Law agencies have busy morning
Published 7:19 pm Friday, July 9, 2010
Officers from seven law enforcement agencies started in the weehours of Friday morning, rounding up drug offenders on outstandingwarrants and indictments.
As of dawn Friday morning, officials said around 22 men andwomen were in custody with more on the way on various narcoticscharges. During the course of the roundup, agents were aiming toapprehend more than 30 people.
“We have several picked up already, and I’m hoping to get allthe ones we have indictments and warrants for,” said SouthwestMississippi Interjurisdictional Narcotics Enforcement UnitCommander Tim Vanderslice.
Lincoln County Sheriff Steve Rushing said the sting is a part oftrying to help clean up the streets of Brookhaven and LincolnCounty by targeting some major drug areas.
“Obviously SMINEU has done a great job on some work in lastcouple of months, and that resulted in several, several indictmentsthat we hope will show a lot of results in places we’ve had drugproblems,” he said. “We’re getting these people off thestreet.”
He said that investigations on all the offenders had beenongoing for several months, with agents working leads and buyingdrugs from the offenders. Once the grand jury had passed downindictments, it was time to pick them all up.
Vanderslice said the roundup should be complete by lunchtimeFriday.
“It depends on how many are left over, and how many of thoseturn themselves in,” he said. “If they don’t, we’ll put them onNCIC or try to run up on them again.”
Rushing agreed that the operation will continue until officialsare satisfied that they have as many offenders in custody aspossible.
“There’s a lot more to come, it’s major ongoing,” he said. “Wehave several more we’re going to keep working at. We also had agood number of cases come down in the process of making thearrests.”
Locations on many of the suspects were pinpointed throughdriver’s license information, as well as the local knowledge ofmany police officers and deputies.
“The Department of Corrections does a lot of behind the sceneswork, especially on the addresses,” he said. “They have to keep upwith the current addresses and the IDs of people we don’tknow.”
Members of SMINEU, the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department, theBrookhaven Police Department, the Alcohol and Beverage Commission,MDOC, the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics, and the Post OneConstable’s office were all involved in knocking on doors,searching areas that have probable cause, and making arrests inboth Brookhaven and Lincoln County Friday morning, Vanderslicesaid.
“We just appreciate the help of all these agents assisting inthis operation,” he said. “Especially the officers that transport,because I know they don’t get involved in making or working thesecases, but they do a lot of behind the scenes work transporting andchecking on places for us.”
Officials said the names of those caught in the sting will beavailable Friday afternoon, or as soon as the paperwork iscomplete.