Video: Columbus and Lowndes County Leaders Approve A New Drug Force Task Unit

COLUMBUS-LOWNDES COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – Columbus and Lowndes County are partnering up to take drugs off the streets.

Today, city and county leaders signed off on an inter-local agreement with the sheriff’s department and police department.

However, it could be a while before the Columbus-Lowndes Drug Task Force hits the streets.

The creation of the drug task force has been in the works for a few months now with the mayor, sheriff, and police chief.

Now, the goal is to get as many drugs off the streets as possible.

City and county leaders unanimously agree on a new effort to keep drugs out of Lowndes County, which could lower the crime rate.

“I could speak specifically from the city standpoint, probably 80% of the crime is drug related,” says Mayor Robert Smith.

The creation of the Columbus-Lowndes Narcotics Task Force comes with a new agreement, including a new vehicle.

“The only thing we will do is provide men’s equipment and just whatever the sheriff says that they need. That’s what the city will do is provide manpower, the equipment, and supplies as requested,” says Smith.

Narcotics agents have worked with the sheriff’s department for years.

Now with CPD on board, all of the agencies can closely work together and help each other solve cases throughout the county.

“You’re going to add manpower to it because we’re going to have four additional investigators, or narcotics officers working the streets, and also bringing with them will be information and intelligence that they may have that our guys might not have and vice versa,” says Lowndes County Sheriff Mike Arledge.

Police Chief Oscar Lewis will submit a list of officers to the sheriff’s department, then Commander Archie Williams will interview and select task force members.

“After the time frame passes, we’ll end up with four from the city. I think there’s going to be two at first because there is going to be some training involved, and it’s going to be a little time consuming. We want to make sure we get it all done before we add too many people at one time,” says Williams.

It could be a few months before the residents see the inter-local agreement at work.

“It will be a process and it will take a little time, but the good thing that the mayor and council is proud of is that now, we have a true a drug task force between the city and the county,” says Smith.

Sheriff Arledge says he’s encouraged about having more crime fighters on the road.

A similar task force was disbanded several years ago.

The new group will have different regulations.

“It was important to me, and it’s important to me that we have no outside inference with, say a city councilman or a board of supervisors, or maybe a prominent person in the community, we don’t need to, other than them helping us to gather intelligence, we want that, but we don’t want inference with how we run our police operations,” says Arledge.

Now, the agreement signed by county and city leaders goes to the Attorney General’s office for approval.

It could be a couple of weeks before that paperwork is signed.