MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — While opioid abuse has dominated the headlines, deputies say another drug in western Wisconsin is threatening the livelihood of everyone who lives there.

Polk County has the most meth cases in all of Wisconsin. Investigators believe the drug is somehow connected to nearly all of the crime that happens in that county. WCCO went to see how Wisconsin is making changes to send a message to meth dealers.

Balsam Lake bills itself as a cozy village nestled in boat country. The blue skies a stark contrast to the call Polk County Investigator Adam Vitalis received at his daughter’s last track meet.

“He was crying and upset and had meth on him, wanted to know what to do,” Vitalis said.

In a way, the Sheriff’s Office fights the battle in a small town atmosphere, as they sort through one of the bigger meth busts they’ve made. Meth users and dealers fill court calendars, daily.

“The rest of them are known to use methamphetamine by me,” Deputy Anthony Grimm said.

From domestic calls to property crimes, deputies say the drug is behind nearly all of the county’s crimes.

“You can just watch the spiderweb grow and the dominoes start to fall,” Investigator Vitalis said.

For the last few years, Polk County has lead the way in meth cases — 152 last year alone — despite having far fewer people than more populated Wisconsin counties.

“I would describe it as beyond an epidemic,” Drug Investigator Tony Grimm said.

Grimm blames that epidemic on Polk County’s proximity to Minnesota and the metro area. A crackdown on cold medicine in the early 2000s all but put meth cooks out of business.

Now, meth gets to Polk County from Mexico, and deputies Grimm and Vitalis say the drug has never been more pure or cheap to buy — 80 percent less than just a few years ago.

“You can almost feel a collective sigh of relief on a street when something like this happens,” Vitalis said.

In this case, they caught Brice Wallace dealing meth in Clear Lake, selling to more than 20 people in the town of barely a thousand.

“It’s pretty overwhelming when you look at the impact of that small community,” Vitalis said.

In April, Cole Ronningen received a 13-year prison sentence.

His is the steepest sentence to date after Wisconsin’s Attorney General picked an assistant last year to prosecute such cases, hoping to send a stronger message to meth dealers in the northwest part of the state.

“We’re giving him every case that he’ll take,” Grimm said.

Investigators believe this has only been allowed to fester in the shadows of the opioid crisis — all while this addiction is proving more destructive to a way of life in western Wisconsin.

“One way or another, we have to solve it,” Grimm said.

In addition to steeper prison sentences, deputies would like to see more of a crackdown along the Mexico border. They say it’s no secret where the drug is coming from, and the only way it stops is if the flow of the drug stops.

They say border security has turned into a political hot=button issue tied to the immigration debate — but they say the meth epidemic has nothing to do with that.

TURKEY CREEK, Ky. (CBS Local) – A Floyd County, Kentucky man is blaming a spike in local drug use for an odd burglary his own cousin allegedly carried out at his home.

“Who steals a cheese grader?” burglary victim Mason Tackett asked. “He’s got the works…Lysol… he stole an empty bottle of spray,” he continued. “What got me the most was my soap. He stole my soap! Who steals soap!?”

Neighbors said they saw Tackett’s cousin Phillip Matthew Hagans carrying items from his house.

“When I finally got down here to the house to look and see what happened the door was standing wide open,” said Tackett. “It look like he was packing up for a yard sale when he come out.”

That is when Tackett confronted Hagans.

“He was lying, throwing his hands. Saying stuff like ‘I didn’t do it, I didn’t do it.’ You know how rogues do,” said Tackett. “Blame it on everybody else.”

Then things got dangerous.

“He did pull a gun on me when I got back around the house,” said Tackett. “I guess he thought I was upset with him.”

Locals and authorities in Kentucky reportedly believe meth use is on the rise in the area leading to an uptick in crime, according to WYMT-TV.

“Must have been a bad batch around here cause Floyd County has went crazy here in the last four days,” Tackett explained.

The homeowner said he plans to file additional charges against Hagans. Despite Tackett’s assumption that drugs drove his cousin to allegedly steal this odd collection of items, police did not say Hagans was facing any meth-related charges.

[H/T CBS DFW]

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — Investigators say an animal fighting ring, operated out of a property right in the middle of a country road in rural Gilman Township, Wisconsin, was hidden in plain sight.

Authorities believe Houa Dia Yang was the mastermind behind it all.

(credit: Pierce County Sheriff’s Office)

The U.S. Marshals Service were serving him an arrest warrant late last week when they stumbled upon drug paraphernalia, more than a dozen dogs and more than 1,000 chickens — all bred for fighting. Pierce County Sheriff Nancy Hove said the ring was organized to a T.

“Eggs were labeled … they kept track of who laid what and what kind of breeds were coming out of them,” Hove said.

(credit: Pierce County Sheriff’s Office)

On top of it all, detectives say they found the makings for a marijuana grow operation at the home.

Authorities also arrested Senyen Vang, who lived at the home as well.

(credit: Pierce County Sheriff’s Office)

“We checked [her] stuff before she left to make sure she wasn’t taking any evidence. At that time, we found a safe in her [bag]. We took the safe, got a warrant to open it up, and in it there was 4 pounds of meth,” Hove said.

ASPCA members have been working to remove the animals safely from the home this past week. They will all be taken to emergency shelters to receive care and treatment.

As of Thursday night, both of the suspects in this case were behind bars.

Animal fighting is a felony in Wisconsin, and offenders can spend up to six years in prison if convicted.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — Two men have been charged after authorities say they conspired to distribute more than 500 grams of meth. According to the complaint, they exceeded that amount by many times over.

Gonzalo Jiminez-Paz Jr. and Rey David Luna-Santillanes have both been charged, according to documents filed with the U.S. District Court in Minneapolis.

The documents say that officers searched an apartment at 1st Street South and Marquette Avenue in downtown Minneapolis last Saturday. They recovered about 64 pounds of what they suspected to be meth, which was found in two suitcases.

Tests of the substance found in the suitcases came back positive for meth, the charges state. Jiminez-Paz and Luna-Santillanes were arrested.

The two were taken into custody, and investigators questioned them. Luna-Santillanes told authorities he had arrived in Minnesota two months prior and was living with Jiminez-Paz at the apartment. He also admitted to delivering some narcotics on behalf of Jiminez-Paz, along with wiring money to California.

The complaint says that along with the meth, investigators also found three pounds of suspected heroin, some pills, two loaded guns and a large amount of money inside the apartment.

Both men are due in federal court Thursday at 1 p.m.

SHAWANO, Wis. (AP) — A man was arrested after authorities say he came to the police department to claim a methamphetamine-filled backpack he had left at a northeastern Wisconsin library.

A staffer at Shawano County Library found the backpack Monday and turned it over to police. Prosecutors say there were three small bags of meth inside, along with a martial arts weapon known as nunchucks.

The 31-year-old suspect showed up at the police department later in the day. Court documents say he told police he had taken the drugs from his ex-girlfriend because he was investigating her drug-dealing, and that he had the nunchucks to protect himself from her.

He was arrested for drug possession.

(© Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — South Dakota sparked online guffaws Monday by rolling out an anti-drug campaign featuring people saying, “Meth, I’m on it,” and the governor said the backlash proves the effort to raise awareness is working.

The nearly $1.4 million campaign aimed at tackling the state’s methamphetamine epidemic includes $449,000 paid to the Minneapolis-based ad agency that created the tagline. A press release for the campaign said it uses “impactful, even shocking” images of South Dakotans to try to communicate that meth should be tackled by everyone.

The images featured the words, “Meth. I’m on it.” over photos of people in cowboy hats, in a coffee shop or on a football field.

“We didn’t want this to look like every other anti-drug campaign,” said Laurie Gill, the Secretary for the Department of Social Services, which oversaw the campaign.

Many on social media joked about the images making it appear the people in the photos are on meth.

One Twitter user posted, “It seems that if I’m on meth, I can live to a ripe old age, eat in restaurants, play football with my pals, and have a family. That sounds much better than the life I’m having now. Somebody get me some meth.”

Another Twitter user posted: “Surprising anti-meth campaign in South Dakota. With the theme ‘Meth. I’m on it,’ what could go wrong?”

Gov. Kristi Noem defended the campaign, posting, “Hey Twitter, the whole point of this ad campaign is to raise awareness. So I think that’s working …”

Noem, appearing in a video for the campaign, said South Dakota’s meth problem is “growing at an alarming rate.” According to the state’s Department of Social Services, the number of 12- to 17-year-olds who reported using meth in the last year is double the national average. The state has also seen the number of people seeking treatment for meth addiction double from 2014 to 2018.

The ad campaign includes a website, billboards and TV ads that will run through May. Gill said the price paid to Broadhead Co. to produce the ads was justified considering that meth addiction is on the rise in South Dakota.

“This is a huge issue,” she said. “And we’re willing to do what we have to do to get people on it.”

(© Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — Add South Dakota ad agencies to the chorus unhappy with a state anti-meth campaign that included the provocative tagline, “Meth: We’re on it.”

The South Dakota Advertising Federation is upset that the account went to a Minnesota ad agency. In a statement Wednesday, the federation says nine in-state agencies bid on the contract and the money could have stayed in South Dakota.

The state is paying Broadhead, a Minneapolis agency, almost $700,000 for its work.

The federation didn’t directly criticize the campaign, which drew ridicule on social media, but said in its statement that the in-state agencies “could have delivered a message by South Dakotans that resonates with South Dakota.”

It also described the state’s meth problem as “a serious, real and devastating epidemic” that called for a campaign “that should not be taken lightly.”

Executive director Maggie Saugstad said Thursday that South Dakota has enough talent to produce a campaign that fits with the character of the state.

“There’s so much controversy about how the message was delivered that we’ve lost the actual message in the process,” she said.

Gov. Kristi Noem has called the ads a success. She says the campaign was intended to be “provocative” and the Minneapolis agency chosen because it proposed ads that go beyond typical drug awareness campaigns.

(© Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — The St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office says a driver in northeastern Minnesota was “randomly” shot at by another motorist while driving on Townline Road in rural Makinen on Monday. Now authorities are saying that the alleged shooter admitted to using methamphetamine within 24 hours of the incident.

No one was injured in the shooting, but according to a news release from law enforcement on Tuesday, at least one bullet struck the driver’s car. That bullet broke out the car’s rear window and impacted its front windshield.

Sheriff’s deputies were able to locate a suspect, taking the 25-year-old man into custody without resistance. He is being charged with attempted second-degree murder, second degree assault, and fifth degree possession of a controlled substance.

Law enforcement later executed a search warrant at his residence, where they found a long gun that is believed to be involved in the incident.

Investigators said they do not believe the two drivers knew each other. At this time, police suspect that it was a random act of violence.

WCCO does not name suspects until they have been formally charged with a crime.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – The Anoka County SWAT team seized 11 guns, and about 3 grams of methamphetamine, from a home in Spring Lake Park last month. Now a 37-year-old man has been charged with possession of a firearm by an ineligible person and possession of a controlled substance.

According to a criminal complaint, the Minneapolis Police Department received a tip from a confidential informant that Dustin Joseph Otis was selling meth at his home.

The Anoka County SWAT team executed a search warrant at the house on Pleasant View Drive NE in Spring Lake Park on January 24. Otis was not home at the time.

Inside, police say they found a gun safe containing 10 guns and ammunition, along with 2.7 grams of a substance that tested positive for methamphetamine, on a bar in the basement. Another pistol was found attached by a magnet to the master bedroom’s nightstand dresser.

A police statement says that Otis later admitted that the guns were his, claiming that he used them for hunting. Police say he initially denied knowing about the meth in the house, but later admitted that he was aware it was in the basement.

Otis had previously been convicted of making terroristic threats last July. On the charge of illegal possession of a firearm he now faces up to 15 years and/or up to a $30,000 fine.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – A Wisconsin mail carrier has been arrested on charges of possession of drug paraphernalia with intent to deliver, after law enforcement discovered 21 grams of methamphetamine in his home.

The Barron County Sheriff’s Department says they found the meth while executing a search warrant at the Chetek home of Tim Wilson on February 10.

The 66-year-old mail carrier was not home at the time. He was later taken into custody while driving on his mail route.

Law enforcement says Wilson had another two grams of meth in his possession at the time of his arrest.

He was booked into the Barron County Jail. One day later he was released on a $10,000 signature bond.

(credit: Barron County Sheriff’s Department)

The case remains under investigation by the Barron County Drug Unit. Law enforcement says the street value of the drugs is about $2,300.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — Authorities in central Minnesota say two people were arrested Wednesday after a home search turned up nearly 12 pounds of meth.

The CEE-VI Drug Task Force says officers executed a narcotics search warrant at a home in Litchfield, on the 600 block of Armstrong Avenue South.

Inside, officers found 11.6 pounds of meth, which has an estimated street value of $150,000. Also found was more than 9 pounds of marijuana and over $72,000 in cash.

Officers arrested a 33-year-old Litchfield man and 36-year-old Litchfield woman. They are being held in the Meeker County Jail pending formal charges.

According to the task force, agents were initially called to the home to assist the Minnesota Department of Corrections. The task for applied for the search warrant thereafter.

Assisting the task force in the search were the Meeker County Sheriff’s Office and the Litchfield Police Department.

Litchfield is located about 70 miles west of Minneapolis.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — Authorities in Waite Park say a man is in custody after fleeing police early Wednesday morning.

According to police, around 2:30 a.m. an officer saw a motorcyclist driving very erratically on 3rd Street north. Officials say the driver was accelerating very quickly, traveling at a high rate of speed and running stoplights.

As the officer attempted to stop the motorcyclist, the motorcyclist crashed near the intersection of County Road 138 and 34th Avenue South in the City of Waite Park. The driver, a 33-year-old Albany man, was arrested.

Upon arrest, the man was found to be in the possession of a large quantity of meth.

The individual has first transported to the St. Cloud Hospital and then to Stearns County Jail. He was booked on charges of felony possession of narcotics and driving cancelled-IPS.

WCCO-TV does not name suspects until they have been formally charged.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — Waite Park police say a motorcyclist who was seen driving erratically before crashing early Wednesday morning was possessing a “large quantity of meth.”

An officer first spotted the 33-year-old Albany man just after 2:30 a.m. on 3rd Street North. The officer followed for some time without the biker even noticing, witnessing him weave, accelerate suddenly multiple times and speed through several red lights.

When the officer attempted to pull him over, the biker crashed near County Road 138th and 34th Avenue South. He was taken to St. Cloud Hospital, then to the Stearns County Jail.

Besides carrying a lot of methamphetamine, the man’s driver’s license had been cancelled for past dangerous driving.

He is expected to face several felony charges. WCCO does not typically identify suspects before they’ve been formally charged.

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MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — A community-funded K-9 officer helped crack a year-long drug distribution investigation in western Wisconsin.

The Dunn County Sheriff’s Office says deputies pulled over a 25-year-old rural Menomonie woman Sunday, and a K-9 officer named Rip pointed his handler to more than three-quarters of a pound of methamphetamine, as well as oxycodone, suboxone, a gun, counterfeit money, a scale and packing material.

(credit: Dunn Co. Sheriff’s Office)

Menomonie police and the West Central Drug Task Force assisted in the investigation, which led to the arrest and indictment of Cassandra P. Davis-Suchla.

She made her first court appearance Monday, and is being held at the Dunn County Jail.

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MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — A 45-year-old St. Paul man is in custody after authorities say he was sent several pounds of methamphetamine and marijuana in the mail.

The CEE-VI Drug and Gang Task Force says the United States Post Service was tipped off to suspicious packages being delivered between Nevada and an address in Eden Valley, which is about 30 miles southwest of St. Cloud.

A K-9 officer detected drugs in the packages, and investigators soon found more than five pounds of meth and four-and-a-half pounds of marijuana.

Officers then staged a delivery of packages to the address, and arrested the man who retrieved them, after a brief foot chase. The name of the suspect hasn’t been released, and it isn’t clear if he’s been charged yet.

The case is being investigated by several agencies, including the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and the Mille Lacs Tribal Police Department.

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Six pounds of meth was seized in Pine and Isanti counties on Friday.

Over the past six months, the East Central Drug and Violent Offenders Task (ECDVOTF) has been investigating a group of individuals involved in drug trafficking from California to Minnesota and in the distribution of methamphetamine in the Chisago, Isanti, Kanabec, and Pine County area.

On Wednesday, the ECDVOTF served multiple warrants in Chisago, Isanti and Pine Counties leading to the seizure of six pounds of methamphetamine, several guns, $6,659 in illicit drug proceeds, and the arrest of three people.

On Wednesday the ECDVOTF served warrants on Anthony Nathan Jones, 38, and his vehicle in Pine County. Three pounds of methamphetamine were discovered in the vehicle and Jones was booked into Pine County jail on first-degree controlled substance crimes.

Agents then executed a search warrant on Jones’ residence in Stacy, MN. Another three pounds of methamphetamine was discovered as well as three guns. Jones is a convicted felon and possessed the weapons illegally.

On the same day, agents conducted a traffic stop on a rental vehicle from California which led to the arrest of two California residents on fifth-degree controlled substance charges.

Alexandra Ramirez, 25, of San Bernardino, CA and Oscar Rodriguez, 25. of Long Beach, CA were booked into the Chisago County jail.

If you have information about any illegal narcotics, gang, or other violent offender activity, please contact the task force at 320-566-4153.