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Joe Martin elected to Appalachia HIDTA board

PARKERSBURG — Parkersburg Police Chief Joe Martin was recently announced as a member of the executive board for the Appalachia High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area.

“I was humbled to be selected,” said Martin, adding he looks forward to the opportunity to “trade and share ideas, what’s working in other places, what’s working here.”

The Parkersburg Police chief joins a group of U.S. attorneys, county sheriffs, FBI and DEA agents and other high-ranking law enforcement officials in West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee who help determine the allocation of resources in the Appalachia HIDTA’s 90 designated counties.

“Chief Martin is a well-respected law enforcement professional and his leadership and expertise will benefit the Appalachia HIDTA Executive Board,” Vic Brown, executive director of the Appalachia HIDTA, said in a news release.

Wood County was designated as a High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area in the fall of 2017. Counties under the designation receive additional federal resources to help eliminate or reduce drug trafficking and its harmful consequences. Law enforcement organizations within HIDTA assess drug-trafficking problems and design specific initiatives to reduce or eliminate the production, manufacture, transportation, distribution, and chronic use of illegal drugs, as well as money laundering, the release says.

Elected in November, Martin attended his first conference as a member of the board Jan. 30-31 in Lexington, Ky. He said the executive leadership of the regional organization was pleased with the performance of the Parkersburg Violent Crime and Narcotics Task Force in last year’s “Project Parkersburg,” in which 30 suspects were arrested and more than 150 pounds of drugs seized and a 2017 operation in which seven suspects were apprehended in three states.

“That truly defines the mission of HIDTA, to work your way into those kinds of cases and find the head of the snake and cut it off,” Martin said.

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