Council endorses drug team renewal

Published 9:46 pm Tuesday, May 13, 2008

By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
Dowagiac City Council Monday night endorsed a drug enforcement renewal millage Cass County commissioners April 17 placed on the Aug. 5 primary ballot.
The .4805 mill is expected to generate $796,124 the first of four years.
City Police Chief Tom Atkinson and Sheriff Joe Underwood first asked the county to put a drug enforcement millage before voters in 2004.
Voters approved a half-mill for four years – 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 – to fund the city-county drug enforcement team that addressed the growing methamphetamine problem.
The .4805 mill is 48.05 cents per $1,000 assessed against the taxable value of real and personal property for four more years – 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011.
City Council action came after a drug team progress report presented by Det. Sgt. David Toxopeus.
The first year, 2005, the Cass County Drug Enforcement Team, or CCDET, opened 300 cases, arrested 204 people on 334 charges, seized narcotics with a street value of $1,248,824.62 and confiscated $60,000 in cash and property.
Toxopeus, an 18-year veteran, said the numbers show CCDET has made "Cass County, which ranked No. 3 in Michigan in 2005, the wrong place to cook meth. We have fallen out of the top 10. We've busted 22 operational meth labs – the lab was active when we showed up. We've had 38 meth components labs, where we show up and the cook has just finished and we have to call a clean-up crew" to dispose of the hazardous waste.
Certified crews are summoned from Grand Rapids, Rockford, Ill., even Ohio.
Already in 2008 there have been four labs taken down and two clean-ups.
One dump site encompassed 10 meth cooks "and we're finding them on the side of the road," he said.
Forty-children have been referred to the state Department of Human Services (DHS) due to CCDET narcotics investigations.
Another 40 children have been removed from homes where narcotics trafficking was present.
"Eighty-eight children in three years, five months. We're really putting a burden on DHS," Toxopeus said.
The drug team has removed 343 weapons, including assault rifles, sawed-off shotguns, handguns and silencers. "We've come across everything," he said.
In 2002, 2003 and 2004, "Burglaries were way up," Toxopeus said. "There were close to 340 every year. The first year we made 204 arrests. The second year we made 160 arrests. In 2007, we didn't make as many arrests" and burglaries shot back up to 296.
The drug team readjusted its focus back to street-level enforcement because "when our arrests are up, burglaries are down," he said. "When we make drug arrests, people don't commit crime. It's as simple as that."
By the numbers, 639 cases have been opened, 579 people have been arrested on 1,124 charges – 913 of them felonies – and narcotics with a $2,971,744.73 street value have been removed from the county while cash and property seizures total $621,292.16.
Out of the 579 people arrested, Toxopeus said 43 have been repeat offenders. "It's new people," he said.
Atkinson said the county maintains the $621,292.16 apart from either the Sheriff's Office or the city police force.
There are federal and state laws dictating how that money can be spent, including a portion for education.
"We also tackle treatment," Atkinson said. "Making arrests and taking drugs off the streets is important, but treatment is also a component. We address that with treatment programs in jail, particularly with methamphetamine. That wasn't available in the past. Also, a lot of our cases are handled in federal court through the DEA and FBI. We try to get the biggest bang for the buck."
"The team formed to go after street dealers," Toxopeus said, "but this drug millage gives us the opportunity to go above the street dealers now that we have more experience and knowledge. We get guys with no jobs, who haven't filed income tax in 10 years, and they're living in a $400,000 house and driving an $80,000 Mercedes Benz. We're actually chasing those people now and we've had great success grabbing them and prosecuting them in federal court."
"There are 100 different ways to (make meth)," Toxopeus said, "but you have to have ephedrine. Addicts go around to stores on a daily basis 'Smurfing,' buying one box here, one box there. Even though they're showing their driver's license," they accumulate a quantity of cold medication which they trade to meth cooks for small amounts of drugs.
"We're really starting to focus on prescription drugs, which have been there all the time," he said. "They are probably the most abused narcotics out there."