ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, October 9, 1996 TAG: 9610090047
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DESPITE A CRACKDOWN early in the year, 110 indictments resulted this week from recent drug arrests - including some in Roanoke neighborhoods not known for crack.
For the second time this year, Roanoke police are making a sweep of the city's most drug-infested areas - arresting street-level dealers of crack, heroin and marijuana on a total of 110 charges.
Sixty-seven people were charged this week, after police informants spent the past several months making purchases in some of the city's most well-known drug areas and in other neighborhoods where crack is just starting to take hold.
A grand jury in Roanoke Circuit Court returned 96 indictments that named 55 adults on Monday, and 12 juveniles were charged with 14 offenses, according to Lt. R.E. Carlisle of the Roanoke Police Department.
Acting on their own information and complaints from residents, police sent the informants into areas where drug dealers often stand on street corners and hawk their illegal goods to passing motorists. In some cases, the informants returned to make a second and third buy from the same person.
``These are dealers who are open for business every day of the year,'' Regional Drug Prosecutor Dennis Nagel said. ``So in order to show that these were not isolated incidents, we made repeated buys off a majority of the defendants.''
The large number of charges indicates that crack has maintained its grip on some inner-city neighborhoods, where people are still willing to risk selling the drug despite a major police crackdown earlier in the year.
In January, a grand jury returned 79 indictments that named 53 people on charges of distributing cocaine.
When police started the second operation this spring, the informants initially had a hard time finding drugs on the streets because of the earlier bust, Carlisle said. ``But by June,'' he said, ``this thing really took off.''
Nagel said he hopes the latest arrests will make drug dealers more suspicious about whom they sell to. ``Drug dealers will be less inclined to trust strangers when they sell, which should make it harder for someone to begin using drugs or to continue their use,'' he said.
At least 10 of the people charged will not be eligible for bond because of their extensive criminal backgrounds.
``These people are not just drug dealers, but they have a history of committing every conceivable kind of felony and misdemeanor,'' Nagel said. ``So by taking these 67 people off the streets, we're hoping that it will lead to a reduction in other crimes.''
Although many of the buys were made in areas where crack has been around for years, the highly addictive drug has begun to infiltrate new neighborhoods. Twelve of the deals were struck in the Garden City area of Southeast Roanoke, which traditionally has not had a problem with street-level dealing.
Most of the sales in Garden City were made inside houses, Carlisle said.
Police provided the following breakdown of how many charges originated in which neighborhood: 29 in the area of Lafayette Boulevard Northwest; 27 in the area of 13th Street Southwest; 15 in the area of 11th Street and Melrose Avenue Northwest; 12 in the area of the Lincoln Terrace housing development; 14 in the area of Williamson Road between Orange Avenue and Liberty Road; the 12 in Garden City; and one in the area of Fifth Street Northwest.
A grand jury spent all day Monday listening to a summary of the evidence before returning indictments. Authorities had asked that news of the indictments be withheld a day so they could begin to make arrests.
By Tuesday afternoon, police had arrested 18 adults and five juveniles.
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