South Georgia Drug Task Force to shut down - WALB.com, Albany News, Weather, Sports

South Georgia Drug Task Force to shut down

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LAKELAND, GA (WALB) -

After 21 years of putting suspected drug dealers behind bars the South Georgia Drug Task Force in Lakeland is disbanding.

The agency lost a big chunk of federal funding, and the counties the task force serves couldn't afford to keep it running.

It's an agency people in Lanier County say needs to stay to keep drugs off the streets, and meth labs out of the woods.

"It's really scary because any of that can explode and that's going to take out a lot of people, and that's sad. That's why I really think they need the task force," said Lakeland resident Margie Bragg. 

By the end of the year the South Georgia Drug Task Force will close and send more than 100 open cases to the District Attorney's Office for prosecution.

"We have fulfilled our mission, wanted to continue with our mission, but because of the budget situation we're in, hard choices had to be made," said Bahan Rich, Asst. Special Agent in Charge.

The federal government could only give the task force $79,000 this year, 55-percent less than last. They needed $200,000 to survive. With 25-percent of their budget coming from local governments in Cook, Berrien, Lanier, Clinch, and Echols counties, the difference was just too much to make up.

"It's very hard for a municipality to afford county government to give to an agency like ourselves when they have vacancies in their own sheriff's office, police departments, and jails," said Rich. 

Rich says a trouble spot for drugs has been in the Oak Ridge subdivision.

This year alone, on Apple Drive, the drug task force has arrested a cocaine drug dealer and people operating a meth lab.

Bragg lives in Oak Ridge and saw the task force take down a meth lab across the street.

"To me that's wrong, because they actually the need them out here, not just here but in Lakeland, they need them," said Bragg. 

All the task force's equipment and vehicles will be distributed to law agencies in the south Georgia region that will also take over all drug investigations.

The Altamaha Drug Task Force in southeast Georgia is also shutting down.

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