MCSO, Warren Police Department create drug crime task force

MACOMB COUNTY — If there is anything criminals care less about than the law, it is jurisdictional boundaries.

In order to more effectively combat drug crime across Macomb County, the Warren Police Department has been given countywide jurisdiction from the Macomb County Sheriff’s Office as part of a narcotics task force.

“Collaboration and working together strengthens the law enforcement community and I believe makes our community safer,” Sheriff Anthony Wickersham said. “Over the years, we’ve participated in and still do participate in many multijurisdictional task forces … Combining our resources and putting law enforcement together to attack and deal with certain issues throughout the community, I believe, is the best practice in law enforcement today.”

Under the terms of the collaboration announced in October, the two departments are able to strengthen their existing ties through sharing surveillance and intelligence as part of coordinated enforcement operations against suspected narcotics criminals.

“It’s a force multiplier,” Wickersham said. “We’ve had sheriff’s deputies here. The benefit now that the Warren officers have is they’ve been deputized, so they now have jurisdiction throughout the county. Things that are going on in Warren will be handled by our task force with members of the sheriff’s office and Warren officers. Whether we’re going into Macomb Township or going up to Richmond or going down to Eastpointe, we’re all going to be able to work together and investigate these crimes throughout the county.”

Warren Police Commissioner Eric Hawkins said the idea for the collaboration came from a meeting between the two agencies.

“We started having discussions with high-ranking members of the Macomb County Sheriff’s department about some of the challenges that they’re seeing countywide and some of the challenges that we’re seeing within the city of Warren and a lot of our challenges aligned,” he said.

Both departments were seeing an increase in narcotics activity, including overdose deaths, which brought about the idea to work together in an attempt to curb it.

“We thought that it would be a great idea for the two largest law enforcement agencies in the county to combine and form a unit that was devoted to addressing narcotics complaints, both countywide and in the city of Warren,” Hawkins said.

Hawkins said the collaboration would address drug-related problems by having officers from the Warren Police Department work with deputies from the county to identify problems and share resources. While his officers would work mainly within the geographical boundaries of Warren, they would also be available to help in other parts of the county, including in instances that they think might lead to problems in Warren, he said.

Hawkins said there are currently two detectives from the department working with the task force. No additional personnel was needed, meaning the program operates at no additional cost to the city of Warren.

Since the inception of the task force, Hawkins said they have already seen a number of arrests and have been able to develop cases against other alleged offenders. On Nov. 25, officers with the task force, including Warren police K-9 Argo, assisted the St. Clair County Sheriff’s Office in locating 177 kilograms of cocaine at the Blue Water Bridge.

According to a St. Clair County press release, the seizure involved officers from the Port Huron Police Department, St. Clair County Sheriff’s Office, Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection, the Warren Police Department, Ontario Provincial Police and Canada Border Services Agency.

“Thank you to the law enforcement officers involved in this case for their dedication to disrupting the dispersal of narcotics into the community,” St. Clair County Sheriff Mat King said in a statement. “The St. Clair County Sheriff’s Office prioritizes community safety and multi-jurisdictional task forces allow departments to achieve more by combining skills, resources and knowledge.”

The task force with the Warren Police Department is not the first such program undertaken by the Macomb County Sheriff’s Office. The Macomb Auto Theft Squad investigates a number of automobile related crimes across the county including carjackings, stolen vehicles, chop shops, odometer fraud, insurance fraud and more. Member departments of the Macomb Auto Theft Squad include the Macomb County Sheriff’s Office, Center Line Public Safety Department, Clinton Township Police Department, Roseville Police Department and Sterling Heights Police Department. A full-time assistant county prosecutor is assigned to the team as well.

Beyond auto thefts, Wickersham is also working to find the budget to establish a crime suppression unit that would use both county and community-level law enforcement resources.

“Once we can get that approved and get that unit up and running, that crime suppression unit would target the crimes that are going on anywhere here in Macomb County,” Wickersham said. “Whether it’s business (breaking and entering,) armed robberies, home invasions, (the unit would) develop suspects and stakeout areas and try and suppress crime here in Macomb County.”

The drug task force is described by the sheriff as “kind of like a pilot” program with results reviewed every six months or so, but Wickersham is positive about how the program has been working out.

“From what I’m getting from feedback from the personnel, it’s working out great,” Wickersham said. “The police officers that Warren sent are excellent officers and great investigators, jumping right in with our staff. They’re working good cases and things are happening.”