Nearly 2 million doses of fentanyl and heroin were seized, 54 guns confiscated and 45 people arrested in a monthslong war on drugs and guns in Allegheny County’s eastern suburbs, the state Attorney General’s Office announced Monday.
The Eastern Allegheny Initiative task force this year brought together 13 different law enforcement agencies — from local forces in Pittsburgh, Turtle Creek and Penn Hills to federal outfits like the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration. The state Attorney General’s Office guided the operation.
Authorities said one theme bound together the disparate elements of the task force: Crime knows no geographical boundaries.
“Big city problems are not only based in big cities,” Attorney General Dave Sunday said during a Monday press conference in the Strip District building that houses his Pittsburgh office. “When parents, families and children feel unsafe in their own homes, that is unacceptable.”
The initiative seized about $150,000 in cash. The drug hauls were substantial: nearly 1.7 million doses of fentanyl, 200,000 doses of heroin and 13.5 kilos of cocaine. The cocaine alone has a street value of $35,000.
A “dose” of fentanyl measures just two milligrams — roughly the weight of “a grain of sugar,” Sunday said.
”This,” Sunday said, holding up a postage-stamp-sized baggie, “is literally all it takes to end your life.”
Sunday was flanked by FBI agents and officers representing police serving cities as well as suburban neighborhoods. Allegheny County Police Superintendent Chris Kearns and Assistant Superintendent Victor Joseph also attended.
Monroeville police Chief Kenneth “Doug” Cole said his officers are seeing the difference the drug seizures and arrests have made.
“It does affect (drug activity on) the street level — we see it day to day,” Cole said.
Cole characterized the recent uptick in crime to Pittsburgh’s east that triggered the task force’s creation as a “scourge of violence with both drugs and guns.”
He did not cite specific numbers.
Myriad agencies collaborated to push back against that tide of violent crime. And collaboration among different agencies, several officials said Monday, was key to the initiative’s success.
“Drug trafficking organizations do not respect jurisdictional boundaries,” said Christopher Giordano, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s Pittsburgh office.
Sunday said the task force opened more than 50 cases to address drugs and guns in Allegheny County. The cases also led officers to confiscate at least six Glock “switches,” which transform semi-automatic weapons into fully automatic ones.
Sunday said those “switches” have one purpose: “To maximize killing.”
Police officers also collaborated with peers farther east than Monroeville. Two “parallel investigations” this May led to arrests at a pair of Philadelphia homes, Sunday said. People there were bagging the drugs that eventually were sold on the streets of Pittsburgh.
A targeted traffic stop in Wilkinsburg yielded thousands of dollars worth of cocaine and at least three guns, he added.
“These weren’t small-time operations,” Sunday said.
The FBI’s Giordano said nothing less than a united front of multiple agencies was required to help shut down those operations.
“Protecting the public is a shared responsibility,” Giordano said. “And the public is best served when we work together.”