Law enforcement agencies have many levels and specializations, from the federal level all the way to the local level.
There are border police, fish and wildlife police, transit police, airport police, postal police, even railroad police.
In Arkansas, there are also agriculture police. And they stay pretty busy.
The Arkansas Department of Agriculture's law enforcement division works with agencies in and out of the state for agriculture-related issues. According to Chief Billy Black, the agency exists to help agricultural producers that have been wronged to get their money back.
"Our main goal as an agency here is to make producers whole again," Black said. "If we can do that, then we've done our job."
Black is joined by four agents and a few part-time officers to form the team covering agriculture-related crimes all over the state.
The agency in 2021 has opened 204 criminal cases, with 150 requests to assist within the department, and has closed 133 cases.
Black said the number he is most proud of is the $609,000 in restitution for victims during the most recent fiscal year.
"The number that really resonates the most with us is the amount of restitution we get back to the landowners," Black said. "This is money we don't see. We just cause it to happen."
Black said the agency's training and practice lets it understand the technical side of the enforcement beat and gives a resource to agricultural producers.
"We know how to read a timber sheet or how to read a sale barn ticket, whereas this is not something [local law enforcement investigators] are accustomed to," Black said. "I came from a sheriff's office several years ago, and they're overworked and understaffed also. So they don't have time for some of these things that people might view as less of a crime than murder or drugs, but to those producers that have been victimized, that's still important to them."
In an Aug. 3 release from the Department of Agriculture, the department announced the July guilty verdict of Jay Lee Parker of Waldron.
Parker entered a one-year agreement in November 2017 to care for 433 cattle belonging to a Texas family. The next fall, the family found that many of the cattle were missing or dead due to neglect.
The Arkansas Department of Agriculture law enforcement agency partnered with the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association Special Rangers to investigate the case, finding that Parker had sold 54 head of cattle at the Leflore County Livestock Auction in Wister, Okla., and 29 head at the Waldron Sale Barn in Waldron.
Parker was found guilty of two counts of theft of leased or rented property and one count of cruelty to animals in Scott County Circuit Court on July 27. Parker will serve 12 years in the Arkansas Department of Corrections and will be charged $120,000.
Black said many victims of cattle-related crimes do not know about the agency.
"We're picking up more and more livestock cases every day because without [exposure], they don't know we're here," Black said. "If I got a dollar for every time someone said, 'I didn't know y'all existed,' I would double my salary in a year. They've known us as a forestry [unit] forever."
Black estimates that two-thirds of the cases the agency gets are forestry-related.
"Timber theft is going to be the major crime that we work most of the time, because we started out as forestry law enforcement. That's all we did was dumping and timber theft and fires," Black said.
In 2018, Gov. Asa Hutchinson and Agriculture Secretary Wes Ward, understanding there was a need for investigators over all areas under the Department of Agriculture, made the Forestry Law Enforcement Division the agency for the entire department.
Ward said that after becoming the secretary, he heard pretty regularly about cattle theft in the state.
"The Arkansas Department of Agriculture exists to serve our state's largest industry with a $21 billion economic impact every year," Ward said. "I started in this position in 2015, and it wasn't uncommon to hear about cattle theft or equipment theft or arsons: a broad range of criminal activity that fell within the agriculture industry."
As in the Parker case, the agency's position as part of a state-level department allows it to coordinate investigations with other states.
"That case is another good example where you have some sort of criminal activity and it's cross-border," Ward said. "That case we've been working with Texas law enforcement. We've worked with Oklahoma law enforcement, Mississippi, surrounding states. Having law enforcement more specialized in agriculture really helps all of us."
