Renowned investigators teach law enforcement officers
Nash Community College and Nash County Sheriff’s Office are co-sponsoring a two-week Basic Narcotic Investigator School, being held at the the College this week for top investigators from across North Carolina. This training is also supported by the Rocky Mount Police Department, Wilson Police Department, Tarboro Police Department, Nashville Police Department, Franklin County Sheriff’s Office, Wayne County Sheriff’s Office, and the Atlanta-Carolinas High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program (HIDTA).
The 80-hour course is aimed at improving investigator effectiveness and efficiency and reducing liabilities associated with conducting drug investigations. Nearly a dozen Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) topic specific experts from around the country will inform and instruct on a variety of topics including: Case Development, Undercover Operations, Informant Management, Drug Identification and Pharmacology, Courtroom Survival, Proper Use of Force, Critical Incident Management and many other related topics. The course led by instructor, Steve Peterson, runs September 14 through 25.
Peterson was a Special Agent of the United States Department of Justice, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for nearly three decades. At the time of his retirement, Peterson was the most senior DEA street agent in the world. During his tenure, he was stationed in Boston, New York, Atlanta, retiring in Charlotte in 2010. For over eleven years he served as the DEA Atlanta Field Division Training Coordinator (DTC), responsible for coordinating and conducting training to all DEA employees within the Atlanta Division, as well as Task Force Officers, State & Local Police Officers and civilians within Georgia, Tennessee and North and South Carolina. Peterson has taught over 80,000 law enforcement officers. Prior to training, as a street agent working undercover for over 17 years, he received numerous awards and commendations, including appointment as Lead Investigator in the investigation of the murder of DEA SA Ray Stastny in 1987 in Atlanta. Today, Peterson is a nationally recognized expert in Mexican Black Tar Heroin as well as money laundering in the medical and legal cannabis industry and financial investigations.
Other instructors include: Dr. Bobby Smith, former Los Angeles State Trooper injured in the line of duty; Peter Boyce, Georgia attorney representing officers and municipalities in Use of Force law suits; Mike Grimes, retired DEA Supervisor and published in the topic of informant management; Tim Sellers, retired DEA Supervisor and author of “The Last Cowboy”; two DEA heroes, Stephen Murphy and Javier Pena; attorney F. Lee Bailey, famous defense attorney; and many other instructors.
