The captain of the Lafayette County Metro Narcotics Unit resigned after heading up the unit for five years.

Keith Davis started with the division in 2006 as an agent and became the director on April 8, 2010.

On Sept. 30, he resigned from his position.

The Oxford Board of Aldermen is expected to vote to approve his resignation during their regular meeting Tuesday at 5 p.m. at City Hall.

Davis could not be reached for comment, however Oxford Police Chief Joey East said Davis has chosen to move over to the Lafayette County Sheriff’s Department.

“They are happy to have him as would OPD if he had chosen to transfer over to us,” East said. “The Metro board feels Keith made a good decision for him and totally support that decision.”

Acting as interim director is Alex Fauver who has been with the unit since 2012. East said the control board would be interviewing several people later this month to head up the unit.

When an online news website ran an article earlier this year about the unit using college students and confidential informants, the local drug enforcement agency found itself under fire on social media networks and regional, and even national newspapers.

On Sept. 30, Buzzfeed.com ran a follow-up story about the unit where they interviewed convicted killer Christopher Bland, who admitted to shooting and killing Chris Poole, 18, in 2006, said he did so because he thought Poole was a “snitch” for the narcotics unit.

After the first story ran nationally, Davis didn’t deny the unit uses informants but claimed that the Internet story was “a fictitious story.”

Davis said the unit is mirrored after the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics, which is in turn modeled after the Federal Drug Enforcement Administration.

The unit is funded equally by the city, Lafayette County and the University of Mississippi, with all contributing $100,000 a year. In 2009, the university said it was going to cut its funding for the program, citing “budget constraints.” However, after receiving some criticism for its decision to not fund the unit, the university changed its stance and has since continued to fund the unit.

Metro Narcotics agents have been accused of being pushy and lying about sentence times, telling those arrested they could get more or less time, depending on whether they cooperated.

Mayor Pat Patterson defended the unit in April, saying that if someone didn’t break the law, they would never hear from Metro Narcotics.