NARCOTICS UNIT ALL ABOUT TEAMWORK

When the towns of Lamar and Society Hill decided to form a narcotics
unit with the larger Darlington Police Department, it wasn't just to
give the smaller departments more manpower to knock out their towns'
drug activity.

"I see it as an opportunity to help them, but also to help us" when
Darlington's narcotics unit needs help, Darlington Police Chief Jay Cox said.

The six-member team targets street-corner drug dealing and works
undercover informants, Cox said.

And the team doesn't focus on just one place; it weaves itself
throughout the three municipalities.

Its officers go where the problems are, whether that's Darlington,
with about 6,700 residents, or Society Hill or Lamar, which have
nearly one-sixth of Darlington's population.

During its first six weeks, in all three municipalities, the
narcotics team made 10 arrests, served nine warrants and two search
warrants, and wrote eight tickets.

The metro narcotics team began when the police chiefs signed
multijurisdictional agreements just more than seven weeks ago.

The team's biggest benefit has been "cooperation between the three
towns - pure and simple," Cox said. "It's a team effort, not an
individual effort."

Lamar Police Chief Mike McDonald said he aims for the unit to clean
up any drug activity in the municipalities.

"We're going to make the streets and neighborhoods safe for whoever
that needs to be: the elderly, children," he said.

While the focus of the team is cooperation, that's not just between
departments, but within them, as well, McDonald said.

"We all work together," he said. "I may assist them as well, but I'll
stay on the back burner."

Each town has two officers dedicated to the six-member team. Most
work in the city or town that employs them, but all will gather once
or twice a month to work in a particular municipality, depending on
how heavy drug activity has been, Cox said.

One of the team's undercover officers said he can't work in his
municipality, however, because he's worked in the town for a long
time and said criminals would too easily recognize him as a police officer.

Lamar and Society Hill offer a big part of their police forces to
combating the problem, one Lamar's police chief said he's determined to fix.

"It's a small town, and we're working to clean the problem up," McDonald said.