Ohio State House                                            February 14, 2001
Attn: Senator Scott Oelslager
Senate Building
Columbus, Ohio 43215

Dear Senator Oelslager,

On September 14, 2000, the Ohio State Highway Patrol announced plans to disband its highly successful drug interdiction teams. I am deeply troubled by this, and would like to know how a unit that has served with distinction, honor, and professionalism became such a liability that it had to be destroyed.

The main reason given for abolishment revolves around the racial profiling issue. A secondary reason, and one as invalid as the first, deals with a belief among upper patrol management that every state trooper can become effective at criminal interdiction. Both issues are dealt with in-depth in the attached examination of the issues.

I write this letter based on a distinctly unique view of the traffic and drug interdiction teams, their impact on the Highway Patrol, their effectiveness in fighting criminal activity along Ohio roadways, and their protection of the citizens of this state. I have been a post trooper, an interdiction trooper (joining when the teams were first formed in 1992), a supervisor of interdiction troopers, and finally served as Coordinator of the drug interdiction teams while a Lieutenant in Columbus. After an almost one year voluntary hiatus from the patrol, I returned in October, 2000, as a post trooper, to find that the unit responsible for seizing more illegal drugs than every other law enforcement agency in Ohio combined was being disbanded.

The OSP drug teams have seized more than two hundred million dollars ($200,000,000.00) worth of illegal drugs. Over thirty thousand pounds of marijuana, cocaine, and other drugs never reached their intended victims. That total does not include the over eleven million dollars ($11,000.000.00) in drug related currency, the millions in untaxed cigarettes, or the recovered stolen property with values ranging in the millions as well. Nor does it include investigations that resulted in the arrest and conviction of at least six murder suspects, none of who had been identified by law enforcement prior to the OSP traffic stop. One investigation even discovered a suspected serial killer. Hundreds of stolen cars have been recovered and countless felony (for crimes ranging from murder to sexual assault to armed robbery to white collar crime) and misdemeanor warrants have been served. All of this in addition to the thousands of criminal cases for lesser offenses.

The highway patrol has not been alone in its efforts to interdict the flow of drugs destined for Ohio. According to the El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC), the federal agency responsible for the storage and dissemination of information about smugglers and their organizations, there have been over seven hundred significant drug and money seizures destined for Ohio that were made by non-Ohio police agencies during the last ten years. These cases resulted in the destruction of almost seventy thousand pounds of marijuana and almost 4,500 pounds of cocaine. These figures do not reflect the other drugs or currency that were seized. Although numbers can be overwhelming, the following number is telling...the seized marijuana would have made a minimum of sixty two million marijuana cigarettes.

In addition, there have been over 225 major drug and currency cases that originated in Ohio, were destined to other states, and were seized by non-Ohio police organizations. The currency alone amounted to almost $11,000,000.00 (eleven million dollars). Not only is Ohio a major destination for drugs, it is a major distributor as well.

If every state were to follow the lead of the Ohio Highway Patrol and do away with interdiction efforts, all of the drugs that could have been seized would now flow unimpeded into and out of the state.

According to a federal cost effectiveness analysis, an undercover officer working street level drug buys will seize one gram of cocaine for every $272.00 spent by law enforcement. In comparison, the efforts of one roadway interdiction officer who seizes the same gram of cocaine would result in a cost to taxpayers of seventeen cents (.17). This is because roadway interdiction results in the seizure of large amounts of drugs during a single traffic stop. This comparison does not mean street level work is unimportant. To the contrary, it is as vital to the multi-prong law enforcement approach as roadway interdiction and border patrol activities.

There is a hierarchy in the importance of criminal offenses. Without doubt, the single most important case a police officer can become involved with is a murder investigation.

Under that in importance, but right up there in significance, is the location, apprehension, and destruction of criminal cells operating within the state and country. Chief among these is the drug trafficking network, a sophisticated multi-national entity that can employ hundreds, even thousands, of people to carry out its illegal activities.

The Ohio Highway Patrol is deliberately de-emphasizing the need to locate and destroy these networks. Instead, all criminal offenses are to be treated with equal importance. In other words, troopers are now encouraged to give the same level of importance to finding a gram of marijuana or a small amount of cocaine as they would a hundred pounds of drugs.

When did organized efforts to interdict drug couriers become wrong?Bluntly, it became wrong when the accusations of racial profiling began to surface. It became, as one Ohio Highway Patrol Assistant Superintendent put it, wrong for any state to have organized drug interdiction efforts. Active teams dedicated to drug related work became synonymous with racial profiling.

Senator, I have been accused of racial profiling. Every police officer across this country, regardless of their race, has been accused of racial profiling. That, unfortunately, is part and parcel of this job. Police officers must be some of the most masochistic people to ever live. How else can we explain why we work at a job where we are caught between the hammer and the anvil...between management and the people we have sworn to protect. The public has, and probably always will have, a healthy distrust of authority figures, most notably politicians, but no less so the people charged with law enforcement duties. We are viewed with a combination of respect, hate, admiration, fear, and a myriad other emotions that sometimes bring congratulations but just as often bring condemnation. The charge of racial profiling is just one of many we have learned to live with.

We commit a serious breach of our vow to protect the public when we stop pursuing criminals based on the possibility we may be sued for alleged racial profiling and civil rights violations.

There is some misconception, among law enforcement certainly, but also among members of the media, the public, and the legislators of this country, that the minority outcry against racial profiling is somehow a cry for the abolishment of drug interdiction efforts. That is simply not true. The people of color in this country want the drug problem to be solved. They want their children to grow up in safe communities, free to walk down the streets in daylight or dark without fear of being accosted by criminals, able to live out their dreams and hopes just like everyone else. The people of color in this country simply want the police to go about solving these problems without targeting them because of racial differences. They do not want to be stopped because they are black, or Hispanic, or Asian, or whatever the pigmentation of their skin.

And they have that right. And we in law enforcement have the obligation to not only discourage racial profiling, but the duty to prosecute those who engage in it. We also have an obligation, sworn to by oath, to protect the citizens of Ohio and this country.

The Ohio State Highway Patrol has never taught racial profiling. The officers of the Traffic and Drug Interdiction Teams, who have been black, Hispanic, white, female, male, young, and old, do not engage in racial profiling. There has never been a single officer within the division, and notably, within interdiction, who has ever been found to be profiling illegally, regardless of what criteria you look at.

The wind of public opinion is blowing hard against the racial profiling issue. I cannot fault the people of this country for wanting to hold law enforcement to a higher, more exacting standard than our citizens hold even themselves. The work of organizations like the ACLU and the NAACP has brought to light the reality of racial profiling within some departments in this country, and I do not fault them for their efforts. Without watchdog groups like theirs, our country would still be a century behind where we currently stand. They seek to protect just as we in law enforcement seek to protect. They also have their overzealous members, just as some police departments have officers who step beyond the law in pursuit of the criminal element.

There has to be some balance here. Crime rates have apparently dropped within recent years, due in part to better education, harsher sentences, more aggressive interdiction efforts, and programs aimed at rehabilitation. We have seen, after many years, a significant downturn in crime that shows our efforts are paying off.

So why would we stop doing what has proven so successful? The problem is not unique to Ohio. Departments all across the United States are closing their drug interdiction units down. There is an almost rampant fear among police managers that their department is next, that somehow they will be embarrassed, denigrated, and sued for pursuing the people who transport illegal goods across this country. We have collectively opened the roadways to the criminals while burying our heads in the sand. It is a sad commentary that instead of doing the right thing, correcting any problems that may exist, and trudging on in this mostly thankless job, that we instead tuck our tails and run.

Some people in this country call our attempts to combat the drug war misguided. I disagree. Our efforts, however, are hampered by a lack of direction, cohesiveness, and leadership that keeps us from fully fighting the problem. We could bring the problem under control, although we will never eradicate it, if we worked as one large, well-coordinated team. Until then, we will walk down the middle of the road, accepting neither defeat nor striving for victory. By doing so, we send the wrong message to the people we serve.

I have a law enforcement friend in North Carolina who sums up our frustration with these bitter words "Why don’t we take out a full page add in every east coast newspaper and tell the drug runners and other criminals that the roadways in almost every state, Ohio and North Carolina included, are open for you to drive across, courtesy of a government that cannot make up its mind whether to fully battle the drug problem or just give up".

Finally, in the proverbial nutshell, we have the underlying cause of the interdiction problems in this country. The government, at all levels, cannot make up its collective mind about how to address, for once and for all, this problem that has cost so many people their lives.

Every law enforcement agency in the United States stands essentially alone in its efforts to combat drug trafficking and the criminal element. Each state has standards for police training, but not one state has ever created an academy dedicated strictly to the study of major criminal trafficking trends, of all types, and the training of criminal interdiction officers. The federal government has several traveling units that teach interdiction but they can train only so many officers per year. The methods for identifying criminals are taught by a very few highly experienced officers whose methods may differ significantly. Without combining their knowledge to produce a workable approach to finding criminals, we invite exactly the criticism that has been generated. Some officers engage in racial profiling in the mistaken belief that it works.

Maybe it is time someone in the legislature took it upon themselves to ask for the creation of, ideally, a national system of police academies that teach all officers the information they need so they can do their job both legally and effectively. At the very least, someone in the Ohio legislature should propose a state level academy. Standardized training would do away with racial profiling, as well as teaching every officer the most important clues for identifying criminal activity.

Either that, or we in this country finally need to admit defeat. I despise the thought of giving up after so many fine officers, and so many fine people, have died in this war, but maybe we don’t have the fortitude or the courage to give all our resources to combating the problem. Maybe it is time to look fully, long and hard, at other options. When fifty percent of high school students will try marijuana before graduation, maybe it has become so commonplace that we cannot possibly eradicate its use. Legalize it and tax it. Make the smoking age twenty-one. Then either continue the fight against the other drugs, or give up on them as well. It makes me almost ill to write these words. I have seen so much devastation and misery over the years that I know legalization cannot work. I have known an officer who was murdered during an interdiction stop. I know officers who have million dollar bounties on their heads. I have wrestled with men trying to get to guns, and have arrested mothers and fathers who smoke drugs with their children. I have been in foot pursuits with carjackers and drug dealers. I have witnessed addicts beg for help even as they were taken to jail again, and I have seen a woman so devastated by heroin abuse that she looked like a survivor of Auschwitz. I realize we are fighting a losing battle, but still I would do it, because it is the right thing to do.

Whether the people in this country believe it or not, they are served by the finest law enforcement officers in the world. American police officers are almost universally good people with good morals. Bribery and corruption are almost non-existent, and illegal acts by police officers are dealt with swiftly, and as witnessed by past cases, with much media

coverage and public interest. People gravitate to police work in order to help, not to hurt. We will fight this battle if you will let us. We are not afraid to sacrifice for the safety of our friends.

All law enforcement officers put their lives on the line. This fact is sadly borne out by the fifty or more officers killed feloniously each year, and the many more killed in accidents. Drug and criminal interdiction officers are especially susceptible to being murdered because they aggressively look for wrongdoing. I have had members of the public tell me that they do not know how police officers can do their job, it’s so dangerous. I have had countless police officers tell me they don’t know how I can work drug interdiction because it is so dangerous. What does it say about interdiction officers that other officers are afraid to do the same job?

Can all officers become effective criminal interdiction officers, and, just as importantly, do all officers want to? The answer to both of these questions is no. The highway patrol management, however, claims that every trooper can become a generalist.

The issue of generalist versus specialty trooper is addressed in-depth in the attachment. It is secondary to the profiling issue. The only question I will bring up in this letter is this...why are specialty criminal interdiction teams being disbanded while the specialty commercial enforcement unit is being expanded dramatically? If all troopers are to be generalists, then make it so. I can say this with some authority...more people die each year from drug related offenses in the State of Ohio than die in motor vehicle crashes, and especially in commercial vehicle crashes. Commercial vehicle safety and enforcement is vitally important to public safety. But so is actively seeking out the criminals who use our roadways. The drug interdiction team at the height of its manpower had fifty-seven troopers. In recent years the number has been cut steadily until the average number was around thirty. In direct contrast, the commercial vehicle unit has bolstered its manpower to thirty troopers and one hundred uniformed civilians; all empowered to conduct federal inspections. As many as fourteen more troopers will join the unit this fiscal year. The commercial unit is just one of the specialty units that remain within the division. Generalist versus specialist? Our division has over 1,400 troopers. How is utilizing thirty to fifty highly trained personnel, strictly used for traffic enforcement with an emphasis on criminal interdiction, a bad thing?

Just as importantly, why is the division doing away with criminal interdiction positions that were created by the legislature, when the understanding was that the division keeps these people, and seventy other officers as well, only as long as they are used for full time interdiction efforts?

That is why I am writing to you, Senator. If this were simply an internal highway patrol change, then I would undoubtedly be powerless to affect it by bringing it to your

attention. Probably, I am powerless anyway, but I feel very strongly that a terrible mistake is being made that will directly affect the safety of the people of Ohio. It also directly affects the safety of state troopers. You were very instrumental in the development of our program, and very conscious of and interested in our results over the years. Better than anyone else, I believe you understand the impact the interdiction teams have had on this state.

The dissolution of the interdiction teams has left me deeply troubled. I believe I am a fair-minded person, able to look objectively at all sides of an issue before making a decision about it, and a person who values the input of others. I took my time before deciding that, unfortunately, I had to make a complaint against my division. I believe firmly that the Ohio State Highway Patrol is one of the finest law enforcement agencies in the United States, and I have been proud to be a member in its ranks. It pains me greatly to do anything that could bring dishonor onto that division, but I did not swear an oath to protect the highway patrol...I swore an oath to protect the citizens of Ohio and this country. The dissolution of the highway patrol interdiction teams leaves those citizens at great risk.

Prior to making the decision to pursue this matter, I spoke with many people about the issues discussed here. Without exception, whether police, trooper, or civilian, they were all appalled that the division would destroy such a fine unit. As a sign of the respect generated by the drug interdiction units, two separate defense attorney’s voiced their disapproval of the disbanding, as well as their support of our efforts over the years.

I debated long and hard before writing this letter, spending a great deal of time talking to old partners and strangers alike. As I did, I realized that no one else was going to take up this task, that no one else wanted to risk their career, or their future plans. I also came to realize that, like it or not, many officers were looking to me with a simple question in their eyes. Why was the one person who, rightly or wrongly, supposedly symbolizes the success of drug interdiction within the Ohio Highway Patrol standing mute? Why was I doing nothing when my fellow officers are being told that everything I have tried to accomplish over the years has been wrong? I have career plans, a private business, and a desire to continue working in the field of public service after I leave law enforcement, yet I came to the realization that none of these things will mean anything if they are based on a foundation of silence. I realized that, sometimes, standing up for what is right is the hardest thing you will ever do. That makes it no less right, or no less worthy of being done.

I am asking you, Senator, to look into this matter. As I have told many people over the years, do not take my word for what I have told you. Seek out your own sources to either

confirm or refute this information. It is classically American to distrust what you have been told until you can verify it yourself. Please give the matter due consideration before deciding how to proceed. If you decide I am right, then I simply ask that you exert your considerable influence in order to address the situation.

Thank you for your time and your consideration of this matter. Attached is an in-depth report, a computer disk formatted using Microsoft Word 98 (if you wish to send the information via e-mail), as well as a list of other persons who will receive a copy of this letter (because the implications of destroying drug interdiction efforts has nationwide consequences). Finally, I have included a copy of the letter sent to Colonel Morckel concerning this issue.

Sincerely,

Shaun Smart
P.O. Box 234
Eaton, Ohio 45320