HCOCNTF CLOSES ITS DOORS

The Harris County Organized Crime and Narcotics Task Force closed its doors
on Friday, leaving the City of Baytown and Baytown police scrambling to
secure employment for those who are now out of work.

"Right now they are going to fill the needs we have," Roger Clifford,
captain at what was the task force office, said Thursday. "It may not be
what they were originally hired for, but they are going to have to be
willing to change in order to keep their jobs."

The task force was designed to stop heavy drug trafficking and organized
crime in the greater Harris County area. The benefit of the task force was
that many individual organizations could pool their resources and use
federal funding to fight large-scale crime on a local front.

The task force comprised 11 law enforcement agencies around Harris County
and had been in operation since the mid 1970s. The Baytown Police
Department was been the grant-writer, and thus the lead member, from 2003
to when the force disbanded Friday.

Clifford said out of 12 civilian employees who needed jobs when the task
force shut down, eight still need jobs, three were reassigned to jobs in
the city and the other one got a job elsewhere. The city posts open
positions and they had 13 various jobs as of July 18. The problem is that
some of the former task force employees are not qualified for these jobs or
they have entirely different qualifications but no matching job.

"They have been trying really hard to find places for these people,"
Clifford said. "It has been a major dismantling project."

Carol Flynt, spokeswoman for city of Baytown Human Resources, said in an
e-mailed statement that these employees have known since April that their
jobs were ending.

"The employees were encouraged to begin a job search either with the City
of Baytown or with outside agencies," Flynt said. "The employees were
encouraged to apply for positions which interested them and that they meet
the job requirements."

On the bright side, the city stated they would continue to pay the former
task force employees and help them find new jobs until Jan. 31, 2006. At
the task force, the grant paid for 75 percent of the employees salary and
the city picked up the rest.

"Once we notified the city that this looked like the direction we would
have to go, we started working with HR and other city departments to give
them first shot at any of the job opportunities that come open," Baytown
Police Chief Byron Jones said. "I am sure some of them are concerned that
the job has ended, but every one of them knew this was a grant-funded
agency that could end at any time."

The funding was cut in April when the federal government combined two grant
programs into the Justice Assistance Grants Program. Millions of dollars
were cut for these types of programs across the United States.

While Jones can't find positions for all of the former civilian task force
employees, the police officers, including Clifford, are going to transfer
to the local offices. Jones said he has a few open slots these officers
will fill. With the addition of Clifford, Baytown police will have one more
captain than captain positions, so they are forced to improvise.

"They are looking at options to rearrange positions," Clifford, who is
expected to become captain of investigation until Jimmy Cook, captain of
community services, retires in early 2006, said. "I will be reporting to
the department on Monday."

Another question in the break-up of the task force is how the crime rate
will change. Jones said he is disappointed to see such a successful project
end, and Clifford said he is interested in trying to maintain some of the
cooperative relationships Baytown police established with other member
departments at the task force.

"I think the task force really served a purpose within the area," Jones
said. "With the combined the efforts of all the agencies, we could work
together against drug smuggling activities where individual agencies
probably didn't have the resources to handle it." He added, "I think it is
going to be a detriment to our community because you are not going to have
that group of officers working on those types of cases."

The task force made many memorable busts over the past 30 years. For
instance in 2004, they put a stop to a major heroin trafficking ring. The
bust has led to 15 indictments and the shut down of an operation with
elements in Columbia, Venezuela, Mexico, Houston and New York City. They
seized 12 kilos of heroin over a three-month period at Houston
Intercontinental Airport where the heroin arrived in the United States and
was rerouted to New York for sale.

The bust seized several million dollars worth of heroin and put a
"significant dent" in the heroin supply of New York City, according to Lt.
Dan Webb of Texas Department of Public Safety and the former Operations
Commander at the task force. Webb suspected the ring was responsible for
importing around 50 kilos of pure heroin into New York City annually.

The task force received criticism in 2004 when a story came out in national
media about an attempted drug bust at a landscape contractor's residence.
Blair Davis, the landscape contractor, started to answer a knock at his
door one morning when it exploded with task force officers responding to a
tip that he was growing marijuana on his property. The plants in question
turned out to be Texas Star Hibiscus. Regardless of this incident, law
enforcement officials said they are going to miss the assistance the task
force offered.

Clifford had similar feelings on the issue.

"It is kind of a sad day," Clifford said. "This place has done a lot of
great work over the years, but we will approach it from a different angle."
He explained, "We have talked with different agencies and we would like to
come to some kind of cooperative approach."