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Sheriff's Office Picks Up Pace on Drug Busts

By: Tyler Thomason

Updated: March 1, 2013

"All of the units within our division have been incredibly busy, but especially the narcotics unit," says capt. Brandon Rogers of the Benton County Sheriff's Office.

Busy might be an understatement.

Just two months into 2013 and the Benton County Sheriff's Office has already doubled their amount of drug busts for the entire year of 2012.

"A lot of times, I'll have to tell these guys, 'Hey, you've worked 30 straight hours, you need to go home,'" Rogers says.

"And they're telling me, 'No there's work to do, I'm going to stay.'"

Rogers supervises the Special Crimes division.

He says part of the reason for this aggressive approach comes from the public's help.

"We've had citizens hitting up the tip lines, sending us web tips," Rogers says.

The other part of that reason? Simple teamwork.

"These units being able to work together, cohesively and funnel things from one to another," Rogers says.

One example of that comes from an incident this week.

A deputy officer actually noticed something suspicious while out in the field and notified the narcotics division, which led to a meth bust in a car at McDonald's in Lowell.

"When it goes from one division specification to another, it's almost seamless how they pass the information to the others," Rogers says.

And with the way things are going now, Rogers says it looks to get even better.

As law enforcement continues down a proactive path, pushing criminals and drugs out of Benton County.

"All these guys to work together, along with the street crimes unit," Rogers adds.

"Every week these guys are coming up with new ways, thinking outside of the box, new cases that they can produce."

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