SPECIAL UNIT TAKING ITS TOLL ON LOWER-LEVEL DRUG MARKET

It all started about a year ago with the arrest of a mother and son who harbored 21 pieces of crack cocaine in their Cape Girardeau home.

In announcing their arrest, Cape Girardeau Police Chief Howard Boyd Jr. plugged the county's newest weapon in the constant war against drug trade: The Narcotics Enforcement Unit.

Formed May 17, 1993, the NEU is a bi-jurisdictional force, designed to target lower-level drug offenders in the area, who tend to slip through the cracks of drug sweeps conducted by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration or the regional drug task force.

In the past year, officers of the Cape Girardeau Police Department and Cape County Sheriff's Department have made amassed than 60 cases on area drug offenders, and have served more than 20 search warrants.

"They have definitely filled a gap that needed to be filled in local drug investigations," said Cape County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle, the recipient of a great deal of the unit's work. "A lot of the cases they started have turned out to be major cases by the time they are completed.

"The unit has been a rousing success," Swingle said.

The NEU also has received accolades from state and federal agencies it has worked with over the past year.

Cape County Sheriff Norman Copeland praised the efforts and progress of the unit, and the cooperative effort of both departments in finding a mutual solution to the drug problem.

"This unit is one of the most successful programs we've ever instated," said Copeland. "They have made some big, big cases from ones that have started off small."

The officers assigned to the unit -- veteran officers from both law enforcement agencies -- have developed a network of informants, upon whom they rely heavily for the bits of information they piece together to from their cases.

"We also get information from other police officers and other police agencies," said a member of the unit, who asked that his name not be used. "Without the kind of information we received straight off the streets, we couldn't do the job we're doing now."

And the flow of information is steady, he said.

"Society as a whole is fed up with the drugs and the drug dealers," the narcotics officer said. "That is why we've gotten calls from neighbors telling us about their neighbors -- family members calling about other members.

"People just don't want drugs in their neighborhoods, around their homes and at their businesses," he said.

In the past year, work by officers of the NEU has resulted in the arrests of people dealing and possessing drugs, guns and stolen merchandise, and the seizure of several pounds of marijuana growing in outlying areas of the county.

The unit also has joined operations conducted by federal agencies such as the DEA, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the Southeast Missouri Regional Drug Task Force.

"If we uncover something we consider pretty major, we'll call the federal guys in or the drug task force," said the officer. "And in turn, if they need assistance, they know they can call on us any time. It's a two-way street."

Concentrating their efforts in the confines of Cape Girardeau County has given the unit an advantage over larger drug task forces, the officer said.

"We can spend much more time working to make a case," he said. "We can get to know the names, the faces and the nature of the beast we're facing.

"The drug task forces have a wider area they work in, which means they might spend one or two days in each city, trying to make cases on big-time dealers," the officer added. "We are getting these guys on the street-level, who have managed to elude other officers in drug sweeps of the area."

Although members of the unit believe their efforts are leaving a mark on the drug trade in the area, they know they are no where near winning the war.

"We could work the streets 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and there would still be dealers out there we've missed," the officer said. "But we believe we are putting more pressure on the street-level dealers, and the people they are selling to.

"If what we have done in the past year makes just two or three people think, `I don't want to take this chance, because these guys are out looking for us,' then it's working," he said. "If we take away some of the demand, then we'll end up screwing up the suppliers."