EATON — On Monday, April 9, the Eaton Police Division, in collaboration with the Preble County Sheriff’s Office, the Camden Police Department, and the Adult Parole Authority, conducted a drug interdiction sting. According to EPD Detective Pete Wray, the operation was a huge success.
Officers conducted traffic stops and made contact with people walking or riding bikes away from suspected drug houses. This resulted in:
•Five felony arrests
•Four misdemeanor arrests
•Four minor misdemeanor arrests
•Two warrants served
•Total of 15 charges
The following was recovered: meth, suspected heroin, marijuana, syringes, paraphernalia, and a handgun.
“What we do is, when we get citizen complaints on suspected drug activity, we gather the intel and we do what we call a drug interdiction sting, which we had several people in plain clothes and unmarked vehicles. Then we’ll have other cars in the area to conduct traffic stops or when we see people leaving the houses on foot or bikes,” Wray said.
“With the joint efforts of these agencies, we were able to get a total of 15 arrests. That includes minor misdemeanors too, I don’t mean 15 people went to jail. The five felony arrests were for possession of narcotics. We had two K9s available, ours and Camden Police Department’s K9. During a traffic stop, if the officer needed K9 assistance, we would call them in and the K9 would circle the car.”
He added, they recovered narcotics, including meth, suspected heroin, and marijuana. Wray explained, the department is no longer allowed to field test for safety precautions, so they say “suspected heroin” until they can get the results back. The handgun was not registered.
“This has been in the works for several months. We tried to do it in the past, and it seems like it didn’t work out for some reason, but this one worked out very well. We were in plain clothes and would call out suspicious activity. The ones who were not doing that were saturated patrol,” he said.
“We haven’t done one of these in awhile, but it wasn’t because we didn’t want to. It comes down to manpower. We work well with the Sheriff’s Department and you have to in order to make a difference. That is what made Monday so successful. This was one of the more successful operations we conducted and that is due to the help of the other agencies.
“The joint efforts between these departments was huge. This is how we will continue to have success in the future.”
