And another article here:
'Zero tolerance' in Pioneer Park: Salt Lake City has been there, done
that
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_7243533
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_7243481?source=rss
After decade of decline, crack cocaine making a comeback in SLC
By Russ Rizzo
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 10/22/2007 01:08:53 PM MDT
Posted: 5:42 PM- Salt Lake City drug dealers are going retro.
A decade after crack cocaine all but disappeared from street
corners here and around the nation - taking much of the violence it
brought with it - police say the highly addictive drug is back.
Narcotics officers who routinely buy methamphetamine from street-
level dealers in Pioneer Park are now being offered crack, police
Chief Chris Burbank said.
There is no evidence the resurgence has brought back the violence,
Burbank said, but the possibility is startling.
"You look at the mid-'90s, especially in the bigger cities, and
crack was responsible for a lot of the violent crime," he said. "It's
something we're really concerned about."
No other Salt Lake Valley police agency has re****ted a similar
increase in crack cocaine, but the experience of undercover officers
in the park and of agencies in other states leads some to believe it's
a matter of time.
"The intel that we're getting is there's a good possibility that
it's heading this way," West Valley City Capt. Tom McClachlan said.
McClachlan said agencies in Arizona, Nevada and California have
alerted West Valley City drug cops about a comeback of crack in their
areas. The renewed presence of crack in Pioneer Park reinforces the
notion that Salt Lake County is
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Advertisement
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
next, he said.
"They have the farmer's market on the weekend and the dealer's
market the rest of the week," McClachlan said. "So if it's at Pioneer
Park, it's here."
And there are other signs that more cocaine is making its way into
Utah.
Statewide, arrests for possession of cocaine increased 25 percent
in 2006 from the year before, according to the Bureau of Criminal
Identification. In West Jordan, arrests for cocaine possession have
already doubled the mark from last year, from 22 to 52. Numbers from
other Salt Lake Valley agencies were unavailable.
Salt Lake City cops first noticed the trend at the beginning of
summer, Burbank said. Undercover officers had trouble finding
methamphetamine but had ready access to crack, he said.
Despite a four-month effort to arrest dealers and users in and
around the park - police arrested 106 people for drug violations in
August and September alone, more than all drug arrests in the park in
2005, according to police - investigators are still puzzled what
spurned the change, Burbank said.
"That's really unclear to us, what caused it," Burbank said.
"Somebody may have the supply for it and that until it's disrupted,
they have easy access to sell."
Mike Root, the acting head of Salt Lake City's Drug Enforcement
Agency office, said dealers in Pioneer Park simply may have gotten
their hands on a cheap supply of cocaine and cooked it into crack.
"Sometimes it's just that -- 'I don't have any meth, but I can
make you a good deal on crack,'" Root said. "It's like Wal-Mart
putting a blue-light special out - RC Cola is 69 cents and Pepsi is a
buck and a half."
The DEA's main focus in Salt Lake City remains meth and heroin,
Root said. The DEA, along with other agencies around the Valley, have
re****ted a marked increase in heroin in recent years but not in
crack.
But Sgt. Richard Lewis, who heads the SLCPD's narcotics unit,
thinks the change is more systemic.
Agencies around Salt Lake Valley and the nation have stamped out
local meth labs, forcing dealers to get their product from abroad much
like they get cocaine and heroin, Lewis said. So that could open the
door for crack cocaine, which has similar effects as meth on a user
and is available at similar prices, he said.
The trend is likely to show up in Pioneer Park first, Lewis said,
because it is widely known as the biggest open-air drug market in the
area.
So far, Lewis said, police have not seen an increase in violence
associated with the resurgence in crack. The department re****ted 21
violent crimes in Pioneer Park from June through September, three less
than the same period last year.
There do not appear to be turf wars among dealers, he said.
"I don't know if there's enough business that they get enough and
don't worry about it," Lewis said.
Most dealers arrested in the park are Mexican nationals in the
country illegally, Lewis said. So they may be part of a close-knit
community and not prone to turn on each other, Lewis said.
Lewis noted that crack has remained a problem in the city for some
time but has taken a back seat to methamphetamine, considered the Salt
Lake Valley's main drug problem for the past several years.
Burbank said he is aware the trend flies in the face of statewide
and nationwide trends showing crack cocaine in the decline.
At a recent conference among chiefs of police from the country's
60 largest cities, Burbank asked whether anyone else was seeing a
similar trend. Nobody raised his hand, he said.
"Across the county that's gone down," Burbank said. "So to see a
little bit of a resurgence [in Salt Lake City], it's alarming."
|
