Forum / Bellwether Voice

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  Henry Standing Bear

  Dec 09, 01:32pm

  I’ve been in office three terms now. Three terms. That’s a lot of years, son, is about all you need to know. I can tell you a lot about what we’re doing with the drug problem in the county. And don’t say that it’s going unchecked again. You hear me?

  We’ve dealt with bootlegging, which is illegal and dealt with marijuana, which is illegal, but this is something where people can go get it legally and put it in their pockets. It’s just something that’s hard to deal with and stop. We have to make a buy. We arrest them all the time driving under the influence of pills. What I’ve done now is several drug buys with an undercover officer. I was the first one in this county that ever done any doctor shopping cases. We’ve done a good deal, too. In fourteen months we had two officers that made over three-hundred undercover buys from about one-hundred sixty people. We got over a hundred charges for doctor shopping and the money was appropriated then by the fiscal court. We lost that, though, and now it’s shoestring and all that, but we’re still at it and at it hard, son. Don’t doubt it. We’ll use recovered drug money. We have been, you know, for buys and such. We also done prescription fraud and false medial records, a total of five-hundred and fifteen in the past, well, hell, I don’t know. A long time. In the not too long past, I had two undercover officers and one ended up in the Attorney General’s office and one went to work for UNITE then I ran out of money. Some deputies will be doing undercover work at parking lots of pain clinics and drug stores, pharmacies and on drug buys. My harping’s done some good and I’ve received some little sum of money from fiscal court to help again with getting it started all over again. Surveillance that seem to be popping up everywhere in the county. Neighboring counties, their going to other states and bringing them back. We’re working with local law enforcement, state and UNITE to help get this under control. I’d say forty to fifty percent of are resources are spent on drug-related problems. It’s a problem we have and it’s a legal problem we have that we’re fighting.

  Yeah we faced different kinds of stuff when I was just starting with the department. I was a deputy sheriff and then it was bootlegging, then it went to marijuana and thousands and thousands of dollars I’ve cut down and thousands and thousands prescription pills I’ve took off the street. It’s something we’re fighting that we have to have money to fight his and work. AG office has been great to work with, the state has been great and local have been great to work with. The task force that we once had, we ran out of funds, we’ve gathered more money. And we need to learn how to educate people as to how addictive this is and we’re working with UNITE on that. To educate the people to not get addicted. I’ve talked to our county DARE program and reach about five-hundred to six-hundred kids a year. I teach them to say no to drugs. I’m going to continue as long as the money is available to every elementary school in the county. Twelve years in office, six-hundred times twelve, do the math. That’s seven thousand kids that I’ve taught since I’ve been in office. We have a graduation and picnic at Dewey Dam. Educate the parents and grandparents to keep their medications locked up. They’re not realizing that their kids are getting in touch with it that way. And there’s old folks giving it out to kids. One old feller I went to church with, even had a cross made of concrete in his front yard was took in two weeks back for it. It’s all gone to the dogs.

  The county attorney said that? Well, it’s true, I’m guess. A lot of arrests made that go on to court are drug-related or some way or another. Some boy breaks into a house to steal things he can sell for drug money and you’ve got a robbery charge on your hands. For all anybody knows it’s just a robbery charge, but we talk to boy and find out he was breaking in and his, you know, motivation or whatever was to get money for drugs. Assault charges against folks, especially elderly folks, most of them family members of the suspects, have some to do with drugs. Just like I was talking about with old folks having medicine around and grandkids going after it and then next thing you know grandma’s on the floor with a broke hand or something.

  Sure it’s an election year. That ain’t now kind of question. You knew that before you asked about it. You got it on your mind the only reason I’m talking to you about this, giving you the numbers and all that, is because I want to get in office again. Okay, then. I just like to know where I stand. So you could care less. That’s about as unfair as I’ve seen in some time, son. What’s it matter if I’m talking to you because I want back in office? How is that important? All this stuff I been telling you went on while I was in mid-term or just elected. You got a lot of imagination for a guy who’s suppose to be smart.

  Yeah I miss days when bootlegging and pot where the only things to worry about. I understand how to get at somebody doing something illegal. All this with the pill mills and so forth so that it’s full legal loop holes. Well, it’s took some hard studying, and I ain’t yet passed the test yet. Don’t write that down. I said don’t write that. There you go. Thanks.

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