Community involvement can lead to results, DTF commander reports

Commission Chair Hal Floyd and Commissioner Scotty Tillery sat at the front of the County Commission meeting room on Thursday evening in front of law enforcement leaders from all fronts prepared to talk about some hard truths in Polk County and come up with new ideas about a constant problem locally.

What to do about drugs was on the mind of Floyd while he took a recent trip to Florida to visit his daughter and family. The same issue has long been on the forefront of the thoughts of Tillery, who came to the session with a goal in mind of finding a different solution than those that have been tried before.

Tillery, who came prepared with a presentation and what statistics on crime are immediately available, asked one overall question of law enforcement: what will they need to get drug dealers out of Polk County?

He provided statistics from just this year that help frame the depth of the issue. Remond EMS has thus far used 43 Narcan doses on patients they have carried to the hospital from Polk County.

Tillery’s presentation cited 15 who have died from overdoses in 2021 alone. The County Police reported 512 thefts in 2020, many of those related to drugs in one way or another. Numbers don’t include police statistics in which drugs are major influencers: DUIs, domestic violence, robberies, and calls upon the Department of Family and Children’s Services among other agencies and officials taxed by ever-increasing demands upon resources because of drug abuse and addiction.

Tillery also talked about the toll drugs like methamphetamine and heroin are taking on the community as a whole. He cited problems with economic development because of the number of drug arrests and crime-related statistics that keep large industries from wanting to locate operations in Polk County. The loss of individuals in the workforce since 2008 (more than 3,000, or around 260 people per year.) Graduates from each high school who move away from the county to seek better opportunities instead of returning home.

All of these issues and many more are touched by Polk County’s drug problem, making more difficult the task of tackling the sale of illegal narcotics like cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, opiate medications, and the most prevalent drug locally methamphetamine more pressing than ever to avoid being overrun with crushing problems.

In the view of the leaders assembled – the chiefs of the Cedartown, Rockmart and Polk County Police, Assistant Chief of the Aragon Police, PCSO Chief Deputy Jonathan Blackmon, the leaders from the District Attorneys office, county and city administration and Cedartown Commissioner Matt Foster and Rockmart Mayor Sherman Ross – the first phase of dealing with the problem lies in the realm of law enforcement’s purview.

But considering that as Tillery’s presentation also pointed out an increasing backlog and current caseload before the District Attorney’s office and the court system, one area of consideration is to combat the drug problem without further adding new prosecutions that will take longer than a suspect is in jail and can get out and continue their illegal trade.

Tillery came up with a novel solution that the chiefs believe merit further study and potential action: take away the advantage of drug dealers settling into neighborhoods by actively targeting them with marked surveillance at all hours of the day. If the police are always in front of their house, it will make it impossible for customers and traffickers to come and go.

His goal with this specific strategy is to force dealers to move out of neighborhoods and out of Polk County as whole and take the problems they bring along elsewhere.

As part of the presentation, Tillery showed off how a Brevard County, Florida Sheriff’s Office used social media and video to directly target a drug dealer in his community, standing directly in front of the house and explaining why and how their direct neighbors had pointed surveillance cameras at the house and were sharing video with police to protect themselves and their property on a daily basis. As a result of that video, Tillery explained that the dealers moved out of the house two days later as a result of the video.

“I think phase 2 of this is getting the neighborhoods back on board with us, but we’ve got to build that trust back up with them,” Tillery explained. “They want something done, but they are afraid to talk about it.”

District Attorney Jack Browning asked the group to also put forth clear goals and expectations for what leadership gathered want to achieve and what the end of the localized war on drugs will ultimately call success. Chief Assistant District Attorney Jaeson Smith also pointed out a need to immediately have all the local law enforcement agencies gather their intelligence resources toward creating a census of all the county’s gang members and activities as a way to better communicate about traffickers and the trade overall.

Local law enforcement leadership all agreed that the answers to how to combat the drug trade in Polk County are multifaceted, and to do so will require a significant investment of not just time and money, but also in developing community relationships to help ensure drug dealers aren’t able to rule neighborhoods through the use of money and intimidation through violence.

These are just some of the key factors that local chiefs believe are required in order to get a handle on the drugs in the community.

Rockmart Police Chief Randy Turner pointed out that it wasn’t simply about increasing budgets for hiring and increasing the pay of officers to find, harass and arrest drug dealers, but that budgets will have to increase across the board to account for infrastructure that will be impacted by increased patrolling and enforcement.

One step all believe is necessary moving forward is the need for politics to be removed from the solution. Tillery suggested a Board of the local Chiefs of Police and the Sheriff should oversee any efforts on enforcement.

He and Floyd both see this as just a starting off point for future goals to be set and to take meaningful steps forward in the direction toward real progress on targeting drug dealers in the community.

The next meeting is already scheduled for September 30 at 4 p.m., where the same group of leaders is being tasked to come back with significant needs and goals they want to achieve in the first phase of combatting drugs in Polk County.

Among those that Tillery also wants to bring into the fold in coming sessions are those involved in the efforts to rehabilitate users and see what resources they can also bring to bear in the continuing fight against drugs in Polk County.

The meeting did end with some positive news on the war on drugs locally, and that Tillery’s plan might have a point. Rockmart Assistant Police Chief and the Polk County Drug Task Force Commander Jonathan Fuller talked about a recent investigation they undertook when a neighbor of a drug dealer around an apartment complex in the city.

He explained that through the efforts of the neighbors and by having officers conduct foot patrols and surveillance of the residence, eventually, their efforts made a difference when Rome Housing Authority officials did a spot check in the apartment and found drugs.

The neighbor who originally called in the tip left Fuller a voicemail message that the drug dealer was moving out just before the meeting began. He cited not just the efforts of his officers, but of the neighbors themselves in bringing about the positive change in their apartment complex.

“They were taking down tag numbers and trying to take pictures of the cars coming and going,” he said.

Anyone with information about drug trafficking in Polk County can immediately and anonymously report activities to the Drug Task Force by calling 678-901-4644.

Check back for more updates on the new group of leaders’ progress on combatting drugs in Polk County as it becomes available.