Harford County Sheriff Jesse Bane spent longer than a half-hour Wednesday morning on WAMD 970 AM discussing the induction of Harford County into the Washington/Baltimore High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) by the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
During the wide-ranging interview with WAMD radio host Maynard Edwards, Bane discussed the pros and cons of the HIDTA designation before answering questions about the status of gangs in Edgewood, his position on the legalization of drugs, and how he feels about marijuana.
A few of Maynard’s questions and Bane’s answers are listed below, but you can listen to the full interview WAMD interview here.
What is HIDTA?
“HIDTA is not something that focuses just on local drug issues; it focuses on mid- and upper-level dealers and impacting those who are involved in money-laundering operations. It’s something that’s done on a much bigger scale than we’ve been able to do here at a local level.”
What are the positives of HIDTA?
“If we’re going to be successful in keeping Harford County as drug-free as we possibly can, we cannot focus just on the local drug dealer who’s dealing off the street. We have to deal with those people who have set up operations in Harford County where they are supplying drugs not just to Harford County but to the state and the nation.”
What is the drug scene like in Harford County?
“I don’t know that you could go to any community in Harford County and not find some type of an influence as a result of drugs in the community or in close proximity to the community. Show me a place where there are no drugs, and I might be interested in moving there myself. We all want to live in a drug-free environment, we don’t create a drug-free environment by hiding our heads in the sand and pretending it’s not there. IF you look at the wiretaps we’ve done in the last 2 or 3 years, a lot of those investigations at are focused not in the Edgewood and Joppa and Route 40 areas of the county, they’re in the northern sectors of the county – Bel Air, Abingdon and even further north.
“If I’m going to deal with just the local drug dealer, we’re never going to get anywhere with the drug problem in Harford County.”
What specific resources will this bring to Harford County?
“It’s a sharing of resources and an influx of resources into our county that we did not have access to before. It is an infusion of cash from the federal government to assist us in our operations.”
“It is very expensive to do a major drug investigation, it requires a lot of resources and technology, it does require a lot of money and it requires a lot of man-hours.”
“Harford County is not the wealthy county that if it finds out that a person supplying cocaine or heroin or prescription drugs is someone who is from another jurisdiction in Maryland or outside of Maryland, we don’t’ have the resources to chase people all over the country to break up that operation.”
Do we really have that bad of a drug problem in Harford County?
“I think one of the things that’s most alarming right now, that I don’t think people have really recognized the impact of it, is that Harford now ranks number 3 in the state of Maryland in terms of drug overdose deaths. We have 25 overdose deaths last year. That was a record for Harford County.”
Will this negatively impact property values in Harford County?
“Let’s look at it this way, let’s look at the jurisdictions that belong to the HIDTA region in the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area. Let’s look at Anne Arundel County, Howard County, Baltimore County, Montgomery County, Prince George’s County, the wealthier jurisdictions that ring the Washington D.C. area. Some of the highest property values in the state, are located in those areas and those are areas that people do like to move to because of the quality of life and other things. I understand where people are coming from when they have those kinds of fears, but if that were the case we’d have one massive, depressed, high-crime, murder capital that extended from Baltimore to Washington D.C. and it would be a desolated, deserted area. It is one of the wealthiest areas, if not the wealthiest area, in the country and property areas have not been affected by that.”
What remains the largest challenge in Edgewood area?
“We still need to keep our finger on the gang issue there. If we walk away from that believing we solved the problem # 1 we’re kidding ourselves and #2 we’re going to fall right back to the situation we were in when I first took office where every 2 or 3 months we were getting a homicide in that area.”
“We still have gangs in the county and we still have gangs in that area. And it still is a hotspot for gang activity, because of what the environment affords the gang element, but again we pretty much have that under control at least to the point where they’re not killing and stabbing each other every day.”
What are the challenges in Aberdeen?
“Aberdeen, that community is much calmer than it used to be because Aberdeen has done a good job combating its gang problem.”
What about Joppatowne?
“You don’t have a lot of rental properties in Joppa, and I think that’s the difference when you start looking at the Route 40 corridor. The communities where we experience the most of our problems are the communities where there are rentals, particularly absentee landlords – who really are nothing more than slum landlords, just interested in getting money out of the rental properties. Those are the communities where we are having the problems.”
Why not just legalize drugs?
“I have given a lot of thought to that over the years, because this is an issue that isn’t going to go away and you are going to have proponents and opponents to the issue. My biggest issue, I think, is suppose we do that and we find it doesn’t give us the results we want. We’ve now let the genie out of the bottle and you can’t put the genie back in the bottle if that were to occur.”
What’s your stance on marijuana?
“I would not want to be driving in a car going down the road while the operator of another vehicle just finished smoking marijuana. It does affect your body and your ability to react to emergency situations that may occur on the roadway.”
Other notable quotes:
– “That’s another thing we need to emphasize here, this drug issue is not just a crime issue, it’s a health issue in Harford County. If you were to go to the Harford County Detention Center and assess the population, you would find that more than 60 percent of the population in there is in there because they’ve been arrested for crimes involving drugs or they are addicted.”
– “There’s one we just did with prescription drugs that took us to Florida. That was where a lot of the prescription drugs in Harford County were coming from – West Florida – as a result of the medical profession down there and the ease of access to prescription drugs.”
– “There are communities that deal with that very issue through their livability codes and in some communities they even seize properties form landlords after so many calls for service, whether it be someone from Highways, someone from the Health Department, or someone from the local police department. We don’t’ have that type of a livability code in Harford County, we have a livability code and some things we can enforce, but that livability code and what we’re enforcing is what was good for Harford County 30, 40, 50 years ago. That is not Harford County today. So I’d say our livability code, from what we can do to maintain order in those types of dwellings, is not what it should be.”
Edgwood is “under control” per the Sheriff’s response, if the Sheriff thinks Edgewood is under control I think we need a new Sheriff. If you try to catch a guppy and don’t succeed and then proclaim you are going to try and catch a great white shark would you have confidence in the person making the statement? The Sheriff should concentrate on the local drug dealers and work his way up to the big shots. He has not had success with either.
I agree with this… if you identify the users, you can identify their sources and so on up the chain. This is a physical and mental health issue and “Yes” you should treat the user as an addiction patient. Analyze the root cause of why they are using these things recreationally. Does it have something to do with esteem issues, depression or more severe mental problems that manifest in ways beyond simple drug use. Take a look at the symptoms of Anti-social Personality Disorder and you will find a number of markers that are rooted in psychotic behaviors that permeate the recurring criminal element or those that simply enjoy the thrill of doing something wrong and avoiding getting in trouble. The need for stimulation is a big part of Anti-social personality disorder… as a consequence you will find people who are promiscuous, drug dependent, frequent violators of the law and right of others… and very often no empathy. Behind that you may find enabling behavior from parents… or a chain of familial relationships that have just bred stronger and stronger personality defects over generations.
Porter, your comments are just straight up BS. I don’t know why you even partake in discussions that involve reality. Just continue to live in your little world of Bel Air and keep wishing for your Republican Utopia that the rest of us call “Der Fatherland”. A person will do whatever a person wants to do, its called experimentation. Other countries have not legalized drugs, they have decriminalized it for the common user, but still go after the larger dealers and smugglers. Using this technique, they have cut down on police involvement and costs allowing them to use their resources to go after legitimate organized crime and not after every common idiot in the street. It also puts a halt to the country’s growing problem of what I like to call the “Felon Class”, a group of people who have made mistakes and basically have no hope of ever leading a productive lifestyle due to the fact that they are never truly given that second chance so many people with their heads up their arses think they get. Decriminalize small amounts and you will see the light at the end of the tunnel.
You don’t know me and you don’t know my political affiliations and you don’t know my views on decriminalization.
Cheers pal. I do apprceatie the writing.
Your analogy doesn’t adequately fit this particular situation. Trying to catch every single person that sells or distributes drugs on the street is like trying to pick up every pine needle in the forest. We need the resources to just cut down the metaphorical tree. Any person with a couple dollars can pick up where the last street level dealer left off meaning that there is no end to that battle. Only a select few criminals have the ways and means to become a large distributor and when they are taken down it is tough for small timers to replace them. On the other side of the coin, Harford County has an enormous prescription drug problem and the major distributors are doctors that are loose with prescriptions along with Walgreens/Rite Aid so only legislative change will be effective in that fight.
There are also people in the medical profession that will terminate employees suspected of simple prescription pad theft or stealing prescription medications that will not report the problem to law enforcement. This protects the impression that the medical community is above this sort of problem and all their employees are highly ethical and rational people. Additionally I know of an instance where one medical assistant left one job under suspect circumstances, obtained another job for a few months until she was fired, and went on to a third job where she was employed for three months before termination again. None of these offices will disclose why she was fired and if you call for a referral they tell you the employee must provide a release in order to obtain her job history. There is no sense of social responsibility in these cases. People just seem to like to avoid trouble but ignore the cost to others down the road. There is an expression: Evil prevails when good people do nothing.
well the cops can charge them arrest them and then they walk away with probation or nulle prosque or
The Sheriff is right about what he said. Moving on from gangs, violence and illegal drugs….the illegal diversion of lawful pharmaceuticals is a massive problem. Many of these prescription drugs are abused and easy for abusers to acquire and get addicted to. There are many people who sell their prescriptions for profit. There are also corrupt Dr.’s out there who write scrips for $, sex and worse. Hard to believe that’s the case but it is true.
I like how the questions continued to frame around Edgewood and Aberdeen even though the remainder of the county has been putting up hefty stats themselves, i.e. wiretaps, drugs labs, arson, homeland security crimes, sexual assault, and so on. Last time I checked Fallston was batting down the hatches with a grenade launcher during a meth lab sting this past fall. But if we all act like its happening in just one area, it makes it that much easier for the crime to continue to creep. Its everywhere folks, get your heads out and get proactive about stopping it period.
What a bunch of police propaganda! Once again, aimed at areas where the black community and low level drug users and dealers are acclamated. The real drug dealers are the ones up in Jarretsville and Northern Bel Air. These are the ones that have been bringing it in right under the noses of the Task Force and Police officers living in the area. Did U know that the largest Cocaine dealer in Harford County is living in a 5 mile radius of more than 4 Task Force members up in Jarretsville? The cops know it too! They have let it go on for over 8 years! Its who you pay up in Northern Harford County that determines if you get caught or naught. Its time for the Sheriff’s Office to look into their own to really find the true aspect of our county’s problem.
Then take a stand, not an anonymous position on a comment board, and do something about it. If you are not involved in correcting the problem you are little more than a vocal spectator.
I’m not a rat David. I know that this is something you can’t understand, but some of us have too much integrity to do the police’s dirty work. My business is my own, and others are their own, but it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to see unusual activity across the street with people coming and going out of a house carrying small packages late at night. Especially, when the owner’s of the house have no job! David, its not my stand to make, its my opportunity to point out how incompetent our police force is.
Then simply be a critic. Because that is all you can do and all you are capable of. Being a citizen is more than just expecting things to be handed to you. If it disturbs you, do something about it. You are not a participant… you offer nothing of your own except your words which are not followed up by action. All you are is a critic with nothing else to offer for all your zeal.
Seriously… You are going to complain about the problem, but not make a simple anonymous phone call… And when you talk about the activity right across the street, your the one that is living there watching it… Not the cops! I guess you expect them to be in every little nook and cranny watching every single person… Get Real! This county has one of the lowest police officer per thousand citizens ratios in the state but they do a pretty good job. There is a huge difference in being an anonymous phone call and rat. When you fail to do such a simple task and choose to let the problem fester as you have chosen, then you are the one to blame!
An anonymous phone caller is a rat. Period.
This may be the single stupidest thing I’ve ever encountered. @Hatchet- if you see crime and you do not tell the police you are every bit a guilty as the criminal. Period.
Reporting crime is not “doing the police’s job” for them. Period.
“A rat”? You watch too many movies. How do you in the same sentence discuss openly ignoring crime in your neighborhood and having some sort of mock integrity?
At about 3:05 today I’m going to read your comments on-air. And then I’ll respond further.
People like you are why drug dealers and the like have been able to get such a strong foothold. And somehow you’ve been brainwashed into thinking it’s noble to keep your mouth shut.
There’s a difference between being noble and being a COWARD. Period.
Signed- the not anonymous Maynard.
Hey Maynard, I’ve got something for you to talk about on your police radio show! You see, in an independent study of the arrests made by Sean Marston of the Harford County Narcotics Task Force in 2010, a stunning 65% of the arrests were African American. In the course of the same study it was determined that all his cases were prosecuted by Christopher Tabone of the Harford County State’s Attorney Office, who accompanied them in all the raids, wearing a Harford County Narcotics Task Force police badge. During the same study, Mr. Tabone’s recommended bail bond amounts for african americans to the Harford County Circuit Court, were 75% higher than the recommended bonds for caucasion offenders of the same offenses. Even though the outcome for some of these cases have yet to be finalized, the majority of the sentences handed down to black offenders are greater than the white offenders. This obviously shows that the Harford County State’s Attorney Office holds a discriminatory view toward african americans, what do you think Maynard?
Mr. Maynard, you seem to be pretty upset by my comments. I totally disagree with everything you have to say. Why would I risk my family and myself to tell on someone that has never done me any wrong? Correct me if I am wrong, but if I wasn’t posting anonymously, the police would come straight to my IP address and start questioning me and watching the house across the street. Thats exactly what I want for me and my family, a little Hatfield and McCoy war right here in my own little piece ground that I have worked for my entire life. Your insistance that people should become pawns of the police reminds me of another time period when people were encouraged to tell on everyone, it was called World War 2 and was the basic guidelines of the National Socialist Party also known as the Nazi’s. You Maynard were born too late, you would have made a great Nazi!
@THEBIGBLACKONE.
Sounds like the Task Force and the Courts do not like black criminals. Whats wrong with that?
Maybe you didn’t actually read the article? It says that alot of the investigations conducted were in Abingdon, Bel Air and the northern end of the county. How do you know that this individual in Jarretsville is the largest cocaine dealer in the county? You’re right.. it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to notice unusual activity. But how do you know for sure what you claim is true unless you are/were involved? And it’s not being a rat. Voicing concerns over criminal activiy is not being a rat. Most areas thrive over “neighborhood watch” type community policing.
“Integrity is a concept of consistency of actions, values, methods, measures, principles, expectations, and outcomes. In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one’s actions. Integrity can be regarded as the opposite of hypocrisy.”
You sir, do not have integrity.
Back in the 1920-1930s, violence was expected in bootlegging due to the prohibition of alcohol. In that time, unskilled youths from improvised backgrounds became savvy street salesman. They sold alcohol and collected money for wealthy people with the means to create and distribute alcohol. You either paid, or you paid. Back then, they beat you up or crippled you … today they stab you or hold a gun to your head. Our rules and regulations promoted this war and opportunity for violence. I think we call it Gangland now – same issues, just different time and different controlled substance.
Today, alcohol is legalized and violence has decreased over it. Every state has laws about driving under the influence, and you are punished when you ignore this warning. According to Addiction Recovery, “there is one drug bust in the U.S. every 18 seconds. That means that there is an average of three drug busts every single minute of every single day in America.” Moreover, “44 percent of the arrests were for possession of marijuana.” I don’t know about you, but 44% of 15 Billion is a lot of money. I’m no expert on drugs or alcohol, or its affects/addictiveness, but I do know that is a lot of money to spend to fight something that people are doing anyway. People that are defiant enough to buy it now, are probably defiant enough to drive after using it.
We are kidding ourselves to think that these same people aren’t driving now. I think it is a waste of resources to track these people down. We should legalize it and penalize those who drive under its influence. I don’t know how we quantify one of these substances as being less harmful than the other. But, I do know that the violence over marijuana is more deadly than its consumption.
There is no violence in harford County due to marihuana. The violenceyou r reefering to is typically in the SW USA. This violence was created by Law Enforcement and Border Patrols that sealed off the Mexican border and made it more difficult for a plant ghrown in nature to be smuggled across the border. The bottom line is marihuana is not dangerous and the users are normally very benevolent. Your reference to “violence over marijuana is more deadly than its consumption” is ludicrus and has absolutely no bearing on Harford County yet it does apply to border states that are wishing they never had anything to with the pointless war on pot. Smoke a joint, yule feel better………
@420. So you beleive that not a single violent act occurs over marijuana in our area. That none of the petty dealers try and steal the supply of another petty dealer. Not one of the petty dealers has every broken into anothers residence and stolen their cash or supply. Not a single drug addict has stabbed a street dealer of marijuana in attempt to secure money for a more addicitve habit? That relatiation for these simple acts don’t occur? That money or territory disputes never errupt in violence? That not one dealer of marijuana has ever held a gun to another dealers head becuase of greed. Not one dealer of marijuana had to forfeit a vechile during a drug bust because another dealer turned evidence on them, and in return they threatened their life? I think it happens all the time, we just never hear about it.
Such excellent grammar, punctuation and spelling. Of course there is no violence related to the sale or distribution of marijuana in Harford County… the users are entirely too mellow to hurt anyone, and they only buy their dope from properly vetted smugglers who are free from associations with violence, murder, arson and other violent acts performed by those other drug cartels. How very socially friendly of you to only by a controlled substance from known reputable sources.
I don’t buy drugs from anyone. I have close relationships with my son and his friends, I ask them about violence associated with pot. They said kids who are “known” sellers get jumped in town all the time, because addicts want to steal their money or the goods.
Mr. Porter’s flawless comments below:
On the contrary. [Oops, fragment] I attended Sunday school and after school [Oops, afterschool or after-school] bible study [Oops, Bible is a proper title]. I enjoyed them immensely. Then I became aware of how poorly other people practice [oops, parallel structure and past tense] their faith. I then decided that it wasn’t the faith that was flawed, it was the way people promoted it and pretended that their version of the truth was somehow superior to the faiths of others.
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@RICHARD BALDWIN COOK Great job making this a racist matter. I must have missed where white illegal Europeans, Canadians, Argentinians [Oops, Argentineans] , Chileans, Uruguayans, Australians, etc… would be eligible to get in-state tuition?
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@Proud to be Liberal
Let’s see you are [Oops, word order..you are leads a statement … are your leads a question] equating Richard Baldwin Cook with Jess Christ [Oops, Jesus]? Where do the similarities end?
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And you should have seen the testimony of the opponents to the Bel Air Ordnance [Oops, are we talking about guns and weapons]. Apparently the only imaginary magic that can be tolerated in this county is the magic that we teach impressionable young people when they go to church each weekend. You know, [Oops, do we need a comma] the same place that teaches tolerance and love of others, especially those different from us?
Now that is some serious fiction that this area can really do without.
Three of those comment you attribute to me are not my comments. Someone actually used my username and posted inflammatory comments that probably fit in well with your mindset but not mine. They were reported and banned. This board is frequented by people pretending to be something and many times someone they are not. And Bel Air Ordnance? Where did you get that one? Hide behind a Pseudonym… it’s all you are good for, like Hatchet and all the others.
Now that I think of it… you were taking offense to my sarcastic response to 420. It wasn’t directed at you… thank you for the spelling and grammar lessons, I will be sure to make a note of them. I do the know the difference between Ordinance and Ordnance, I made a mistake. It was an accident of typing not of ignorance. Sorry you missed the message and chose instead to focus on the manner in which it was delivered. I guess agreeing with your comment to 420 was pointless given the rabid way in which you decided to attack me for a slight that was not intended, and to which you over reacted. Thanks for being an American.
Mr. Porter,
I do not have a problem with you. I am aware that you were supporting my comment in a humorous way and that your comments were directed at 420. I did not take issue with your support. I took issue with the personal attack on 420. There are many US Citizens that are illiterate, yet intelligent. Take for example: George Acher, professional golfer, or John Utzon, architect who designed Sydney Opera house. We all have different strengths and weaknesses. Although I appreciate your support, I did not see the necessity to defame 420 for his/her grammar errors. Pointing out the fallacies in ones thought are okay, but the grammar seemed a bit harsh.
Moving one, I selected your threads by typing your name in the search field provided by dagger. If you are unaware, hundreds of hits appeared instantly. I copied and pasted the first few hits. I’d like to say that most of what you said was rich and worthy of reading. Your writing illicit thought and consideration from its readers, but did have a few careless errors. However, those errors did not change the substance of your opinions. I’m certain that you would prefer that readers focus on your message, not your mistakes. We all should be a bit nicer, myself included. I make spelling and grammar mistakes all the time, but that doesn’t mean my message is any less relevant.
Although not orginally a fan of Sheriff Bane I do respect his accessability, forthright attitude and apparent sence of integrity.
Moreover, I believe he’s trying to fight the good fight and not bull hockey us. Sheriff, you and your Deputies keep up the good work and be safe.
Mr. Edgar,
He is a politician…He speaks like he is an authority on the drug topic. He says “It is very expensive to do a major drug investigation, it requires a lot of resources and technology, it does require a lot of money and it requires a lot of man-hours.”
Jesse has never even made a drug-related arrest in his career let alone conducted a major drug investigation. He couldn’t spot a dealer if he had to. In fact he has been known to “hug a thug” in the past.
He feels sorry for the poor dealers in Edgewood. He wants to make their mothers happy. He is in a fantasy world in that regard. In the past he has stated there was no linkage between the drug trade and robberies in the Edgewood area. What? He just has no clue.
He has claimed to be a pivotal figure in creating the drug task force but he was not. His statements demean the real efforts of the officers who have been making drug arrests for the last 30 years while he sat in his office playing solitaire and criticizing hard-working officers.
I just want you to know that what you see in the press is far from reality.
Just take a look at the Maryland Judiciary Case Search for Bane’s qualified command staff. Barely a felony arrest from anyone, and barely and drug experience. You are right, he doesn’t know.
Just take a look at the Maryland Judiciary Case Search for Bane’s qualified command staff. Barely a felony arrest from anyone, and barely any drug experience. You are right, he doesn’t know.