MONTEREY COUNTY, Calif.- Brand new drugs as strong as meth, smuggled from across the
world, are now cropping up on the Central Coast. We told you about the big khat bust earlier
this month in Seaside.
It's new discoveries like that one, making police
departments on the Monterey Peninsula form a team, to keep up with the criminals and their new
games. On Thursday we learned, cities
are doing it for cheap.
PRVNT, in other words "prevent". That acronym is important because the Peninsula
Regional Violence and Narcotics Team is all about staying ahead of the bad
guys. But they'll have to do it smartly this
time. That's because in 2009, Peninsula police departments lost their joint task force coverage
with Salinas and the rest of the county after state budget cuts.
Now there's eight players in the game. Seaside, Marina, Monterey, Carmel, Sand City,
CSUMB, CHP and now Pacific Grove, are all working together to tackle
the gang and drug problem on the Monterey Peninsula. The Monterey County District Attorney's
office is also involved.
"Pooling resources and sharing intelligence," Commander
Bruno Dias with the Seaside Police Department.
Dias heads up the team and calls it a regional
investigative unit. For $1,000 bucks a
year, every agency involved gets pretty good bang for their buck to cover costs
like overtime, court fees and office supplies.
The $1,000 will be reimbursed to city's through the money recovered
during drug seizures.
"Positions are already in place
and what we're doing is we're combining all the positions that we have
available in one location and every officer in position will function under one
umbrella," Dias said.
The only city on the peninsula
that's not a part of the group yet is Del Rey Oaks.
