Scott Swanson
Of The New Era
Michael Spasaro wants to change the Sheriff’s Department’s approach to what he considers the main cause of crime in Linn County – drugs.
Spasaro, 54, a Lebanon resident who’s one of three candidates running for Linn County Sheriff in the May 16 primary, says he brings expertise in dealing with the drug problem in the county from 31 years of law enforcement experience, 22 of them as a special agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration.
“I’ve knocked on 5,000 to 6,000 doors since the beginning of the year,” he said. “Without doubt, the No. 1 concern of county residents is crime and drugs.”
According to Spasaro, an energetic man who speaks in a staccato fashion, drugs are the major cause behind other crimes, including child abuse and sex crimes.
He said that mandatory tests conducted by Lebanon Community Hospital on new unwed mothers bear out his contention.
“As of the first Thursday in March, 81 percent of the unwed mothers (who gave birth at LCH) were using meth,” said Spasaro, who sits on the Linn County Commission for Children and Families. “Almost everything is directly related to drug abuse.”
Spasaro was born and raised in a family of first-generation Italian-Americans on the north shore of Long Island. He spent years in the Boy Scouts, making Eagle Scout, and joined the Fort Lauderdale, Fla., police force in 1973 after serving three years in the Army. After several years as a patrolman, he worked 8 1/2 years as an undercover officer, living the “Miami Vice” life, as he put it, and seizing “record amount” of drugs, and where he was shot in the line of duty.
In 1982, he joined the DEA, where he worked in Istanbul, Turkey, as the resident agent in charge and traveled throughout Europe, the Middle East and Northern Africa. During his tour in Turkey, he worked with the U.S. and Turkish militaries and supervised what he says was the world’s largest seizure of morphine base (heroin) – 12,652 pounds.
In 1996, he was transferred to Oregon, where he opened the Bend and Salem posts of duty, then finished his career at the Eugene office.
After Sept. 11, 2001, he said, he was one of the first people to volunteer for air marshal duty and served for 60 days as a marshal.
He retired on Jan. 2, 2004 and lives in Lebanon with his wife Canan, whom he met in Turkey; they have four children, ages 5, 9, 19 and 20.
Spasaro, who teaches criminal justice classes at Linn-Benton and Lane community colleges, said there are two types of law enforcement: reactive and proactive. He said the current Sheriff’s Department falls under the former category.
“Reactive enforcement is like a fireman sitting in a firehouse, waiting to put down a fire,” he said. “Tim (Mueller) is trying to address the issue of drug abuse. What they’re doing is reactive. They’re assigning people to work property crimes. That’s backward.”
Spasaro said if he is elected, he will implement a “proactive” four-part plan, which would streamline the 185-employee department and create an organized crime bureau consisting of a narcotics unit with undercover officers throughout the county designed to cut off the supply of drugs.
“My first priority is to address the availability of drugs,” he said. “Demand always is dependent on supply.”
He said his plan includes a street crimes unit – also with undercover officers, an analysis division that would provide detailed information about where crimes are occurring in the county on a daily basis, and an attorney.
He also promises to “take to the neighborhoods” – including the areas east of Sweet Home – by providing an “aggressive presence” and a “Do Drugs, Do Time” zero-tolerance policy for users. He said he would partner with community programs and treatment programs to battle drug use as well.
“If I had a magic wand to remove all methamphetamine from Linn County, it wouldn’t solve a thing,” he said. “It’s just a beginning. Then we’d have to address the issue of drug abuse.”
He said that one problem with the current department’s approach is that it is going after what he calls “Beavis and Butthead” drug labs and “9-1-1 calls.”
They’re chasing the wrong duck,” he said. “Ninety percent of the drugs are coming from Mexico.”
As far as funding is concerned, Spasaro doesn’t think that is a problem for his plan.
“I’ve been over the (Sheriff’s Department) budget about 20 times,” he said. “There are ways to streamline the budget.”
One example he cites is that the Sheriff’s office spends $1.65 to feed a meal to one jail inmate.
“Joe Arpaio (sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz.) spends 14 cents to feed one inmate one meal,” Spasaro said, noting that Arpaio, who has been dubbed the “nation’s toughest sheriff,” has endorsed him. “Lebanon school district averages $1.10 to feed those kids. The difference between Joe Arpaio and our Sheriff’s Department is $305,000 per year. I could hire two more officers with that.”
He said he sees other ways to streamline the department, particularly the civil division.
“I think we have plenty of money,” he said. “I don’t want to ask taxpayers for more.”
One “incredible amount of money” for the department, Spasaro said, could be assets forfeiture from drug raids in the county.
He said that the county Sheriff needs to partner with the DEA, and put Sheriff’s officers on rotation with that agency for training.
The DEA picks up overtime up to $11,000 per year for officers from local agencies that work with it, Spasaro said, adding that when local agencies fail to partner with the federal drug enforcement efforts, they pass up opportunities to share in assets forfeitures, such as the approximately $150,000 he said the Salem Police Department got from the DEA after a large drug bust in Brownsville last fall.
“We need a narcotics unit going after international traffickers like ones in Brownsville,” he said. “Don’t waste time on Beavis and Butthead. This is the experience I have to offer Linn County, which Tim can’t do. He doesn’t have the experience.”
Spasaro said he has a total of 10 years of supervisory experience, sometimes over hundreds of people, “since I was a Scout.”
He cited, as an example, the Danny Martinez case in Houston in the summer of 1984, the largest cocaine bust west of the Mississippi River at the time, in which he supervised “about 40 DEA agents and 30 FBI agents.”
He said he sometimes coordinated hundreds of military troops when he was in Turkey.
“I have an incredible background when it comes to supervision,” he said. “I’ve been working with city governments, county governments, state governments, federal government and international governments my entire career.
“I was a diplomat (in Turkey). I had a black passport. I’d work undercover during the day and at night I’d put on a tuxedo and go to a banquet.”
Spasaro has an associate and bachelor’s degree in criminal justice, the latter from Florida Atlantic University.
He has served on a variety of budget and school planning committees for the Lebanon School District and sits on two boards for the Boy Scouts.
“We need guys who have training and experience,” Spasaro said. “I will bring that into the Sheriff’s Department.”