A KILO OF COCAINE HITS THE STREETS, COURTESY OF THE POLICE DEPARTMENT

- -- In a sort of drug-bust-in-reverse, police let a suspected dealer
get away with $17,000 in cocaine they supplied.

U.S. marshals arrested the suspect, Timothy Meadows, 45, last week.
But the cocaine is missing.

The incident occurred Jan. 15, when an undercover officer met a man in
a parking lot and sold him a kilo, or 2.2 pounds, of the drug.

Twenty officers were watching, waiting to move in. But the officers
had radio trouble, and no one saw the exchange well, a source told the
Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

The suspect left in a car. Two backup officers from Bellevue pursued
the man but ended the chase for safety reasons. Meadows said he threw
away the cocaine during the chase. Detectives and dogs scoured the
area but never found it.