Turning Up The Heat On Ice Dealers

Anthony Williams, the new Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent In Charge, is determined to stop the flow of crystal meth into Hawaii, and praises cooperation from other law enforcement for several recent busts

Wednesday - May 12, 2005
By Chad Pata
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Williams wants to make
examples of drug dealers and
show kids the reality of breaking
the law

While this is a common find in the brutal world of Colombian and Jamaican drug lords on which he cut his teeth, it could be a sign of bad things to come in Hawaii. Until this point our drug war has been more about battling addiction than the drivebys and shootouts more associated with cities on the Mainland.

“We are trying to stay ahead of the curve [on weapons],” says Williams. “But you can’t worry about comparing us to other cities because it is happening here, we are seeing it and we are seizing guns. It is impacting Hawaii in a negative way and we have to make a difference.

“When you look around here and see how pretty it is, we cannot afford to lose this to some idiots holding the state under siege because they have proceeds from drug trafficking. We have to put them in jail.”

Taking the fight to them involves increased coordination between law enforcement groups, educating the public on what to do when they see dealers and increasing the activities and visibility of the DEA in the community to make the dealers uncomfortable.

“That is why we seize their assets, because that has a real impact. You see them in an Escalade, then all of sudden they have nothing,” says Williams, who relishes his role of spoiling the party. “Kids have to learn, if it’s too good, it’s not good. If it’s too fast, it’s not good.”

This is a big a part of the education that he wants to brings to kids. They often look up to dealers because they appear to have everything, to have it all together. They have the toys their folks won’t buy them, drive the cars they dream about and seem to live without any rules.

Williams knows learning that lesson on the street can have more impact than what they learn in school, so by bringing these criminals down, he can teach them that drugs don’t pay.

“Everybody makes mistakes, no matter how good you think you are, you will get caught and will go to jail on the Mainland for a long time,” says Williams.

This philosophy took root early in his career, a bust in the Big Easy where the crack and guns were overflowing. Williams took down a particularly nasty menace and after slapping the cuffs on him, he noticed a little boy watching him.

Seeing him take away the man who had probably been parthero/ part-terror to him for years, the kid did what comes naturally to a kid, he smiled.

“The look on his face when I was walking away, I think that maybe this encouraged him to grow up and be a police officer and not a trafficker,” says Williams, who slows his speech a bit as he tells the story.

So now he brings his well-traveled school of thought here to the Islands, where he hopes to bring that smile to a few kids out here, who after years under the siege of addiction, so desperately deserve it.

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