Police Arrest Five Dealers In East Precinct Drug Sweep
We've finally been able to track down a bit of information about a series of narcotics stings in the East Precinct last Thursday night.
We're told that police arrested five men and women during undercover buy/bust operations—purchasing narcotics from dealers and then arresting them, just like it sounds—at 23rd and Union, 12th and Jefferson, and Broadway and E John Street. Police also recovered 7.3 grams of crack cocaine.
SPD wasn't immediately able to provide much info about the arrests, but we know police arrested at least one person at 23rd and Union. According to our news partners at Centraldistrictnews.com, there's been a significant reduction in crime at the long-troubled intersection since the city implemented the Drug Market Initiative program last August.
In August, police and prosecutors invited 20 known drug dealers—who worked along 23rd Avenue in the Central District—to a meeting, presented them with evidence against them, and told them they could either stop dealing, or go to jail.
Of the sixteen dealers that showed up to the meeting, five have reoffended and been charged, and the rest have apparently kept clean.
CDN says arrests around 23rd and Union are down 22%, while narcotics calls have dropped 38%.
We've heard the city is looking at expanding the Drug Market Initiative to other neighborhoods in Seattle, but are still trying to identify where police will focus next. We've heard that the Rainier Beach area is a definite possibility, but that Belltown has been taken off the table. Apparently the population of dealers in Belltown are fairly migratory, making it difficult for police to build strong cases against them, which is the backbone of the DMI program.
