TRR photo by Tom Kane Pictured, from left, are PA Attorney General Michael Fisher, Wayne County District Attorney Mark Zimmer and Hawley Mayor Ann Morgan. (Click for larger image)

Wayne County forms drug taskforce

By TOM KANE

HONESDALE — Drug dealers and narcotics users, look out! Wayne County has a new weapon against you. A county-wide taskforce of all police agencies are joining in a coordinated effort to get you off the street.

Last Wednesday, April 24, all cooperating law enforcement agencies gathered at the county courthouse to witness the signing of a contract between the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, represented by Attorney General Michael Fisher, and Wayne County, represented by its District Attorney Mark Zimmer.

“Let the word go out that there’s going to be an even more aggressive attack on drug dealers and users than before,” Fisher said. “The commonwealth wants to encourage the local control of such taskforces that the state has initiated.”

State and local police agencies cooperating in the taskforce are the PA state police, the county police, the Wayne County Sheriff’s Department, the Honesdale Police Department and the Waymart Police Department.

Sixty-four of 67 counties in the commonwealth are now cooperating with the state’s taskforce effort, Fisher said.

The state will assume financial responsibility for any liability claims from investigations, he said.

In Pennsylvania, there were 24,000 drug arrests from January 1997 to April 2002, and from January of this year to April there have already been 619 more.

“The numbers are rising,” Zimmer said. “Younger people are becoming users in alarming numbers.”

The grant of $25,000 from the state makes it possible for the local police agencies to use their staff to go after high-level dealers.

The taskforce will be working closely with the taskforces in neighboring counties, Zimmer said.