At next Tuesday’s county commissioners’ meeting, Decatur County Sheriff Wiley Griffin will propose joining the Pataula Drug Task Force, which includes several Southwest Georgia counties in its membership.
Although Sheriff Griffin will make a detailed proposal at county commissioners’ meeting on Tuesday at 9 a.m. at the Decatur County Administration Building, he shared an outline of what his request will be.
Currently, members of the Pataula Drug Task Force include the Georgia counties of Seminole, Early, Miller, Quitman and Clay counties. The drug task force is funded jointly by the member counties and employs its own officers, who work out of an office in Colquitt, Ga.
“We are exploring joining the task force and looking at that option and I will be presenting it to the commission that morning,” Sheriff Griffin said. “Basically, to combat the dangerous drugs that are in our society.”
“All of those counties touch Decatur County, so those drug dealers are crossing the county line. So we think it will be a mutual asset for us to join. The task force has a control board, which has agreed for us to join if we wish to.”
Hopefully, it will be a savings to Decatur County taxpayers because we will use their resources to work the drug cases in our county. For example, when the Georgia State Patrol stops a motorist and drugs are found, I have to assign an investigator to that case. I’m going to pay them out of my budget but in the long run, it will save me money in overtime and therefore, I can afford to pay [the task force] some money.”
“It’s increased communication between the law enforcement officers in the task force’s member counties.”
According to information on Albany Tech’s website:
The Pataula Drug Task Force is a multi-jurisdictional drug task force that serves Clay, Early, Miller, Randolph and Seminole Counties and the cities of Arlington, Colquitt, Donalsonville, Edison and Fort Gaines. The PDTF was created in 1998 and is headquartered in Colquitt, Georgia. The PDTF is responsible for drug enforcement in all areas of jurisdiction.
Agents are responsible for street, mid and upper level drug enforcement. This also includes serving arrest and search warrants, covert and overt operations, clandestine methamphetamine laboratory investigations as well as other related duties.
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