Major warrant sweep nabs drug dealers, gang members
By Janelle Walker For The Courier-News July 21, 2011 7:54PM
Elgin Police Sgt. Tamara Welter, right, speaks with a U.S. Marshall outside of a residence during a sweep to arrest individuals on drug warrants in Elgin, Ill., on Thursday, July 21, 2011. | Andrew A. Nelles~For Sun-Times Media |
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Updated: July 22, 2011 9:29AM
ELGIN — Working with U.S. marshals, Elgin police conducted a sweep of accused drug dealers and other offenders throughout the city Thursday.
A total of 24 people — all of whom had sold drugs to undercover agents in the previous year — were taken into custody, authorities said.
Police knocked on doors and windows around Elgin, going to the last known address for 47 people for whom they had active arrest warrants. Most of those, Sgt. Rick Ciganek of the department’s drug unit explained, were those who had sold marijuana, crack cocaine, ecstasy pills or other drugs to cops during the undercover operation. Others were gang members police wanted to pick up on other outstanding warrants, Sgt. Dan O’Shea explained.
“They are all active warrants for those who have sold drugs to a police officer … multiple sales,” Ciganek said. Undercover officers bought anywhere from two to six times from most of those people, officers said. The charges against those arrested range from a Class A misdemeanors for small sales or possession charges to Class X felony counts for selling large amounts of drugs in proximity to a school, church or park. A Class A misdemeanor can bring no more than a year in jail, but a Class X felony conviction can mean up to 30 years in the Department of Corrections.
The hope, Police Chief Jeff Swoboda said, is that not only are dealers off the streets, but that Elgin gets a reputation as a place where dealers do not want to be. With the dealers off the streets, Elgin also hopes to see a decline in residential burglaries, burglaries to cars, armed robberies and other street crime, he said.
“Drugs are the root problem to the crime we have here in Elgin,” Swoboda said.
Community assistance
In addition to possession and distribution of drugs — a crime in itself — people who want money to buy their drugs are the ones causing problems for the rest of the community, he said.
It is that community, he added, that brought most of the dealers and their bases of operation to light.
“These are responses to neighbors” who complained of too many cars at a house or apartment at odd hours, or people who’d stay at a front door for a minute or two and then leave.
“This is the results of contact calls from the neighborhood,” Swoboda said.
“Neighbors know their neighborhood better than anyone else,” he said, and tips from them helped find the problem locations. He noted that none of the drug sales were on street corners, the “open air markets” that plague other cities.
“Residents in Elgin are not afraid to call us as soon as they see something that is a problem,” Swoboda said, adding officers will follow up on every call.
Arrests, however, do not come as quickly. To build a case against a dealer, or to get to more of the distribution chain in the sweep, the investigation may take several months, Swoboda noted.
Elgin police also attempted to find drug sales in several Elgin bars, Ciganek said, but saw that occur at just one establishment.
Trying to hide
Finding those sellers was one of Thursday’s biggest challenges. If the person officers sought was not home, someone who was there might give them an address where the offender could be found.
But just hunkering down and waiting for the police to leave wasn’t working for some of them. One man hid in a Fleetwood Drive apartment, but officers saw him peek through drawn blinds and the management office provided a key to the door. Other people looked as though they’d been roused from bed before being handcuffed and taken away.
Officers worked in six teams, with at least six people per team. If an arrest was made, a follow car picked up the arrestee and brought him or her back to the jail for processing.
Not all of the arrests were in Elgin, although all of the undercover buys were made here. Officers also picked up dealers in South Elgin, Algonquin, Hanover Park and West Chicago based on tips about the person’s location or secondary database searches for alternate addresses.
Swoboda believes Thursday’s sweep will ease some crime rates and gang activity over the summer, noting that the drug activity is closely tied with Elgin gangs.
“We will throw them in jail, at least for the rest of the summer,” he said. But, he added, Elgin police know that just arresting people doesn’t solve the gang or drug problems.
Neither, he said, will Elgin pretend to not have gangs here. “We have never hidden the fact that we have gangs here … but we will enforce every law we can,” Swoboda said.
A list of those arrested was expected to be released later.
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