More than 100 sheriffs and police chiefs from throughout northern Indiana met Friday in Warsaw to work on communications in terrorist situations.

The theme of the meeting was: "The greatest strength of law enforcement is cooperation and communication."

Kosciusko County Sheriff Aaron Rovenstine, KCSD Capt. Jim Springer, Warsaw Police Department Chief Steve Foster and Syracuse Town Marshal Tom Perzanowski were among the law enforcement administrators in attendance at the event that took place at Ramada Plaza Hotel.

The Anti-Terrorism Task Force gathering was held in answer to Attorney General John Ashcroft's Sept. 17 directive that such committees be established in each federal judicial district.

"The primary purpose of the ATTF is to facilitate and coordinate the dissemination of law enforcement information, prosecution strategies and preventative measures in the nation's war against terrorism," according to a press release from Joseph S. Van Bokkelen, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Indiana in Dyer.

Basically, Rovenstine said, "it's the federal government's attempt to communicate with local law enforcement." The meeting helped demonstrate information gathering and sharing of intelligence, he said.

For this district, Van Bokkelen appointed First Assistant U.S. Attorney David Capp as the ATTF coordinator and Law Enforcement Coordination Director James M. Mesterharm as the ATTF information officer. The ATTF already had several meetings and sponsored an extensive two-day terrorist training conference for federal, state and local law enforcement at Grissom Air Force Base.

The speakers at Friday's event included Porter County Sheriff David Reynolds and Allen County Sheriff James Herman, who made introductions and introduced the objectives of the group.

Van Bokkelen, Capp and Mesterharm described the role of the U.S. Attorney's Office and provided an update on terrorism efforts from Washington.

Grant Count Sheriff Oatess Archey discussed cooperative local-federal efforts.

Updates and information also were provided from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Immigration and Naturalization Service and the U.S. Postal Service.

Also during the meeting, a core working group of local law enforcement was formed comprising representatives from the Allen County, Grant County, Lake County, Porter County, St. Joseph County and Tippecanoe County sheriff's departments and the Elkhart, Fort Wayne, Gary, Lafayette and South Bend police departments. The ATTF already has a committee among federal agencies and Capp will begin meeting regularly with the groups to continue to formulate investigative and response strategies.

In a press release provided after the meeting, Capp said it is important to have small working groups that can be brought together on short notice to deal with a variety of terrorism-related issues.

"It is critical to our mission with the ATTF," Capp said, "that law enforcement information generated by the federal agencies be disseminated to local law enforcement and vice versa. Our core working group will be the vehicle to accomplish that."

Another important function of the group will be to plan future training sessions for all law enforcement in the district. [[In-content Ad]]