Bossier City And Parish Team Up To Battle War On Drugs

Bossier City police officers and Bossier sheriff's deputies are now working together to fight drugs parish-wide.

"We feel the combined effort is going to be beneficial to the citizens and will result in more drug arrests and hopefully get more illegal drugs off the streets," said Mark Natale with the Bossier Police Department.

The newly formed task force consists of nearly a dozen undercover law enforcement officers.  

Caddo sheriff's deputies and Shreveport police officers have been working together since 2004.  The Caddo-Shreveport Narcotics Task Force has seized millions of dollars worth of drugs and have taken countless dealers off the streets.

"Before the task force, we were actually duplicating our efforts.  We would work a case with the Caddo Sheriff's Office and the Shreveport Police Department may be working and targeting the same suspects so it made sense to pull ourselves together," said Lt. Carl Townley with the Caddo-Shreveport Task Force.

Townley says pulling together is one of the best ways agencies can effectively fight the war on drugs.

Natale says Bossier's task force is hoping to have the same success as Caddo-Shreveport's.

In Webster parish, the sheriff's office joined forces with the Minden and Springhill police departments for a parish-wide task force.  Sheriff Gary Sexton says the task force has had great success.

Sheriff's deputies from DeSoto, Red River and Sabine parishes make up the Tri-Parish Narcotics Task Force.  They recently rounded up more than forty suspected drug dealers in a special operation called Chrystal Bend.