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Border meth problem creeps north

Shootout a sign of escalating battle with border traffickers
08:13 AM CST on Saturday, February 18, 2006
By PAUL MEYER and JASON TRAHAN / The Dallas Morning News

They knew it was wrong when woodchips and glass started flying.

MICHAEL AINSWORTH/DMN
Senior Cpl. Harry 'Chuck' Deltufo (from left) and Senior Cpl. Dale Hackbarth are greeted by Dallas First Assistant Chief David Brown at a news conference Friday, a day after the shootout in Red Bird. All four SWAT officers who were shot are expected to make a full recovery.
A bullet hit Sgt. Kenneth Wilkins' ring finger.
Doctors had to remove his wedding band later at the hospital.
Senior Cpl. Adolfo Perez started coughing up blood.
They're the fortunate four, Dallas SWAT officers who survived an early morning shootout Thursday while trying to break up a drug ring.
But they're also the embodiment of a surge in potentially violent confrontations between police and Mexican narcotics dealers, fueled by the flow drugs, money and guns up Interstate 35, local and federal authorities say.
And as border violence spreads into Dallas, police are turning up the heat.
"In September, we went to SWAT and said, "We need you guys to do more,' " said Dallas First Assistant Chief David Brown.
"Our tactical guys weren't running as many warrants as they once did. We challenged them to end the year right, run more warrants. They ran twice as many as normal. They're continuing that this year."
Raiding more drug stashes means facing more violence.
"Them being in harm's way is making Dallas safer," Chief Brown said. "We're convinced that taking the fight to the bad guys and being more proactive is the right thing to do for the citizens."
On Thursday, the drug targeted was methamphetamine. Seven people, some Mexican nationals, were arrested around North Texas in connection with the ring. Among them was the man police believe shot at them, 43-year-old Alejandro Tamayo, who surrendered after a standoff.
Michelle Deaver, a spokeswoman for the Drug Enforcement Administration in Dallas, said Friday that authorities are investigating more meth moving into the Dallas area from the border.
As U.S. lawmakers have made it increasingly tough to acquire a key ingredient in methamphetamine – pseudoephedrine, a common active ingredient in cold medicine – fewer people north of the border are "cooking" the dangerous drug. That means more imports.
"We're investigating more ice," she said of the rocklike drug, which is about 80 percent meth and is commonly smoked like crack cocaine.
"Our lab seizures are down in Texas, which is a great thing for neighborhoods because there are fewer chemicals out there and fewer labs," she said. "Our cases are still high because [meth] is being brought in from the border."
Meth is a lucrative market, selling for $400 to $3,000 per ounce, according to the DEA. Experts say that as the drug's popularity increases, prices will rise and so will the violence among competing traffickers.
Even though meth imports from Mexico provide a headache for local authorities, cocaine and marijuana shipments remain Dallas' chief problem, police say.
"Dallas is one of the few major southwestern cities that hasn't really seen the meth epidemic hit its inner city," Chief Brown said.
The traffickers hauling in the more popular drugs are the same ones bringing in meth, he said. And as a whole, police are encountering more violence from drug dealers, he said.
"In the past four of five months, there's been a 50 percent increase in confiscated weapons in our drug raids," he said.
On Friday, the four Dallas SWAT officers stood before cameras and microphones as the wounded proof of the new drug wars. Each is expected to fully recover.
They had been asked by the DEA to help serve drug warrants because the occupants of the home on Oak Park Drive were thought to be heavily armed.
Combined, the officers have more than 70 years in police work.
"It's become more common where we're encountering people that have these high-powered rifles, assault rifles, and we don't take them for granted," Cpl. Perez said Friday.
"You know there's a possibility of getting into a gunfight."
It's their job – an exercise in planning, adrenaline and courage.
"We don't go in and say, 'This is just a routine warrant; we're just going to go through the motions and smoke and joke about it, then go home,' " Cpl. Deltufo said.
"We know our job. We know what to do."
Sgt. Wilkins, a 24-year department veteran nicknamed Deacon for his spiritual ways, put it simply:
"We got the bad guy."
E-mail pmeyer@dallasnews.com
and jtrahan@dallasnews.com

source: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/DN-nucopsshot_18met.ART0.West.Edition2.22d68cc8.html