Source:   The StarLedger, april 10,1997
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Lowlevel drug dealers are now a high priority

By William Kleinknecht 

STARLEDGER STAFF

  In a dramatic shift in its local drugfighting role, the U.S. Drug 
Enforcement Administration is teaming up with state and local police to crack 
down on violent streetlevel dealers in New Jersey's largest cities, according 
to officials.

  The effort to put local, state and federal investigators side by side in 
tracking drug gangs has had success in other states but has never been 
embraced in New Jersey, in part because of institutional rivalries and the 
state's lack of a large central city, according to federal and state 
officials.

  But with Attorney General Janet Reno pressing federal law enforcement 
agencies to assist cities in dealing with drugrelated violence, the DEA's 
field office in Newark has begun forging new links with other agencies in the 
state.

  The field office recently moved to new quarters on Newark's Raymond 
Boulevard, partly to make room for a large office that could accommodate 
investigators from Newark, Jersey City, Paterson and other cities now working 
out of the DEA office.

  "It is sort of community policing at the federal level," said John Coleman, 
special agent in charge of the DEA's Newark office. "We are embarking on a 
strategy that says it is most effective to attack the distribution level of 
drug trafficking, rather than the wholesale level."

  Across the country, the effort to enlist the DEA in confronting streetlevel 
drug dealing has provoked criticism from some experts who believe the agency 
is better suited for its traditional role of investigating drug importers and 
highlevel wholesale distributors.

  But the streetlevel emphasis has captured the imagination of Reno and other 
toplevel law enforcement officials in Washington. Most notable among them is 
DEA Director Thomas Constantine, who has created 19 squads of specially 
trained agents  known as mobile enforcement teams  that sweep into cities 
and help local authorities clean up neighborhoods plagued by drug violence.

  Underpinning the effort is the belief that years of investigation of high
level drug kingpins has had little impact on the nation's drug problems. By 
contrast, crackdowns on streetlevel gangs are seen as rescuing individual 
communities from the ravages of fear and gunfire.

  "If you can drive the dealing indoors and lower the level of gunfire, it is 
a great triumph, even if you haven't changed the overall volume of sales," 
said Mark Kleinman, a UCLA professor, who has advised the Clinton 
administration on drug control.

  The concept arrived in New Jersey in early 1995, when the DEA sent a mobile 
enforcement team into Camden to help deal with drugrelated violence that had 
sharply increased the city's murder rate.

  Over a period of about three months, DEA agents working with Camden police 
and several other law enforcement agencies made more than 200 arrests and, 
according to Coleman and others, sharply curtailed streetlevel dealing in the 
city.

  The enforcement team has since joined local authorities in crackdowns in 
Asbury Park and Paterson and is gearing up for a major assault on street 
dealing in Newark, the state's largest and most crimeridden city. Coleman 
said the DEA is also considering four or five other cities, including Jersey 
City.

  The DEA had been hesitant to enter into a partnership with Newark while the 
department was headed by former Police Director William Celester, who pleaded 
guilty to corruption charges last year, Coleman said. But he said the DEA has 
confidence in Celester's successor, Joseph Santiago, and the two agencies have 
begun to expand cooperation.

  The DEA's new emphasis on street activity has shown up in its arrest 
figures. The number of DEA arrests increased from 629 in 1995 to 981 last 
year. But because of the focus on lowlevel sales, many of the cases have not 
been suitable for federal prosecution and have ended up in state court.

  One of the keys to the streetlevel assaults is cooperation between 
agencies, Coleman said. While the DEA has long participated in multiagency 
task forces in New York, Detroit, Boston and other cities, New Jersey's lack 
of a major city has hindered its use here.

  Law enforcement in New Jersey is broken up among 21 counties and hundreds of 
municipalities, each with their own rivalries. And local investigators have 
sometimes had strained working relationships with federal agencies, often 
grumbling that the DEA and FBI want police help on cases but refuse to share 
their own information.

  Coleman, a career DEA official who was appointed to head the Newark field 
office in October 1994, is credited by State Police and local departments for 
improving the relationship between the agency and local drug investigators.

  When he came on the job, the State Police and the state Attorney General's 
Office were about to withdraw from a task force funded under the federal High 
Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, state officials say. New Jersey's 
HIDTA had been funded for several years but was making few meaningful cases, 
in part because of resentment on the part of state investigators at the way 
DEA was controlling the program Coleman said.

  Coleman persuaded the state to stay by agreeing to make them equal partners 
in the program. HIDTA has since grown from 10 to 50 investigators. The 
investigators are drawn from the state's five northern counties, six federal 
agencies and the two state agencies. It is now investigating 40 violent drug
trafficking organizations, said John Delesio, a detective sergeant first class 
with the State Police and deputy commander of the task force.
  
  Lt. Howard Butt, head of the State Police narcotics and organized crime 
bureau, welcomed the DEA's new approach to fighting streetlevel dealing and 
said his agency is also expanding contacts with other agencies.
      
  "The entire law enforcement community has recognized that to have the 
greatest impact on the drug problem, the key ingredient is cooperation," he 
said. "And the climate for that cooperation is better than it has been for a 
long time."