HAZLETON - "Super regional" law enforcement units and regional police departments may sprout from the successful Northeastern Pennsylvania multi-agency drug crackdown of last week.
State Sen. John Yudichak said early feedback is "very encouraging" that positive and powerful anti-crime initiatives will develop from the Mobile Street Crime Unit that has made 100 arrests and seized about 35,000 bags of heroin.
The unit, known as X-IMPACT, deployed in Hazleton last September as a regional crime-fighting tool that pooled federal, state and local resources. The unit will deploy elsewhere in Pennsylvania, the target not yet identified as agents begin laying the groundwork for investigations.
Yudichak, D-Plymouth Township, helped spark the $2.5 million allocation for a Mobile Street Crime Unit. State Attorney General Kathleen Kane embraced the idea and it won bi-partisan support in the state Legislature.
"As legislators see the success of Operation Rising Star (the Hazleton-based deployment of the mobile unit), I envision creation of super-regional law enforcement units," Yudichak said.
The Eastern Region, Central Region and Western Region could be among the regions with permanent multi-agency mobile crime units.
"One police officer told me, 'This is the best tool ever put into our hands,' " Yudichak said. "This is true regional policing. We needed a tangible success story and now we have it."
Beyond the potential for super-regional units is the new focus on regional police departments. Yudichak said authorities from several Hazleton-area communities told him last week that "now is the time" to go regional.
An effort to create a Hazleton City-based regional department in southern Luzerne County flopped, partly because of police pension issues and due to withdrawal by potential member communities. One of the larger municipalities in the region, Hazle Township, has no police department and relies on state police for coverage.
Yudichak said no local police department, not even Hazleton with a 38-member agency, could have staged the investigations or arrests of Operating Rising Star. The Mobile Street Crime Unit had representation from local departments, state police, FBI, U.S. Marshals, Drug Enforcement Agency and other agencies.
"Violent street crime is not just a Hazleton problem or a Wilkes-Barre problem ⦠it is a regional problem ⦠a regional problem that demands regional solutions, regional community engagement and an investment of statewide resources," Yudichak said.
Northeastern Pennsylvania has the attention of criminal gangs and sophisticated drug trafficking organizations because of the interstate highway network.
"Gangs and drug trafficking organizations are setting up shop in communities that are struggling to match their resources," Yudichak said. "A few decades ago, 60 percent of Luzerne County communities had full-time police departments; today just 6 percent have full-time officers on the street."
The only regional police discussions under way in Luzerne County are in the Pittston area. Yudichak attempted without success to get Plymouth, Larksville and Edwardsville to go regional five years ago, when he was in the state House. He said he stands ready to assist any cluster of communities serious about exploring regional policing.