Drug seizure funds to purchase vehicle

COEUR d'ALENE - The Ballistic Engineered Armored Response Counter Attack Truck, or BearCat, is an 8-ton personnel carrier built with steel armor and ballistic glass.

In October 2010, a gunman shot and killed his neighbor in Tyler, Texas. A BearCat was deployed as part of the law enforcement response and during the ensuing standoff, the vehicle took at least 35 shots from an AK-47 without being pierced.

When Kootenai County is in need of such a vehicle, Sheriff Ben Wolfinger said, they borrow one from Spokane or Bonner County.

His office primarily uses a BearCat in the event that a potentially armed suspect is barricaded in a home.

Those incidents are becoming more and more common, Wolfinger added, making it more difficult for agencies with BearCats to part with them to loan them out.

"There's no way we could spend over $300,000 for a SWAT vehicle; the budget certainly couldn't handle that," Wolfinger said. "But here's the opportunity to keep our team safe and the taxpayer doesn't deal with a nickel of it."

The sheriff's office is currently awaiting delivery of its own $335,000 BearCat, purchased with money from the county's drug forfeiture fund. The transaction was approved in March by the county's board of commissioners.

The armored truck is expected to arrive at the end of this month.

Forfeiture expenditures

Since 2009, the Kootenai County Sheriff's Office has taken in nearly $2 million in drug forfeiture proceeds.

In 2013, the sheriff's office took in $271,230 in illegal drug proceeds. According to Lt. Stu Miller, the office has been awarded $39,136.55 of those proceeds. The rest of the funds are either part of pending court decisions, have been returned to defendants or given to the prosecutor's office.

"We use it (the funds) to send officers to schools to learn about how to find these drugs and take them off the street," Wolfinger said. "We buy equipment for the SWAT team and for the patrol guys. We've done some weapon enhancements for the patrol guys because they're dealing with these people every day, so there's certainly a drug nexus there."

This total does not include three vehicles that were seized and then used by sheriff's office detectives in the course of their work.

"That's a great opportunity for us to get a vehicle with no taxpayer dollars involved," Wolfinger said.

Smaller items, such as replacement siren speakers for sheriff's office vehicles and parts for weapons, have also been purchased using forfeiture funds.

Post Falls Police Chief Scot Haug said that, while his department has a much smaller drug forfeiture account when compared to the sheriff's office, the funds are all used "to reduce illegal drug activities in the community."

"So there is a variety of things that we've done with the money in the past such as provided training for our officers, drug reduction type programs and body armor for our SWAT officers," Haug said. "It's all one-time purchases, typically capital purchases."

Haug added that the department's K9 program was created using a significant amount of seizure money and the majority of the program is still funded with it.

Law enforcement agencies with smaller patrol populations rarely see any cases were civil forfeiture would be applicable. Last year, Spirit Lake Chief Keith Hutcheson said his department didn't seize any property or money.

"We seized small amounts of marijuana and meth last year but no property," Rathdrum Police Chief Kevin Fuhr added. "Over the past several years we have not seized any property or monetary assets and have therefore never spent any drug seizure money."

Checks and Balances

Whenever a local law enforcement agency wants to dip into the coffers and use funds from drug forfeitures, they are first required to get approval from their governing agency.

"Anytime we make a purchase with the fund, it has to go through the board of commissioners and at least two commissioners have to approve it," Wolfinger said. "I have to approach the commissioners, in writing, and say, 'We would like to use this fund, approximately this many dollars, to purchase this item.'"

For example, when the sheriff's office presented $40,000 in drug forfeiture funds to Idaho first lady Lori Otter for the Idaho Meth Foundation in 2012, there were a series of emails between the sheriff's office, the county auditor's office and the commissioners.

City law enforcement agencies, such as the Post Falls Police Department, must first get approval from their respective councils.

"Any money that we spend is appropriated by our council, it goes through the complete budget process," Haug said. "There is nothing hidden and it's very transparent what we do."

Editor's note: This is the second in a three-part series exploring drug asset seizure and civil forfeiture: tools used by law enforcement agencies to recover the costs of fighting and preventing drug crimes.