Local police thanked for role in regional meth busts

Clark County’s Career Criminal Apprehension Team has been credited with helping drug detectives in a five-month, ongoing probe of a group of methamphetamine cooks and dealers in Clark, Cowlitz and Lewis counties in Washington, and Columbia and Clatsop counties in Oregon.

As of Friday, officers with several police agencies had seized more than 1 1/2 pounds of crystal meth, $10,000 cash, clandestine meth lab components, two handguns, marijuana and other evidence, according to a bulletin from the Cowlitz-Wahkiakum Narcotics Task Force, called CWNTF.

Six search warrants had been executed and, of six people arrested since September, three are facing felony drug charges involving the illegal stimulant, with their crimes committed in Lewis and Cowlitz counties, the bulletin said. They are Anthony Reisbeck, 43, of Toledo; Thomas Needham, 42, of Kelso; and 34-year-old Erika Lewis of Toledo.

Lewis was arrested Thursday in a traffic stop on Interstate 5 in Lewis County and drugs, ledgers and other evidence of a continuing drug sales conspiracy were found in her car, the bulletin said.

Needham is accused of operating a meth lab in Kelso, police said.

Three others were arrested for previously issued warrants.

In the bulletin, task force Detective Sgt. Kevin Tate, based in Kelso, thanked anonymous tipsters and officers with several police agencies including the interagency Career Criminal Apprehension Team, called CCAT, based in Vancouver.

“Without the ongoing partnership of each of these agencies the CWNTF would simply not be able to target groups such as this,” Tate said.

Other members of the group still are believed to be operating in the five-county area, he said.

“Numerous additional suspects have been identified and the investigation is ongoing.”

John Branton: 360-735-4513 or john.branton@columbian.com.