POLICE TARGET TEEN DEALERS IN FISHERS

An ongoing investigation into cocaine trafficking among Fishers
teenagers is sounding an alarm with area law enforcement.

"If it's going down to younger kids, obviously that's something we
want to pay attention to," said Hamilton/Boone County Drug Task Force
Maj. Randy Schalburg.

Schalburg, whose task force has investigated 47 drug cases already
this year, said he expects more arrests in the Fishers probe
following the jailing this week of [Name Redacted], 18. [Name Redacted] was
taken into custody by a Fishers police officer Monday and charged
with dealing cocaine. His arrest resulted from an undercover
operation last November.

"We were investigating several different people in the Fishers area
involved in cocaine dealing, and [Name Redacted] was one," said
Schalburg. "Other arrests are expected."

Schalburg said undercover investigators who arranged to buy nearly
three grams of powder cocaine from [Name Redacted] in November had refrained
from filing charges until now to avoid alerting other suspects in a
loosely knit network of Fishers cocaine dealers.

"They still are continuing to work numerous other individuals
involved in this case," said the task force commander.

Among others likely to be arrested, he adds, is a Fishers juvenile, a
Hamilton Southeastern Schools student who also was implicated as a
cocaine dealer.

Schalburg said he's concerned that a growing number of youths who
were introduced to cocaine as recreational drug users might now also
be selling the euphoric narcotic and expanding the local pool of
young users and dealers.

"None of them are really tied together, as far as any organization,"
he said. "They're all independent, trying to make their own coke fortune."

The veteran investigator said the ongoing probe is intended to do
more than just root out local dealers such as [Name Redacted] and their
customers, however.

"We're trying to get the sources who were able to get it to him and
some of the others."