I would like to offer my congratulations to the 10th Judicial Drug Task Force, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this month. The 10th District, which covers Bradley, Polk, McMinn and Monroe counties, operates under the guidance of a board of directors and District Attorney General R. Steven Bebb, and I am proud to serve on the DTF board along with other area sheriffs and chiefs of police. 

Our own BCSO drug unit has worked closely with the DTF and other area drug units over the years to effectively stem the flow of illegal narcotics into and through Bradley County, as well as the entire 10th District.
 
As a voting board member of the DTF, I recently joined with other board members in a decision to share some of the DTF drug proceeds among the nine district law enforcement member agencies that help support the DTF through annual fees and services. The BCSO is pleased to have received a one-time $50,000 grant from those DTF proceeds and we will put the money to good use in our own drug program. A ceremony was held at the Hampton Inn in Athens on Thursday (March 27, 2008) to dispense a total of $450,000 among the nine member agencies.
 
The DTF is the second largest multi-jurisdictional drug unit in Tennessee with 16 full-time agents. Typically, units like the DTF only have a life span of three to five years. For this unit to have operated, and operated so successfully, for 20 years is commendable.
 
The BCSO drug unit has enjoyed a close working relationship with many area drug units and we look forward to maintaining these relationships for many years to come. It is through these cooperative efforts that law enforcement is most effective and I will continue to advocate for this type of cooperation as long as I am sheriff.
 
Also, this week, I would like to extend my congratulations to BCSO Deputy Doug Towne, who traveled to Washington D.C. recently as part of a select team which participated in a focus group discussing the successful Safe Schools/Healthy Students Initiative (SS/HS) program in Bradley County.

I have always encouraged cooperative efforts between various law enforcement agencies in our area.  We are all on the same team, so to speak, and it takes everyone working together to keep our community and neighboring communities safe. That’s why I am pleased that the Bradley County Sheriff’s Office will be joining forces with the Cleveland Police Department in the Homeland Security District 3 Explosive Ordinance Device Team.

Homeland Security’s District 3 is a 10-county region that will be served by two “bomb squads.” One team will consist of members from the Chattanooga Police Department and the second team will be made of Cleveland police officers and BCSO deputies. The BCSO and the CPD have a rich history of cooperative efforts and we are looking forward to this latest endeavor.

The two BCSO deputies selected to join this team are Kevin Whitaker and Daniel Marlow. Both these men gained valuable experience with explosive material and ordinance, as well as improvised explosive devices (IEDs), while serving in the U.S. military, domestically and abroad.

Deputy Whitaker is a former Marine who served in Kosovo. He has received extensive training through the U.S. Marine Corps, the U.S. Army and the Dutch Army in such areas as identification and deactivation of explosive devices in urban environments, and is familiar with the handling of a wide variety of explosive devices. He has been a tremendous asset to the BCSO and will certainly add greatly to the District 3 team.

Deputy Marlowe is also a military veteran who served with the U.S. Army in Mosul Iraq. While there, he was assigned to a base defense team as a first responder to unexploded and exploded ordinance. He has proven, hands-on training and experience as a first responder to IEDs and unexploded ordinance fired at their base under extremely hostile conditions.

 I read a couple of articles this past week in the Cleveland Daily Banner that interested me. The articles focused on the growing population of Cleveland/Bradley and the increased demand for services that a growing population demands. The articles offered further proof to support what I have been to saying since I took office in September of 2006. That is, Bradley County has one of the fast growing populations in Tennessee, and the BCSO must be competitive in terms of salary, equipment and manpower if we hope to keep up with the news of our growing population.

One of the Banner articles stated, “Population and industrial growth is a big topic in Cleveland, Bradley County and the Southeast Tennessee/North Georgia region. Residential growth is impacting the housing market, local school systems, area roads and highways and even recreation programs.

Law enforcement and public safety could have easily been included on that list. But it goes without saying that when the population increases, calls for service will increase and the potential for criminal activity will increase, and meeting those increased demands will require more equipment, training and manpower.