Three Years After Oklahoma Trooper's Death, Meth Crackdown Continues

Sunday, January 7th 2007, 2:09 pm

By: News On 6

LAWTON, Okla. (AP) _ Three years after Oklahoma Highway Patrol Trooper Nikky Green was shot to death, a crackdown on illegal methamphetamine production that his murder helped launch lives on.

Green was killed on the day after Christmas 2003 in an assault that was captured in part in grainy video taken by a camera mounted to the dashboard of his OHP cruiser.

The six-year trooper, who had previously served as a deputy in Cotton County and as an officer in Guthrie, was called out of his bed about 6:30 a.m. to check on a white car parked on the side of the road about a mile from the trooper's home near Devol.

A passing motorist had seen a man who looked dead and thought he ought to be checked on right away.

When Green arrived, he roused the man, later identified as Ricky Ray Malone, who was in a drug-induced stupor after a binge. A mobile methamphetamine lab was inside the vehicle.

Malone, 29, a former firefighter and EMT who had already been in trouble with the law, did not want to be arrested again and struggled violently with the trooper. Eventually, he was able to wrest Green's service weapon and shot the trooper twice, killing him.

He left the scene but was arrested days later _ the license tag of the white car had been captured on the dashboard tape. Malone eventually was convicted of murder and sentenced to death.

The next year, the Oklahoma Legislature passed a law requiring over-the-counter cold remedies containing pseudoephedrine _ meth's primary ingredient _ be placed behind pharmacy counters and that purchases be limited and purchasers required to sign for them.

Before the law went into effect in April 2004, monthly seizures of illegal methamphetamine labs in the state were steadily rising.

In January 2004, there were 123 seizures, according to Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics officer Mark Woodward.

Back then, ``you'd probably find a lab every 10 miles'' in Comanche County, longtime Sheriff Kenny Stradley said.

When the law kicked in, seizures declined rapidly. By December 2004 _ one year after Green's death _ the OBN reported only eight lab seizures across the state. The Oklahoma law has since been adopted by other states.

Although meth labs are not as plentiful, the drug itself is still all too easy to obtain, officials said.

Before the Nik Green Law, Woodward said most meth used in Oklahoma _ perhaps 98 percent _ was made in Oklahoma, while 2 percent or so was made in Mexico. Now, it's just the opposite.

Pure ``crystal ice'' meth, made in Mexican ``super labs,'' is more expensive than that made in Oklahoma. Woodward said it sells for $600 to $800 an ounce compared to about $40 an ounce.

There's also disagreement over whether the number of meth users in the state has declined.

``We have some anecdotal evidence that there are fewer users,'' Woodward said. ``A lot of them have told us, 'We simply quit using because we couldn't make it and we couldn't afford to buy it _ and by the way, thank you.'''

But Stradley and others believe the number of addicts on the street has remained steady. Some may have just switched to using cocaine instead.

Following Green's death, his wife, Linda, took a year off from her job as a Big Pasture school teacher to crusade against meth.

In December 2005, she filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against several manufacturers and sellers of pseudoephedrine.

In the suit, since settled, she alleged that drug companies and suppliers knew drug addicts were buying the drug to make meth and not to treat colds and that manufacturers knew how to make pseudoephedrine tablets in a way that would have prevented extraction of the ingredient needed to make meth.

She also claimed they ``chose to increase production and sales to exploit profits created by the skewed demand for pseudoephedrine.''