A 15-month investigation into the sale of illegal narcotics in Poplar Bluff, Mo., culminated this morning when officers from multiple jurisdictions began serving arrest warrants.
"We are actively looking for 40 folks, primarily in the city of Poplar Bluff (and) a few in the county," explained Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. Mark McClendon, who heads the SEMO Drug Task Force.
By press time, he said, seven had been arrested.
The warrants were the result of "roughly 55 indictments" handed down by a Butler County grand jury in March, McClendon said.
All of the individuals, McClendon said, were being sought on charges of sale of a controlled substance, and their bonds were set at either $50,000 or $100,000 cash.
"One hundred percent are undercover buys by SEMO Drug Task Force officers" of heroin, methamphetamine, prescription pills and marijuana, said McClendon, who indicated the buys were made at the end of 2015 through 2016.
"It's a 15-month (investigation), a fairly long time," McClendon said. "Anytime you can have the undercover officers do the buys, the better case all around as far as the prosecution goes."
McClendon said some of the buys involved a quarter- or half-ounce of the substance, and the officers made "probably two buys from each person, give or take."
The officers, he said, were divided into four teams of seven for the round-up and were comprised of members of the Missouri State Highway Patrol, SEMO Drug Task Force, Poplar Bluff Police Department, Butler County Sheriff's Department and U.S. Marshal's Service.
McClendon said the Missouri National Guard's counter-drug helicopter also was available in case there were any "runners."
"We just had one run," explained McClendon. " ...We had two runners; we got one of two. The person we caught was a bonus for us."
That person, McClendon said, had a Probation and Parole warrant for probation violation.
Officers say the two individuals had run from a house in the 800 block of Garfield Street. One went out the back door, while the other went out a window, with one being caught on Center Street.
An hour after the officers hit the streets, McClendon described the round up as "slow right now."
McClendon wasn't sure if their later start was a contributing factor.
"We started a little later (than in the past in an attempt) to bypass school traffic, he said. "We decided to try not to have school kids getting on the school buses as patrol cars are rolling through town."
McClendon described most of the wanted individuals as being "local folks; they are not going to be too far from here."
Fifteen of the wanted individuals, McClendon said, already were incarcerated in the Missouri Department of Corrections, out of state or in the Butler County jail before the round-up began.
Some, he said, already had been served and their cases are progressing through the court system.
The assets of the agencies involved and the "working cooperation" made "rounding up a bunch of people that needed to be arrested from the prior grand jury indictments" possible, said Poplar Bluff Chief Danny Whiteley. "We will never give up the fight to make our children and community safer."