Although Kenton County officials are the ones most under fire for backlogged arrest warrants, their colleagues in Northern Kentucky actually sport longer lists of wanted people.
The Kenton County Sheriff's Department, regarded as the main legal document servers in the county, has allowed more than 4,200 unserved warrants to accumulate.
But officials in Campbell and Boone - the smaller counties that sandwich Kenton - told The Enquirer their lists are even larger. As of Friday, Campbell officials said they had 5,000 outstanding warrants; Boone officials said their backlog stood at 5,655.
That means almost 15,000 arrest warrants remain unserved in the three-county region of Northern Kentucky.
But Col. Mike Helmig, chief deputy of the Boone County Sheriff's Department, has a quick explanation. Many on his list, he said, can be attributed to the long stretch of Interstate 75 that runs through his county.
It is very common, he said, for motorists to get speeding tickets on their way through Kentucky, not pay them and have arrest warrants issued. By state law, someone from out-of-state wanted on a misdemeanor will not be extradited, so there is no reason deputies would even try to pick them up, Col. Helmig said.
''I can't tell you how many there are of those - it's probably 90 percent,'' he said. ''We couldn't go to Florida to pick that person up for $67.50,'' referring to the fine.
The Enquirer, in several reports last week, detailed the growing concerns in Northern Kentucky over Kenton's backlogged warrants.
Ray Stoess, executive director of the Kentucky Sheriffs Association, a professional organization for the commonwealth's 120 sheriffs, said he was surprised that Kenton Sheriff Bill Steenken announced last week that he doesn't consider warrant service his office's responsibility.
''That's what we do,'' Mr. Stoess said of sheriffs across the Kentucky. ''That and collecting taxes.''
Mr. Steenken also shocked local officials by deciding to pull two deputies out of a special FBI task force that had been looking since August for the most violent fugitives on the list.
The task force, an undercover effort that the FBI acknowledged to The Enquirer on Dec. 13, has netted about 50 alleged scofflaws in four months. It is now made up of one FBI agent, one officer from Newport Police and two from the Covington Police Department.
Covington added the second officer after learning that Sheriff Steenken would be pulling his men out.
Lt. Col. Keith Hill, assistant chief of the Campbell County Police Department, confirmed his county's 5,000 number. But he said he did not know why Campbell's total was higher than that posted in Kenton.
Newport Chief Tom Fromme said the difference could be the number of law enforcement officers in the county. Campbell County has fewer police departments than Kenton and, therefore, probably fewer officers to be out trying to serve warrants.
''For our department, it's manpower,'' he said of the 44-member force. ''You would have to dedicate a lot of time to serve them.''
Chief Fromme said it's all about prioritizing: The violent felony suspects are searched for immediately, he said, but people wanted for things such as failure to appear in court on a misdemeanor charge generally are not.
Gregory A. Hall contributed to this report.
ROB KAISER COLUMN
Previous stories
Kenton police chief proposes special unit Published Dec. 19, 1996
Sheriff pulls deputies off FBI team Published Dec. 18, 1996
Lawmakers want answer to unserved warrants Published Dec. 17, 1996
4,200 unserved warrants in Kenton County Published Dec. 15, 1996
