By Cary Snyder
The Wyoming Tribune-Eagle
CHEYENNE, Wyo. — In an effort to devote more manpower to solving drug crimes within the city, Cheyenne police are adding a detective to their narcotics unit and reassigning drug officers who assist state and federal agencies.
Traditionally, between two and four city police officers investigated drug cases. When the Drug Enforcement Administration opened a building about 18 months ago on Airport Parkway, the agency set up a coalition of multiple police agencies to pursue crimes in southeast Wyoming, Cheyenne Police Chief Bob Fecht said.
DEA provided the office space, but individual agencies still had to pay for personnel, the chief said. City police currently have a supervisor, a narcotics detective and one task force officer who work out of the DEA building. Fecht said the arrangement has led to problems in adequately pursuing local drug crimes.
“What’s happened over the last six to nine months, everybody has started working nothing but DEA cases and we couldn’t get local stuff worked,” he said.
Last month, he said the city had to pay more than 40 hours in overtime because one drug officer was working on a federal wire tap.
“That’s a lot of money for working a wire tap that isn’t really 100 percent local based,” Fecht said.
As a result, he said he decided to pull the supervisor and narcotics detective out of the DEA co-location and reassign the officers to working local cases. One city task force officer will still work out of the DEA building.
The new assignments are effective Jan. 1.
In addition, a second detective will be added to the city’s narcotics unit, a move Fecht said is possible because for the first time in at least 10 and maybe 20 years, city police are fully staffed with 106 officers.
“We have never actually had every position filled,” he said.
With one task-force officer still assigned to the DEA building, Fecht said the city will continue to assist the more wide-ranging investigations of DEA and the state Department of Criminal Investigation.
The chief added that DEA is trying to form a regional task force which the federal agency would fund, but that has yet to get approval from Washington, D.C.
Copyright 2007 Wyoming Tribune-Eagle