STATE POLICE GET SPECIAL TRAINING TO SPOT SMUGGLING IN BIG RIGS

A program begun 15 years ago to help California police stop cocaine
smugglers has come to Pennsylvania, where 110 state troopers were
being trained to find everything from drugs to dirty bombs in
commercial trucks.

The three-day training session is called "Desert Snow" - so named
because it originally targeted those who trafficked drugs in
California's Mojave Desert. It runs through Wednesday at the State
Farm Show Complex in Harrisburg, Pa.

"Especially since 9/11, you're looking for secret compartments in
vehicles, especially in trucks," said Pennsylvania State Police
spokesman Jack Lewis. "They can be hiding drugs, weapons, counterfeit
items - whatever."

Desert Snow focuses on commercial vehicles, so it complements a
program Pennsylvania began a year ago that focuses on contraband
carried in passenger vehicles.

Though critics have said such programs can lead to racial profiling
and other abuses, Joe David, the retired California Highway Patrol
officer who started Desert Snow 15 years ago, said profiling is
counterproductive.

"If you get locked into a profile, then you'll be successful for a
short period of time - but there are all sorts of breeds of cats out
there smuggling drugs," David said.

David's approach is to train officers to make high volumes of vehicle
stops for legal reasons - traffic violations and the like - and then
look for suspicious behavior or other clues that give police probable
cause to search a vehicle. Those can range from irregularities in
shipping paperwork to vehicle modifications to how a driver is acting.

"Every parent would know this: If you talk to your kids often enough,
you'll know when they're lying and not lying - and you can tell
during a traffic stop, too," David said.

David's program, which is being paid for by a federal grant in
Pennsylvania, has become more in demand since the Sept. 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks.

"In the Oklahoma City bombing, it was eight barrels (worth of
explosives) in the back of a commercial vehicle," David said. "You
could put 40 times the amount that went into the Oklahoma City
bombing into the back of some of these vehicles."

On Tuesday, the Pennsylvania troopers were split into groups
searching six commercial rigs that have been modified to hide 30,000
pounds of simulated narcotics, explosives and dirty bombs in various locations.

David has seen watermelons hollowed out and used to carry drugs.

"I've seen false trailer walls, trailer floors, to contraband hidden
within the 40,000 pounds of legitimate lettuce or whatever cargo is
being shipped," David said.