Law enforcement officers fanned out Thursday across Pittsburgh to dismantle what the FBI described as a violent cocaine-trafficking ring operating in the city.<\/p>\n
Investigators arrested 16 Pittsburgh residents on federal charges a 17th person on state charges, authorities said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are the most violent individuals who were in the city,\u201d Richard Evanchec, special agent in charge of Pittsburgh\u2019s FBI office, said during an afternoon news conference at the bureau\u2019s South Side headquarters. He did not elaborate.<\/p>\n
A grand jury indicted the defendants, who were arrested in 10 locations throughout Pittsburgh, Evanchec said.<\/p>\n
Eight guns \u2014 including two described as \u201cAR-style\u201d \u2014 were recovered, along with about four kilograms of cocaine, Evanchec said.<\/p>\n
The raids also collected MDMA, fentanyl and heroin, he said.<\/p>\n
Pittsburgh police Chief Jason Lando said Operation Steel Reaper started when police officers in the city\u2019s Zone 2 precinct, based in the Hill District, identified people selling drugs and guns in the area.<\/p>\n
Officials soon uncovered a larger operation, which was targeted through a joint investigation involving the FBI, Pittsburgh police and the Allegheny County Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was definitely looked at as an organization that is upstream from rival street gangs in Pennsylvania,\u201d Evanchec said, describing their reach in distributing guns and drugs as spreading beyond the Pittsburgh region.<\/p>\n
Steel Reaper targeted Pittsburgh-area violent drug and gun dealers, according to Bradford Arick, a Pittsburgh FBI spokesman. It was wrapped into Operation Summer Heat 2.0, a similar national initiative led by the FBI.<\/p>\n
Pittsburgh and FBI SWAT teams were involved in four of Friday\u2019s arrests, according to Evanchec.<\/p>\n
The man arrested on state charges was identified as Dray Blackman, 49, of the West End neighborhood.<\/p>\n
A Pittsburgh police SWAT team executed a federal search warrant at his house in the 600 block of South Main Street at 6 a.m., according to a criminal complaint.<\/p>\n
Investigators said they found three guns, including an AK-47 style rifle and one that was stolen. Police said prior convictions rendered Blackman ineligible to own a gun.<\/p>\n
They said they also found ammunition and drugs. There was heroin hidden in an electric cooking pot, and hundreds of new and unused stamp bags, police said.<\/p>\n
While detectives were searching the residence, sheriff\u2019s deputies took Blackman into custody during a traffic stop.<\/p>\n
Blackman is charged with receiving stolen property and several gun and drug offenses.<\/p>\n
Among the people arrested Thursday, Evanchec said, one had previously done time in federal custody and was on supervised release. Some were manufacturing crack cocaine, he added, and others had switches to convert semi-automatic Glock pistols to fully automatic.<\/p>\n
Officials provided few details about the cocaine trafficking in federal court filings or during the news conference announcing the arrests.<\/p>\n
At the news conference, Allegheny County Sheriff Kevin Kraus said he was pleased with how the operation turned out.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very glad to say everyone\u2019s safe, they\u2019re going to go home to their families tonight, and we\u2019ll press on,\u201d Kraus said.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office in Pittsburgh described DeConta Harrison, 48, of being the lead defendant, and attributed possession of at least 280 grams of crack cocaine to him.<\/p>\n
Only a handful of defendants on the federal court docket had attorneys listed. The only one who could be reached immediately was Douglas Sullivan, who represents Jozef Bozeman, 47.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere isn\u2019t much that I can comment on at this point in time,\u201d Sullivan said.<\/p>\n
The other defendants named by federal prosecutors are:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Charles Brannon, 54<\/p>\n
\u2022 Rashaan Campbell, 45<\/p>\n
\u2022 Bobby Chatman, 65<\/p>\n
\u2022 Harold Jones Sr., 65<\/p>\n
\u2022 William Jones, 45<\/p>\n
\u2022 Alonzo Kidd, 50,<\/p>\n
\u2022 Greg Nash, 65<\/p>\n
\u2022 Jeff O\u2019Keefe, 35<\/p>\n
\u2022 Keith Payne, 50<\/p>\n
\u2022 Brandon Rodgers, 41<\/p>\n
\u2022 John Malcolm Smith, 44<\/p>\n
\u2022 Tyisha Somerville, 32<\/p>\n
\u2022 Kyrie Weston, 39<\/p>\n
\u2022 Deshawn Williams, 44<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Law enforcement officers fanned out Thursday across Pittsburgh to dismantle what the FBI described as a violent cocaine-trafficking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250736,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-250735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}