Flashy Cars Taken From Drug Dealers Go To D.A.R.E. Officers

REDMOND - Police D.A.R.E. officers here used to have a big, poky, donated van until the car dealer reclaimed and sold it.

But one officer in the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program will soon be behind the wheel of a 1983 Porsche 944 while another has been driving a 1982 BMW. Both cars were seized from drug dealers and put to work in the program, which provides drug-prevention education in schools.

"It's kind of a symbol of look who was driving it and look who's driving it now," said Sgt. Gail Marsh. "If you think narcotics is a fast road to a flashy life . . . look who's in custody now."

The BMW, painted with the D.A.R.E. logo, is hard to miss although some people haven't seen the message painted on the Bimmer's rear - "This vehicle was unwillingly donated by a convicted drug dealer."

Said Marsh, "We've had several phone calls, with people asking, `How can the Redmond Police Department afford a BMW? I hear it at my aerobics class, at the grocery store . . ."

Neither car cost the police a dime. Both vehicles and a boat since auctioned off were confiscated from two New Zealand nationals caught raising some 1,000 marijuana plants, the biggest drug-growing operation ever busted by the Eastside Narcotics Task Force. The pair pleaded guilty to drug charges, Marsh said.

Police supervisors have reminded officers who get to drive the luxury cars that speeding wouldn't fit the D.A.R.E. image, Marsh

said.