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Steve Toprani opens an oversized black briefcase and gingerly pulls out a new pair of heavy binoculars.
They are equipped with night vision and video and audio recording options that make it easier for Washington County drug officers to conduct surveillance.
"That's my favorite," said Toprani, the county's new district attorney. "It's about $30,000, so be careful with it."
Those binoculars and other newly acquired police tools, he said, are imperative to the success of his overhauled drug task force. Police, he said, were hardly inconspicuous when they spied on a crack house using the force's old tape recorder stuffed inside a briefcase that looked as if they belonged in a 1970s spy flick.
Toprani persuaded the White House to spend $200,000 to modernize his force with 10 computers and surveillance equipment that is so good it repairs grainy images.
Before they arrived, police had no choice but to use laptops seized from drug dealers after they were wiped clean of porno-graphy.
"It makes all detectives fully capable of having a mobile office," said Steven Fischer, Toprani's chief of staff. "We've gotten away from Post-it Notes," Toprani added.
It's a major improvement for investigators to now have prior incident reports and arrest records at their fingertips, along with aliases and addresses of suspects.
These changes help to explain why the task force, as of early September, already had made 42 drug arrests - 10 more than all of 2007, when former District Attorney John C. Pettit was in office.
The new task force, Toprani said, is making mid-level dealers its priority rather than street dealers who are best handled by the local police departments. Pettit's focus on small-time dealers "exhausted resources," he said.
While Pettit's drug team kept a large roster of officers, just seven of them had worked more than five hours last year, Toprani said. He also has increased the force's budget from $90,000 last year to $130,000.
"We know we're making a lot of people nervous," he said. "We're rattling the tree pretty hard."
The task force is making a strong and unfamiliar presence in the Mon Valley with the addition of a satellite office in New Eagle. Over the past two months, there have been a record-setting six drug stings resulting in 19 arrests in the Monongahela area, where Toprani makes his home.
He's shuffled the chain of command, too, naming a lieutenant and two sergeants for the task force, and adding hand-picked local officers who he believed are worthy of the force.
"That's not by accident," he added.
He needs dedication. He needs tenacity. He needs trust.
He's given the officers pay raises and intends to ask the commissioners for a 12 percent increase in the task force's budget for 2009.
And he's been trying to mend relationships that have long been severed with state and federal drug squads. Some agencies from outside the area did not want to be associated with Pettit, who's been the target of a federal investigation.
"Remember, (Pettit's) last term began with a double homicide where he had to be ruled out as a suspect," Fischer said.
Pettit's ethics were questioned after the 2004 murders of Fred Brilla and Martin Brahler at a North Strabane Township tavern. Pettit investigated the crimes even though he owed Brilla more than $100,000 to settle a federal judgment stemming from seizure of property in a drug case.
To make matters worse, Pettit faced off last year with the Washington code enforcement office over fines he received for failing to make repairs to a house he owns on Walnut Street.
"Washington County was viewed as an island unto itself," Toprani said. "We are going to change that. I think we've turned the corner."
Now, Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. trains Toprani's task force free of charge. A drug team in Apollo that has a reputation for being among the best in the business also is conducting free seminars for Toprani's task force.
"It's a relationship of trust," he said.