Fourteen people have been arrested following a seven-week Lauderhill Police investigation into suspected drug sales at a neighborhood store and a nearby townhouse community, authorities said Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The operation, dubbed \u201cNeighborhood Shield,\u201d focused on the Lauderhill Gardens Townhouses in the 4000 block of Northwest 19th Street and Jimmy\u2019s Supermarket in the 90 block of Northwest 34th Avenue.<\/p>\n
Lauderhill Police Chief Constance Stanley said the investigation began after officers conducting patrols and residents reported suspected drug activity in the areas.<\/p>\n
\u201cBased on officers patrolling the neighborhood and also complaints we received from the community, we started this investigation as a result of the community\u2019s outreach,\u201d Stanley said.<\/p>\n
Detectives conducted about 70 hours of surveillance, worked with confidential informants and made nearly two dozen controlled purchases during the investigation, according to police.<\/p>\n
Investigators purchased and recovered suspected cocaine, crack cocaine, cannabis and a synthetic drug known as alpha-PVP, or flakka, police said.<\/p>\n
Detectives also executed a search warrant at Jimmy\u2019s Supermarket, where they allegedly found suspected drugs among regular merchandise and in other common areas of the store.<\/p>\n
Police said investigators recovered 32 individually packaged bags of suspected flakka weighing slightly more than 7 grams that were hidden among merchandise.<\/p>\n
Stanley said some of those arrested were employed at the store, which remains open.<\/p>\n
She said the department expects court proceedings to determine whether the store\u2019s license can be revoked and whether the business can be shut down.<\/p>\n
Police said the investigation uncovered alleged drug sales both inside and immediately outside the supermarket during business hours.<\/p>\n
Sgt. Edward McCormick said investigators believe many of the suspects were working together to facilitate drug transactions.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything that we\u2019ve identified so far is most of the individuals in Lauderhill Gardens townhomes and at Jimmy\u2019s were working together to facilitate these narcotics transactions,\u201d McCormick said.<\/p>\n
He said police believe the operation disrupted much of the suspected activity but acknowledged that drug sales could resume.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are hopeful that we disrupted the majority of them, but I\u2019m sure there\u2019s still more out there,\u201d McCormick said.<\/p>\n
The arrests resulted in charges including the sale or delivery of cocaine and cannabis, as well as conspiracy charges. At least five suspects face charges alleging that drugs were sold or delivered within 1,000 feet of a child care facility.<\/p>\n
Other charges include allegations of selling cocaine within 1,000 feet of a convenience business and selling cannabis within 1,000 feet of a convenience store.<\/p>\n
McCormick said the department\u2019s Street Enforcement Team will continue investigating drug activity in the area.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think this operation gave us a lot of satisfaction,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is what we signed up for. This is what these guys do every single day. They\u2019re out here working hard for the citizens of Lauderhill.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo matter who comes forward, no matter how many dealers there are, we\u2019re going to continue to take them off the streets,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Police said activity in the targeted areas has slowed since the operation, but officers will continue monitoring the neighborhoods.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fourteen people have been arrested following a seven-week Lauderhill Police investigation into suspected drug sales at a neighborhood…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":422832,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[249,251,250],"class_list":["post-422831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale","tag-fort-lauderdale-headlines","tag-fort-lauderdale-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}