Pubdate: Mon, 28 Jul 2003
Source: Daily Post-Athenian (TN)
Copyright: 2003 East Tennessee Network - R.A.I.D. (Regionalized Access
Internet
Contact:  http://dpa.xtn.net/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1673
Author: Ben Benton
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

MCMINN SHERIFF: 'NO END IN SIGHT' TO METH PROBLEM

EDITOR'S NOTE: Methamphetamine laboratories seem to be found almost
everywhere now. Once isolated to extremely rural areas, police officers are
finding the labs filled with hazardous chemicals set up almost everywhere
now, from residential neighborhoods to motel rooms and even inside cars and
boats. Over the next several days, The Daily Post-Athenian examines the
dangers and harmful effects this drug epidemic is having various segments of
our communities. . Methamphetamine blossomed in the western United States
several years ago and began a cross-country march eastward, finally arriving
in Tennessee in 1999.

As the following year passed, meth spread, west to east, across the state
like a plague.

McMinn County Sheriff Steve Frisbie says there's "no end in sight" to the
problem of methamphetamine now that it's established in McMinn County.

McMinn County authorities have raided around 60 meth labs since then, and so
far this year, have already surpassed the number of labs raided last year.

McMinn County's first contact with methamphetamine in its current form came
in the summer of 2000.

Then-McMinn County Sheriff's Deputy Penny Alexander, now Athens Police
Officer Penny Richardello, answered a call Aug. 5, 2000, at a home off
Highway 68 near the Loudon County line on a "911 hangup," a call routinely
investigated by officers when the caller doesn't respond to dispatchers.

Richardello arrived and saw children looking out the front window. She began
knocking on the door, but couldn't get anyone to answer.

After trying a back door, she found an open side door. As she began to
enter, a man appeared and Richardello explained why she was there.

After receiving permission to come inside, Richardello began looking for the
children she saw looking out the front window.

As she looked for the children, Richardello noted in her report that she saw
bags of trash sitting around, a white powdered substance on counter tops,
Mason jars filled with a clear liquid with a white substance in the bottom,
and sinks, tubs and toilets in the home were inoperable and filled with
trash.

What the deputy was seeing was the county's first methamphetamine lab.

Frisbie said last Wednesday the two men arrested in that first meth lab were
among the first "cookers" to arrive here.

The suspects arrested, Frisbie said, "were among the original meth cooks to
enter our county out of Meigs County.

"These two subjects alone are responsible for teaching approximately 10
other people how to cook, based on past investigations of other cooks."

Frisbie said the first labs were new to investigators and the task of
processing them took as long as 16 hours.

TBI Special Agent Brian Freeman helped McMinn County authorities with the
operation and so began the educational process for deputies.

Frisbie and Meigs Sheriff Walter Hickman said there are now few deputies or
officers anywhere in East Tennessee who have not had contact with a
methamphetamine lab.

Within 30 days of the first meth lab being discovered, two meth labs were
found at a McMinn County flea market near Sweetwater. According to Frisbie,
a "grandfather," from Grundy County, was charged in connection with that
find. Frisbie said a "grandfather" refers to a cooker who brings his
meth-making skills to a new area and the man is said to have operated meth
labs in Grundy County before coming to McMinn County.

Processing the lab was another extended exercise and officers still lacked
proper equipment for dealing with meth labs, Frisbie said.

Acting on the evidence that methamphetamine was establishing a stronghold in
McMinn County, Frisbie began seeking to get some of his officers certified
to process the labs and the Sheriff's Department became part of the
newly-formed Southeast Tennessee Methamphetamine Task Force.

Detective Sgt. Ben Graves, Sgt. Bill Farmer and Drug Officer B.J. Johnson
now make up the officers currently certified to process meth labs, according
to Frisbie.

Frisbie said he just recently applied to send five more of his deputies for
STMTF instruction to become certified, bringing the number of officers who
can process the labs to eight.

He said he hopes to split those eight officers into two teams to help
increase pressure on the meth lab operators while giving a little breathing
room to the officers who've been heading meth lab investigations since 2000.

The officers Frisbie hopes to get certified are First Lt. Freddie Schultz,
Det. Sgt. Gary Miller and deputies Richard Robinson, Guy McGill and Shane
Harrold. All five already have some experience with methamphetamine
investigations through their work with the Sheriff's Department's Drug
Arrest Response Team.

Frisbie said with more meth-certified officers, his department won't become
short-staffed when an officer goes on vacation or, as has happened recently,
is called away to military duty.

"We want to have enough officers to deal with the problem without burning
out," he said. "We average at least one lab a week and the officers also
have their regular duties to think about."

In the same vein of seeking preparedness, Frisbie said construction of a
small facility for decontamination has begun at the McMinn County Justice
Center.

Frisbie plans to build a small, 8-by-10-foot, fiberglass building, heated,
plumbed and outfitted with a shower, specifically aimed at decontaminating
suspects, officers, children and any others who have come in contact with a
meth lab.

He said drainage from the shower will be stored in a holding well, then
pumped into a stainless steel container to be picked up by hazardous
materials companies.

The building itself, a small storage-type structure, was purchased from
Lowe's at a reduced price, the shower stall was donated by Wholesale Supply
Group, and the stainless steel tank was provided by Seaton Iron and Metal at
no cost. Other costs of the facility will be paid for out of the Sheriff's
Department's drug fund, he said.

Frisbie said he believes the key, now, to ridding the county of
methamphetamine production is education of the public.

The DPA will be publishing a series of articles focusing on the
methamphetamine problem, outlining signs of meth use and meth lab
operations, the costs to the community and educating the newspaper's
readership about a plague every officer in the region believes is by far the
worst drug to rear its head yet.
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