com/
Address: P.O. Box 1909, Seattle, WA 98111-1909
Contact:  2001 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Author: Lewis Kamb

SHERIFF'S NEW DRUG-WAR STRATEGY DRAWS CONTROVERSY

The plan is simple: Target street-level pushers instead of major 
distributors to appease citizens frustrated by brazen neighborhood drug 
deals. It's a shift in philosophy in how King County narcotics detectives 
will fight the drug war, starting next year.

"It's pretty obvious that the war on drugs doesn't work, and it won't the 
way it has been fought," said Sgt. John Urquhart, Sheriff's Office 
spokesman. "We feel we can make a bigger dent on the drug problem in 
neighborhoods by refocusing our efforts there rather than at the big-time 
drug dealer." But Sheriff Dave Reichert's plan to decentralize his agency's 
Drug Enforcement Unit -- shifting narcotics detectives to local precincts 
- -- doesn't come without its detractors, both inside and out.

Some narcotics officers don't like the idea, saying it will have little 
impact on what's already being done to thwart local drug sales. It will add 
only one or two officers per precinct to help patrol deputies make drug 
busts, they said. "I'm not sure what one more body is going to do to stop 
the local dealer," said one detective, who asked not to be named. "Right 
now, we target the mid- and upper-level drug dealers that supply these 
little local dealers." Outside skeptics include a King County councilman 
and a member of the Seattle Human Rights Commission. They contend the new 
drug-enforcement strategy will unfairly target the urban poor, who tend to 
be people of color, filling up jails and building resentment in minority 
communities.

"It's an extremely biased public policy that will have very little impact 
on the supply-and-demand side of drugs," warned Councilman Larry Gossett. 
Small-time drug peddlers are typically the ones who get caught, Gossett 
said, because they're easiest to catch. They tend to sell drugs out in 
public in low-income neighborhoods, becoming easy targets for police, he 
said. "If you look at who's in jail in this country for possessing and 
selling drugs, it's the small-time sellers who are African Americans and 
Latinos," Gossett said. "This policy will only further that."

"That's simply not true," countered Urquhart. "We're targeting drug 
dealers, not minorities."

There's little doubt that the war on drugs has taken a disproportionate 
toll on blacks and other minorities in the Puget Sound region and across 
the nation. A six-month Harvard University study released in May found that 
more than half of those arrested in 1999 for drug crimes in Seattle were 
black, although African Americans make up about 8 percent of the city's 
population. Researchers suggested the disparity exists because Seattle 
police emphasize curbing low-level drug sales in open-air markets downtown 
rather than in outlying neighborhoods. They also concluded that police 
focus more on catching small-time sellers who are predominately minorities, 
rather than on predominantly white buyers. Seattle police statistics don't 
translate to the King County Sheriff's Office, Urquhart said.

One reason is that the largely unincorporated area the Sheriff's Office 
patrols has a much smaller minority population, he said. Also, the county's 
local-level drug problems mainly involve dealers selling out of apartments 
and houses, not in open-air markets or on the street.

"What people complain about are the guys in their apartment building 
selling 'rock' (cocaine), not the guy selling a kilo or more," said 
Urquhart, a former narcotics detective. "We have a responsibility to the 
people who are paying our salaries, and they're telling us to go after the 
neighborhood drug problem." That may be true, but Gossett said weeding out 
small-time dealers "doesn't make a dent in the overall problem, because 
they'll easily be replaced by the guy a block over." Tony Granillo, a 
member of the Seattle Human Rights Commission, agreed. "The result will be 
more arrests of low-level suppliers, predominately minority and lower 
income, with little net reduction in the supply of drugs on the street." 
Concentrating on small-scale drug busts is "ineffective," said David Leven, 
deputy director of The Lindesmith Center-Drug Policy Foundation, a New 
York-based drug-policy research group.

Local law enforcement should focus instead on getting dealers and users 
into treatment programs "that reduce demand, and therefore reduce street 
sales," he said. "From a practical standpoint, it doesn't make any sense," 
Leven said. "So are we just supposed to ignore the guy selling rock in the 
neighborhood?" asked Urquhart. "I don't think so."

Judy Duff, a longtime resident of North Highline and president of the North 
Highline Unincorporated Area Council, said her neighborhood south of 
Seattle has been devastated by drugs and needs help.

"It's a very unpleasant place to be when you've got children living next 
door to a doggone meth house," she said.

Duff had only heard bits and pieces of the sheriff's plan. "I don't know if 
this will be the answer or not," she said. "But my concern has always been 
the same. We need help and we need it now. We can't afford to fool around 
anymore."

For years, the Drug Enforcement Unit has targeted major drug suppliers. 
Nine detectives and two sergeants now operate in one centralized team based 
out of the Regional Justice Center in Kent. In precincts, patrol deputies 
respond to reports of neighborhood drug crimes and arrest street pushers. 
Under Reichert's plan, set to take effect in January, one or two members of 
the unit will stay in Kent, two will be shifted to regional drug task 
forces and the remaining detectives will be divided between three 
precincts, Urquhart said. The Sheriff's Office will leave the task of 
catching big-time dealers to a host of other agencies, such as the federal 
Drug Enforcement Administration, the Washington State Patrol and several 
task forces.

Drug Enforcement Unit members will continue to do many of the same duties, 
including responding to meth lab discoveries, which occur about three times 
a week. The bulk of King County's neighborhood drug trade centers in 
Precinct Four -- a largely urban area south of Seattle that includes the 
cities of Burien and SeaTac, and unincorporated neighborhoods, such as Top 
Hat and Boulevard Park. Methamphetamine has eclipsed cocaine and heroin as 
the most prolific illicit drug sold in the county in recent years, although 
all three continue to be sold frequently from homes and apartments at 
neighborhood levels, Urquhart said. It's the constant traffic to and from 
these drug houses, along with peripheral crimes that crop up near them, 
such as prostitution, that define King County's localized drug problems. 
That has led to "neighborhood devastation," more citizen complaints and, 
ultimately, the change in the sheriff's approach, Urquhart said. King 
County Executive Ron Sims supports Reichert's plan and is "confident" it 
will be successful, spokeswoman Elaine Kraft said.

The plan was formed after a six-month internal review of how to better 
fight the drug trade and serve citizens, Urquhart said. Although the 
Sheriff's Office faces more budget cuts this year, the change in philosophy 
is not a budget issue, he insisted. "Of course, not everybody wants to make 
the change," Urquhart said. "Some of these guys have been in that unit 15 
years or more. But this is what the sheriff decided, so that's what we're 
going to do."

P-I reporter Mike Lewis contributed to this report.
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