BRISTOL, Va. – The fire station on Lee Street was cleared out save a few folding tables and a semi-circle of chairs, a sure sign the Bristol Virginia Police Department is at it again.
Every few months or so officers round up several dozen on drug charges, following direct indictments from a grand jury. On Tuesday, they began serving 38 people with 95 indictments for narcotics possession and distribution.
Police officers, sheriff’s deputies and state troopers grabbed as many as they could in one night, booked them at the fire station and sent them next door to the jail where most bonded out in less than a couple of hours.
“Some ask why we’re spinning our wheels,” Police Chief Bill Price said. “It’s the law of supply and demand: You don’t do away with anything there’s demand for. So we put these people in jail and someone else walks into their shoes before the heels are cool.”
Still, he said, getting some of them off the street is an important first step.
Detective Vicki Byrd manned the head of the police department’s makeshift booking station Tuesday, barking commands at dilly-dallying arrestees and, from time to time, wiping their sniffling noses with balled-up toilet paper.
Byrd said at least three on Tuesday’s list had passed by her station in previous round-ups; one arrested with her son just six months ago was back again, only this time with her daughter.
Price said nothing much has changed since that last round up in May: Crack is still the drug of choice, followed closely by prescriptions meds and marijuana.
He described the city’s two varieties of drug dealers. First, there are the serious dealers, selling for the money. Price said he would like to see them go to jail for a “long, long time.”
But, most of those in Tuesday’s round-up are what Price calls “addict dealers,” poor local people selling just enough to feed their addictions.
He thinks the latter can be fixed.
“This stuff makes good people go crazy,” he said, advocating for drug rehabilitation programs. “But, these are people who can be helped. They can be put back on the right path, make citizens of them, so their children will have a mommy and a daddy to take care of them and raise them right.”
Price has long said that 80 percent of crime in Bristol is drug-related. On Tuesday, he said it’s only getting worse in the down economy.
By 6 p.m., an hour into the operation, word had spread and people on the list started turning themselves in.
Four hours in, the department had caught up with 11 on the list, according to the Bristol Virginia Jail. Eleven others were already incarcerated there on charges ranging from forgery to child abuse.
Price said they expect to eventually find all but a few.
“It’s kind of like fishing,” Price said. “Drug dealers are very transient. But these people need to be gotten off the streets, even if it is just for 10 minutes.”
cgalofaro@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-2531
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