A joint drug task force with officers from both the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office and the Columbus Police Department has officially formed and is already making arrests in Lowndes County.
Two CPD officers joined four county officers already part of the LCSO’s narcotics unit on Thursday, narcotics commander Capt. Archie Williams said Friday.
In just the first two days of the task force becoming active, the unit made three arrests, including one for cocaine and one for intimidating a state’s witness, Williams said.
“We’re a pretty aggressive unit,” Williams said. “We look forward to having the PD guys assigned here and getting into the city and … getting involved in the street level stuff and hopefully deterring some of this violent crime and robberies that they’re having. We do a good job in the county, and I think we’re going to bring it on into the city.”
Lowndes County Sheriff Mike Arledge and Columbus Mayor Robert Smith agreed to the partnership at the end of January as part of a joint effort to combat drugs in the county.
“This is the most significant action we have accomplished during my service as mayor to make Columbus safer for us all,” Smith said in a statement released to The Dispatch. “The combined Drug Task Force has tools and personnel available … that can assist in this important work. The cause of many crimes in Columbus is rooted in illegal drug use, and this task force will work daily on these issues.”
The two CPD officers will receive on-the-job training over at least a couple of months, Williams said. Following their training, the CPD will send two more new officers to the task force, bringing the total number of officers in the unit to eight.
“After these guys get trained up, we’ll put a request in for the other two,” Williams said.
A previous joint task force between LCSO and CPD was disbanded in 2012 after Arledge and then-CPD Chief Selvain McQueen disagreed over the hiring of CPD officer Eric Lewis as the sixth officer for the unit. At the time, part of the agreement between the two agencies was that both the CPD chief and the sheriff would both appoint officers to the task force.
Williams said that probably won’t be a problem going forward because he and Arledge will have final say over who gets appointed to the task force.
“The city, the chief of police and the mayor talked it over and pretty much put the entire control in our hands,” he said. “Decision-making and things like that falls on the sheriff and (me). I think it’s going to run better that way.”
CPD Chief Oscar Lewis submitted a list of about 10 names of interested CPD officers to LCSO. Williams and Arledge interviewed each of the candidates before choosing the final two.
Lewis said he chose the officers based on experience and interest in drug investigations.
“I’m ready for them to get out there and help them curb crime in the city,” he said.
Though part of one unit, CPD officers in the unit are paid by the city, while LCSO officers will be county employees.
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