As we have seen across the South Plains, drug busts can happen at any time, day or night, in law enforcement’s constant effort to keep our streets safe and clean, but what happens after the bust?
 
Lubbock County’s Sheriff Kelly Rowe explains that while drugs are for the most part destroyed, a portion of the money does go to the district attorney’s office as well as to the city of Lubbock, and in the past, some of the money has also gone back to the law enforcement agencies that aided in the bust.
 
Sheriff Kelly Rowe explains, there’s a “multitude” of resources the department is able to spent seized money on, but that the main thing that the money will never go towards is pay for the department. 
 
“That can be equipment and anything to support the law enforcement mission, and in a lot of cases we use it to assist in the investigative process,” explained Sheriff Rowe. “One of the other big things we use it for is drug prevention programs.” 
 
Other items seized during drug busts are also utilized by the sheriff’s department, such as televisions or even cars. 
 
“Put it into service if it’s usable,” said Rowe. “If we actually seize a vehicle and its forfeited over to to us, we have the option of putting it up for auction or putting it into service for 2 years service.”
 
And for operations that require a multi-agency effort (whether that consists LSO, LPD, DPS, etc…), the loot is “portioned out” according to everyone’s participation. 
 
“The way we operate today for the most part, there’s a lot of good partnerships going.”
 
Aside from what may even be considered as “perks” to some, for law enforcement at the end of the day, the most important goal is getting the supplies out of the hands of criminals, and placing those criminals behind bars.
 
“Our focus is always getting the criminals, and in this particular case, the drugs off the street,” said Rowe. “If seizures occur as a result of that, in the nature of the criminal enterprise that was occurring when we began investigating, that’s a benefit that comes as a result of it, but it is not a priority for us.”