THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 14, 1995 TAG: 9507140452
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: Short : 38 lines
Police Lt. Joseph P. Tade's crack ``Crack Team'' has struck again, breaking up an elusive group of cocaine dealers who for weeks had managed to remain lost in a crowd.
``We chased these guys out of the Shepherd-Cale street area, but they recently moved over to the 500 block of South Road and until this week we had trouble getting next to them,'' Tade said.
Tade, who runs a major drug attack-force in the Albemarle, said the leaders of the South Road street dealers managed to hide by surrounding themselves with a large group of customers and friends who milled around day and night in a yard in front of the new crack house.
``The dealers themselves sat on a screened-in porch while the crowd acted as a shield. Nobody could get through to the dealers unless they were known and so our men couldn't get on the porch,'' Tade explained.
Finally, Tade said, two plain-clothes detectives who were strangers to the South Road street decoys managed to join the nightly crowd and succeeded in being accepted as potential customers.
``That's all we needed,'' said Tade.
The drug agents walked up onto the porch and arrested three men on Wednesday night.
``We seized 22 grams of crack cocaine worth about $4,000,'' Tade said.
Isaiah Johnson, 63, who Tade said was the owner of the house; Damone Keys, 31, and Calvin Evans, 31, were arrested and charged with narcotics violations after the raid by 10 members of the Drug Task Force.
KEYWORDS: DRUG ARREST COCAINE by CNB