OCR Text |
Show Comment Controversy Full! Police fiction Here As a result of drug arrests ar-rests made last weekend by local officers of the Highway High-way Patrol and Police Department, De-partment, numerous charges char-ges and counter-chai-ges have been aimed throughout through-out the city. In an attempt to clarify the positions of a number of persons involved in the issue, comments from several sev-eral sources have been gathered ga-thered by The Times. Also included are comments by several citizens who spoke at the City Council meeting meet-ing held Tuesday night at Star Hall, with nearly 400 persons in attendance. First, in clarification of laws governing pursuit of offenders of narcotics statutes, sta-tutes, City Council member mem-ber Robert Migliori and acting deputy sheriff John Sparks traveled to Salt Lake City this week to speak to the assistant Attorney At-torney General, Loren Beesley, concerning jurisdiction. juris-diction. Beesley told the men ithat Police Chief Melvin Dalton and other City officers of-ficers did indeed have jurisdiction over drug offenses of-fenses which occurred in the county if they had originated or-iginated in Moab Gity or involved Moab citizens. The reason for this is that neither the City or County have laws or ordinances governing narcotics; these are State laws and therefore, there-fore, in their enforcement, all officers are state officers. offi-cers. Meeting Scheduled Migliori also stated that on April 26, the Assistant Attorney General will be in Moab to meet witji the City and County governing 'bodies and law enforcement enforce-ment officials to see if some plan to remove the' discord which exists between be-tween the Sheriff's de-... de-... partment and .City Police . department can be found. In discussing the arrest -with Sheriff W. H. Bowman, Bow-man, the Sheriff stated (that he did not feel that such plans for a raid or other work on crime de tection outsiae me ii..v .should be done without consulting him. Bowman continued by saying that he was concerned wth the drug problem in this area and has been working on' It for the past years. However, How-ever, Bowman stated, "I have other things to do. There is no specialization in this area in the Sheriff's Sher-iff's department and I have to do a number of of other things such as attending to civil matters as well as work on drugs." ' County ;Attorney Before the results of the meeting with the Assistant Assist-ant Attorney General were made public, County Attorney At-torney Harry Snow, who filed the charges against the adults involved in the mass arrest, stated that he felt that Chief Dalton was well within his rights in the arrest because of his working with the members of the Utah Highway Patrol. Pa-trol. Snow also said that, "In order to have good law enforcement, there must be cooperation between be-tween all the agencies, city, icounty and state. I do no feel that there has been ithis cooperation with the Sheriff's department." A report from City Judge Donald Crist indicated indi-cated that the penalty for those persons who are convicted con-victed of being in and about a place where drugs are being used illegally is .imprisonment in the County Coun-ty Jail for not less than 30 days nor more than six months. In the case of a ' first offender only, the court may place the defendant defen-dant on probation and may 'Suspend trie sentence. Citizens' Comments Moab City Council members mem-bers met Tuesday evening in Star Hall to hold the overflow crowd and asked for comments from those persons present who had some statement to make on the arrest. In brief, Isome of those comments were: Clara McDougall: "In any group of kids, outside of a church group, there is going to be mari- ter be aware '. f(J Mrs- Carol Thy are ha, )er ' and are childre. .... not think wii tt , mind and J my boy (Wh ; V ' 'UP) I'm going i'. hum because M will." hf e Mrs. Frank v fm "How can We lo1 children if We , Jed to destroy law ar' Id''1 Barbara Scht, Sin the party Were ; Con who had never t a drink and thf Jc3' know that it wai'. stc1 be a pot party, j "ol not just go aroiif. Kar we're going to I ton' party, everyone t Vcr Marlene BailB pit want to help 0ut iris and one of the 1 j0;i we can is to squ. Ha little ones (drugoi woi until maybe we r jla the top." :el3 Concluding the Hcl Chief Dalton st contrary to some near only one shot h fred and that t 1 ' highway patroln my. was into the air pol'c number of those at the party begai t!ie Dalton also stated pers planned to contir son ' fight against drt; on 8 in the City and it " ture would conti- ,lie, arrest all those ' ,eels found in places "e, drugs were being 1 , that .-H nit |