Statewide Drug Enforcement Unit not planning to assign new trooper investigator to Dillingham office until budget and staffing allows.
There will soon be an indefinite vacancy at the Dillingham office of the Western Alaska Alcohol and Narcotics Team. KDLG’s Dave Bendinger has more:
Audio transcript below:
The investigator assigned since last summer to the WAANT Dillingham office, Wyatt Derner, is transferring to a different post in March.
"And we have no plans, no immediate plans, to recruit for and fill his position," said Captain Jeff Laughlin, the Commander of the Statewide Drug Enforcement Unit.
Captain Laughlin says there are two main reasons why the position may not be re-staffed in the near future.
"One is because of the current budget discussions that are happening across the state with a new Administration and the fact that the Legislature is in session now. The second part of that is also just our overall staffing within the Department of Public Safety."
He says there are quite a few vacancies within DPS, and that new recruits out of the trooper academy are not likely candidates to come where many feel a seasoned investigator is needed.
Capt. Laughlin says it’s not necessarily a question of when the position in Dillingham is refilled, it may be a question of if it needs to be at all. He says he would love to have a trooper investigator in every community in the state, but that’s not feasible.
"In some areas of the state, and Dillingham may be one of those, the way that we ultimately end up providing that service would be from the Anchorage area."
At a public meeting about drug abuse in Dillingham last week, several people spoke to the need to let legislators like Rep. Bryce Edgmon know that funding the WAANT position in Dillingham should be a priority.
While Capt. Laughlin does not disagree that it is a good idea to have an investigator in town, he says much of the work can be done from Anchorage.
"What our investigators who are assigned to drug and alcohol investigations are predominantly after are sources of supply. We're not as much focused on that individual 'end' user of a controlled substance as we are the people that are involved in the illicit trafficking or manufacturing of those controlled substances."
Capt. Laughlin says having more investigators in Anchorage allows WAANT to focus on natural choke points in the trafficking of drugs to Bristol Bay communities, be those at Anchorage airports, or in the postal system.
During a prior vacancy in the Dillingham WAANT post, the Drug Enforcement Unit told KDLG News that merely because the investigator is gone from town doesn’t mean the tips stop coming in, or the phones stop ringing. Capt. Laughlin says that is still the case now, though enforcing this way comes with challenges.
"We have to work a little bit smarter, we have to be much more efficient. It means that I won't have the luxury of having an investigator in every community and I'll have to be a little bit more tactical in the placement of where those investigators work."
The state’s annual report on drug crime, busts, and trends is due out soon. Captain Laughlin says it will show what most in Bristol Bay already know -- that the sale and use of heroin and its substitutes are clearly on the rise.