Charges may curb street sales

ROANOKE DRUG SWEEP NETS 141

The drug sweep was the city's most expansive in recent history, bringing
267 charges. Last July, a similar operation yielded 182 charges involving
90 people.

In what is becoming an annual rite of summer, Roanoke police took to the
streets Monday night in search of 141 people charged in the city's latest
drug sweep.

A total of 267 charges were brought in the Police Department's latest
effort to curtail street sales of crack cocaine, an activity that usually
becomes more brazen in the summer months, according to Lt. R.E. Carlisle.

The drug sweep was the city's most expansive in recent history. Last July,
a similar operation yielded 182 charges involving 90 people.

Most of the charges were in the form of indictments returned by a grand
jury in Roanoke Circuit Court, which spent a good part of Monday hearing
about an operation in which undercover officers and informants posing as
addicts bought drugs from street dealers.

About 175 of the sales were made in the Lincoln Terrace public housing
development, which has seen a recent upswing in drug activity since a
community policing effort restored some order to the complex off Orange
Avenue Northwest.

"Over the past year, Lincoln Terrace drug dealers have clearly established
themselves as dominating the retail level of drug distribution in the
city," Carlisle said.

Many of the people charged were no strangers to the city's court system.
Police said the defendants had a collective rap sheet that included 158
convictions for robbery and theft, 88 convictions for malicious wounding
and assault, and 121 convictions for previous drug dealing.

"The most discouraging aspect of this is that we've arrested a large number
of these people in previous drug sweeps, yet they still had the freedom to
sell more drugs and commit more violent crimes," Regional Drug Prosecutor
Dennis Nagel said.

Police and prosecutors argue that repeat drug dealers are not getting
enough prison time from Roanoke judges, who are part of a judicial circuit
that leads Virginia for giving defendants less time than what is
recommended by the state's sentencing guidelines, according to Virginia's
Criminal Sentencing Commission.

"I've never quarrelled with the courts' attempt to rehabilitate a
first-time offender," Nagel said. "But I am constantly at odds with the
judges for their unwillingness to sufficiently incarcerate the repeat
offenders."

In addition to picking up 115 people who were charged by the grand jury,
police obtained warrants against six people and petitions charging 20
juveniles with drug dealing.

Simultaneously with the arrests, police were also using search warrants to
raid about 15 homes in the Lincoln Terrace area Monday night.

Most of the drug dealers charged do not live in Lincoln Terrace, Carlisle
said, although some residents do offer hiding places for the traffickers
and "stash houses" for them to keep their drugs.

Police said they began their investigation in January, after hearing
complaints from citizens in neighborhood meetings.

Although the operation focused on Lincoln Terrace, it also included
undercover drug buys in the areas of Westside Boulevard Northwest, Day and
Marshall avenues in Old Southwest, Chapman Avenue and Hurt Park Southwest,
Melrose Avenue Northwest, lower Williamson Road Northeast, the Jamestown
housing project in Southeast, Lafayette Boulevard Northwest, and the
Lansdowne Park housing project off Salem Turnpike Northwest.

Most of the drug sales were for small amounts of crack, although there was
a sprinkling of powder cocaine and marijuana transactions. Some of the
sales were made months ago, but police waited to present all the charges to
a single grand jury that met Monday so as not to reveal the identity of the
undercover officers and informants.

Many people were accused of two and as many as five drug deals, and 21 were
charged with distributing drugs within 1,000 feet of a school, most often
the Lincoln Terrace Elementary School.

As for the sentences imposed by city judges, defense lawyers have said in
the past that most drug offenders who appear in Roanoke Circuit Court are
small-time dealers who don't need to be locked up for long terms. The
state's sentencing guidelines, which are based on the average sentence for
drug dealers across the state, recommend a range of just nine months to one
year and eight months for a repeat offender.

But Nagel argued that although the dealers may sell small amounts of drugs
at a time, their cumulative sales can reach more than $100,000 a year. He
said calling such people "small-time dealers" is akin to arguing that
McDonald's and Burger King are not major fast-food restaurants because they
sell burgers at 99 cents each.

"To effectively fight cocaine in Roanoke," he said, "you have to take out
the street salesmen."

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski