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Highlands Today

Sheriff's Office's Special Investigations Unit Expanding Its Focus

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By BRAD DICKERSON

Highlands Today

Published: January 14, 2009

SEBRING - Starting today, the Highlands County Sheriff's Office's Special Investigations Unit (SIU) is changing its mission.

The team, which had previously focused mainly on drug cases, is now looking at a number of different crime facets.

"It has changed our mission from just drugs to more of a crime suppression unit," said Capt. Randy LaBelle.

This reorganized unit is a combination of existing SIU detectives and the office's tactical team, which had three members.

There are now six members of the SIU team, as well as two supervisors.
LaBelle explained that he had to move two of his SIU detectives to the Criminal Investigations Unit because of an influx in cases a few months back.

By augmenting SIU with the tactical team, the unit is back at full strength.

Their crime suppression strategy will include an analysis of different areas in the county based on crime trends and patterns.

"We're going to, basically, allocate those resources to those areas until such time that problem's basically gone or reduced significantly," LaBelle said. "It's almost like a problem-oriented policing unit."

The unit's focus will no longer solely be drugs, but also things like burglaries, vandalism, alcohol compliance, prostitution or, "anything from A to Z," according to LaBelle.

An on-going issue with several problem areas is car fishing, which could come to the attention of the revamped SIU.

"Those car fishing cases are normally in a geographical area and there's not just one or two, there's numerous," LaBelle said. "If we have to put that team in there (one) night and put them in the nooks and corners watching, then that's what we're going to do."

The SIU will also change its appearance. In the past, it has been more of a plain clothes unit, with members wearing T-shirts and blue jeans and sporting longer hair.

"They're going to basically look more like cops," LaBelle said.

The public's help will also be requested to alert the team to the county's hotbeds for various criminal activities. Those wanting to make out such a report can contact the sheriff's office at (863) 402-7200 or Heartland Crime Stoppers at (800) 226-TIPS (8477).
LaBelle is anxious to start this new organization of the SIU, adding that it has been a "vision" for some time.

"I can't wait and I know they're going to hit the ground running," he said.

Highlands Today reporter Brad Dickerson can be reached at (863) 386-5838 or bdickerson@highlandstoday.com

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