Drug Task Force dissolves

For about three decades, the Wayne County Drug Task Force investigated drug crimes in Richmond and Wayne County.

The Richmond Police Department and Wayne County Sheriff’s Office supplied personnel to investigate drug activity, arrange controlled buys through confidential informants and arrest drug dealers. In so doing, the officers took drugs off local streets and jailed dozens of dealers.

That formal collaboration has ended, and the Wayne County Drug Task Force no longer exists, according to a Sept. 17 statement posted by RPD on social media.

However, both agencies continue drug investigations. During March, Sheriff Randy Retter announced his agency was collaborating with sheriff’s departments in Fayette, Union and Randolph counties and the Indiana State Police in a violent crime and drug interdiction program, and in a news release, RPD announced its Strategic and Focused Enforcement, or SAFE, Crime Suppression Unit.

The SAFE unit works within the Policing and Communities Together program, which focuses on building community relationships and evidence-based practices to reduce crime. It will target narcotics and violent crime. The release credited the SAFE unit with investigations that resulted in two arrests for dealing drugs that led to deadly overdoses.

“Our community deserves a department that prioritizes their safety above all else,” RPD Chief Kyle Weatherly said in the release. “The SAFE unit is not just about enforcement – it’s about protecting our families, our schools and our future. Richmond Police remain fully committed to ensuring that every resident feels secure in their own neighborhood. This is our city, and we will continue to fight for it.”

Retter said the multicounty program is simply cooperation among agencies that share information, equipment and staffing. Each agency investigates within its jurisdiction, but assistance is available when needed. The collaboration makes more personnel and more equipment available at any one time, and it recognizes, Retter said, that criminals are not bound by borders. For example, a recent Fayette County drug investigation resulted in Milton arrests as well as those in Connersville.

The sheriff’s department supplied one officer to the Drug Task Force, but Retter said one detective and one patrol officer are now dedicated to drug investigations.

“When you’re operating with appropriate strategies, you need to be able to evaluate those strategies to see whether or not they’re currently effective, and if they’re not effective, then you need to make adjustments to make sure that you’re providing the appropriate services,” Retter said. “And I believe, by and large, that is exactly what this is: We just simply made an adjustment to fit the needs of our community.”