TEMPE, Ariz. — As Detective Matt Shay sank into the couch, he couldn’t help but wish that he were buying crack instead.

“You want a hit?” the man next to him asked, a meth pipe perched in his outstretched hand. Thinking quickly, Shay claimed to have asthma, turning down the narcotics without raising suspicions in the crowded drug den.

“If you bought crack cocaine back then, you would go into a small house. It would be you and the guy who’s going to sell it to you,” Shay said. “Not so much with tweakers, they’ll let 10 people in there.”

Finally, the dealer finished bagging the methamphetamine that the undercover agent was there to purchase. Escaping the smoke-filled room, Shay slipped back out into the night, evidence in hand.

Although it may sound like a Hollywood production, the tense meth house moment that Shay recounted is just part of the job. As a member of the Maricopa County Drug Suppression Task Force, he works with local and federal authorities to investigate major drug trafficking organizations.

Over the course of his career spanning three decades in law enforcement, Shay has helped nab drug traffickers, mobsters and even serial killers. But despite a career full of accomplishments, he said that accolades have never been a major motivator.

“I’m appreciative when people give us awards or give us congratulations or stuff like that,” Shay said. “But quite honestly, they’re all in a box somewhere in my house.”

According to his fellow officers, part of what makes Shay stand out is his emphasis on community policing.

“He’s the ultimate person you want to show up,” Phoenix Police Department Commander Aimee Smith said. “He’s going to take care of the problem justly and quickly, and he’s going to serve the victim.” 

Smith said that Shay’s work is essential to the community, and that he dedicates “his whole career to combating these organizations that infiltrate our schools, our kids, and take people’s lives away from them.” 

Supervisors said that Shay’s status as a subject matter expert makes him uniquely qualified for the task force. 

“Detective Shay is one of the foremost experts on drugs in Arizona, if not the Western part of the United States,” Sgt. Steven Peterson said. 

This mix of soft skills and technical knowledge keeps Shay in high demand.

“It’s almost to a downfall where he gets contacted all the time,” Peterson said. “There’s not only the enforcement side of it, but there’s prevention and education; and I think he tries to address all aspects of that.”

To Shay, no case is unimportant. In an illicit world of dealers and addicts, he said that he is most honored by the people he helped, rather than those he arrested.

“I have worked a bunch of great cases and met a bunch of good investigators doing that,” Shay said. “The proudest thing, sometimes it’s just those little things, where you know you’ve helped out one family.”