Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 9, 1990 TAG: 9003092301
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Authorities hope to arrest more than 30 people in the raids, which will continue for the next few days.
Nineteen people were charged - mostly with crack dealing - in sealed indictments returned Monday by a grand jury in Roanoke Circuit Court.
And police hope to file additional charges as they track down those indicted by the grand jury, execute search warrants and conduct street arrests, Police Chief M. David Hooper said Thursday.
In many cases, the suspected dealers were described as operating in areas where open-air sales of crack cocaine have flourished since last summer.
The reason, Hooper said, is that dealers and users have been displaced from drug areas hit by Operation Caribbean Sunset, a crack eradication effort launched last year by federal, state and local authorities.
Since Caribbean Sunset, crack dealers have concentrated on new areas - such as the 700 and 800 blocks of Hunt Avenue Northwest.
"It's a real attraction, and unfortunately the word has gotten around and people from all over the region are filtering in there to buy drugs," Hooper said.
Police also made arrests this week in the area of Harrison Avenue Northwest, another of the city's newly established open-air crack markets.
"We're going to be putting a lot of pressure on these people and hopefully we'll put a dent in their activities," Hooper said.
With the most recent undercover operation, close to 300 people have been arrested on drug charges in Roanoke in the past eight months.
The raids are being conducted by teams of agents from a local drug task force - the same tactic that was employed during the first weeks of Caribbean Sunset.
"This is not as sweeping an investigation as the initial steps of Caribbean Sunset," said Jeff Rudd, an assistant commonwealth's attorney who prosecutes the city's drug cases. "But it's still an intensified effort with a particular focus."
In one raid, police seized 38 grams of cocaine from a Hunt Avenue apartment - the largest amount so far. Clement Beckford, 34, a Jamaican native who lived in the apartment, was charged with possession of cocaine with intent to distribute.
As police raided one apartment on Hunt Avenue, a suspect began to throw crack cocaine out of the apartment window, Hooper said. One of the plastic bags that contained crack hit a police officer on the head.
Among those arrested so far is Judge Thomas, 32, of the 1700 block of Rorer Avenue. Thomas is the uncle and namesake of football star Ronny "Judge" Grogan, a teen-ager who was killed last year in a drug-related shooting at the Lincoln Terrace housing project.
Thomas is charged with distributing cocaine in the 2500 block of Centre Avenue, an area next to the Lansdowne housing project where trafficking has persisted despite numerous raids by police.
Many of those arrested this week have been suspects since last summer, but were able to avoid detection for this long by using more street-level dealers - thus insulating themselves from actual sales - and by being more selective of who they sold drugs to, Rudd said.
Some of the dealers have even attended court hearings in Roanoke to learn the identities of all the city's undercover officers in the vice department, Rudd said.
As a result, a central figure in this week's investigation was an undercover police agent from out of town, who was not recognized by the suspects.
The operation this week was timed to cut down on drug activity as the weather turns warmer - a time of year that has traditionally seen increased drug dealing as more people move outdoors.
by CNB