Sullivan County Authorities Say Top Drug Dealer Busted in Raid
Earl Neikirk/Bristol Herald Courier
Sullivan County Sheriff Wayne Anderson displays evidence collected during Friday’s bust.
BLOUNTVILLE, Tenn. – A man authorities accuse of being one of Sullivan County’s top drug dealers was busted early Friday when 40 officers from eight units split up and simultaneously raided both his home and his business. They seized almost $20,000 in drugs and cash, and more than $20,000 worth of cars, boats and high-end electronics.
Aaron M. Kinzer, 28, of Basham Hill Road in Bristol, Tenn., and his girlfriend, Sandra B. Duff, 27, of the same address, were arrested on a list of felony drug charges after police executed the two search warrants about 1:45 a.m. Friday. Each had a child in the home: Kinzer’s 1-year-old son and Duff’s 2-year-old daughter were taken by the state Department of Children’s Services and placed in relatives’ homes.
At Kinzer’s house, in the 200 block of Basham Road, police found five small baggies of marijuana, two Lortabs and a pipe with marijuana in it, ready to smoke.
Two and a half miles away, at First Class Auto, in the 300 block of Beechwood Drive in Bristol, Tenn., cops found six ounces of crack cocaine with an estimated street value of $15,000, digital scales, tiny blue baggies and 13 individually wrapped crack rocks worth about $100 each. Police said the garage and used-car business was mostly a front for a booming drug trade.
Sheriff Wayne Anderson said it was the biggest crack bust he’s ever seen.
“That is a lot of crack cocaine,” Anderson said. “He’s a high-tier drug dealer, a major dealer, especially in Bristol.”
Police seized three old Oldsmobiles, a ‘70s-model muscle car, a fire engine red Dodge Ram V8-Magnum pickup truck, a 17-foot fishing boat, $2,073 cash, televisions and a high-end washer and dryer.
“I’m tickled to death,” Anderson said. “There’s a lot of drugs in Sullivan County. And when you put drug people in jail, burglaries go down, thefts go down, and armed robberies especially go down. Now that’s the truth.”
Anderson added that 85 percent of crime in Sullivan County is drug or alcohol related.
Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office vice detective Ray Hayes said investigators had been tailing Kinzer for about a year, and had searched his home on one previous occasion but turned up only marijuana.
Hayes said Kinzer has a history of drug distribution, primarily in Georgia and North Carolina.
Friday’s raid led to another search warrant for a third address, in a trailer Kinzer owns in the 300 block of Brookside Drive in Bristol, Tenn. Police found marijuana in the trailer, and said Tuesday related charges are pending.
Anderson said further arrests of associates or additional charges also are a possibility.
Eight units from four agencies collaborated on the raid, including the Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office’s Vice Unit, SWAT Team, K-9, and Street Crimes Unit; Bristol Tennessee Police Department’s SWAT Team, K-9 and Street Crimes Unit; the Second Judicial District Task Force; and the Kingsport Police Department’s Vice Unit.
Kinzer and Duff are each charged with possession of a schedule II drug for resale; possession of a schedule VI drug for resale; two counts of maintaining a dwelling where drugs are sold, used or stored; and two counts of possession of drug paraphernalia. Duff faces an additional charge of simple possession of a schedule II drug.
They are being held at the Sullivan County Jail without bond until their Nov. 4 hearing in General Sessions Court in Bristol.
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My argument is against the way we are handling drug policy. If you want to stop seeing drug related crimes, violence and death then you need to take action and demand rational drug policy reform that has PROVEN to work far better than our war on drugs.
Any time you have laws on the books that are causing a nonviolent US citizen to be arrested every 17 seconds for drug charges and those laws have been in effect for almost 100 years and the goals of those laws are not being accomplished AT ALL. Then it’s time for the citizens to say enough is enough and look for better ways of dealing with that particular problem.
Americans are winners, we hate to lose but we keep letting our political representatives get us involved in wars they have no intention of winning. The drug war is a real war and it is an unnecessarily harmful, completely unwinnable, and wasteful war. It is in fact a war against a certain large percentage of our own population that chooses to different degrees and with a wide range or results, to put a wide variety of different substances in their body and for a wide variety of reasons. It’s being fought in our communities with real guns, teargas, dogs and virtually every other tool of war available.
Right now we are installing 900 new prison beds and hiring 150 new correction officers every 2 weeks. Here in the “land of the free” for the first time in history, more than one of every 100 adults is in jail or prison. 2,319,258 Americans were incarcerated at the start of 2008. The United States incarcerates more people than any other nation, far ahead of even more populous China. More than half of federal prisoners are serving time for a drug offense. Largely because of the drug war, arresting Americans is becoming big business. We now have companies attempting to privatize our penal systems. These companies are huge supporters of drug prohibition and any other laws that cause Americans to be incarcerated. The more Americans behind bars, the more money they get from the government.
The goals of the drug war are to “reduce drug related death, disease, crime and drug use”. It has accomplished NONE of those goals after almost 100 years of prohibition policy, over 1 trillion tax dollars wasted, ever tougher criminal penalties, arresting millions of Americans and all the other effort and resources that have been put into it.
On top of that in the case of marijuana which accounts for roughly half of all drug arrests, that drug never was a serious threat to society, families, or individuals and it never will be. Because of that bad law being implemented based on lies by a few people that stood to gain financially from marijuana’s prohibition and them intentionally deceiving lawmakers, literally millions of Americans that choose to use that plant for ANY purpose are criminalized needlessly. No one in the entire world of any age in all of recorded history has ever died from the ingredients in marijuana. In the US we arrest someone on a marijuana charge every 38 seconds.
Many big corporations that see marijuana as competition contribute heavily to promoting marijuana prohibition. Alcohol, tobacco, petroleum, cotton, timber and pharmaceutical companies, just to name a few and of course the government contributes billions every year to keep their prohibition cash cow alive and well. I’ve seen estimates that contributions toward drug prohibition may be as much as 1 million dollars per day. However, once people learn the truth about the issues they overwhelmingly are in favor of revising drug policy. That’s why 13 states have passed medical marijuana laws already and several have decriminalized. I’m sure you saw the news that the feds revised their policy about prosecuting medical marijuana patients that are in compliance with state laws. That’s a huge step in the right direction and shows that when enough voters take action progress is being made.
Because of our prohibition policy bad laws have been put on the books that make it illegal for IV drug users to obtain clean needles. This results in AIDS and hepatitis being spread unnecessarily into our non drug using society on a huge scale.
Now take a look at the way the Swiss have dealt with their heroin problem. You can watch a lot about this in the video titled “Jack Cole Interview” on the Just Say Know website (link below). In Switzerland they set up government run clinics where heroin addicts can go and get pharmaceutical grade heroin. If you don’t have the money to pay for the drug it’s free. That instantly put every illegal heroin dealer in that country out of business… they can’t compete with free. Anyone that wants heroin can go into a government run clinic up to 3 times a day and inject it. There are medical personnel on hand and anyone that wants to kick their habit is given counseling and help toward that goal. The results are that there has not been a single heroin overdose there in more than 13 years. Switzerland has the lowest AIDS and Hepatitis infection in all of Europe. Crime fell by 60% because no one is stealing or prostituting their self to pay for their heroin and after a 10 year study, they documented that there has been an 82% decline in new heroin users. Now please tell me why our drug war seems like better policy than that. No one went to jail and no one got killed. This program is far less expensive than what we are doing and far less harmful.
True drug addiction of all types should be handled as a medical problem not a criminal problem. Drug use should not automatically be considered abuse or addiction. If a person kills or drives when they are intoxicated or breaks any legitimate law, we already have laws on the books to deal with those problems and if a real danger to society is recognized like it was with drunk driving, then those laws certainly should be rationally adjusted accordingly. Trying to lock up every drug user or eradicate every plant that produces illegal drugs from planet earth are completely unattainable irrational goals. We simply cannot afford to lock up every drug user and even if we could the vast majority go back to using drugs when they are released. Some countries even went so far as to execute drug users and even that has not succeeded in accomplishing a “drug free” country. At some point we have to realize that a certain percentage of people are always going to use drugs and implement policy that minimizes the harms without devastating society.
Most drugs are made from weeds that without prohibition would be of far less financial value. According to a fairly recent documentary by Walter Cronkite, all the plants needed to supply an entire year’s worth of the heroin consumed in the US could be grown on about 50 square miles almost anywhere on earth and the entire year’s worth of heroin could be transported in a single cargo plane. Doesn’t it make more sense to have doctors treat the addicts and rational laws to deal with drug consumption and the related harms like drunk/intoxicated driving than to try and stop heroin or any other drug’s production? It has to because law enforcement has only been able to prevent the production or transportation of about 10% of the heroin and all other illegal drugs according to their own statistics.
Despite the drug war and all the money and efforts that have been put into it, drugs today are more potent, more readily available and often less expensive than they were when Richard Nixon started the modern war on drugs.
If you can show me ANYTHING that the drug war has accomplished when it comes to reducing drug related death, disease, crime and drug use that has significantly improved any drug related area over a long period of time I’d appreciate you telling me what it is.
The Constitutional right to freedom of religion, free speech, a free press, to keep and bear arms, to be secure in your person, house, papers and effects against unreasonable search and seizure, to life, liberty and property, to be protected from having your property taken by the government without due process of law and without just compensation, to confront the witnesses against you, to be protected from excessive bail, excessive fines, cruel and unusual punishment, to vote and others have been unjustly denied to millions of Americans in the name of the drug war.
In 1914 when all drugs were legal in the US, 1.3% of the US population was addicted to drugs. Despite over 1 trillion tax dollars being wasted, millions of Americans being arrested and all the other harms that have resulted from our failed drug prohibition policy, today 1.3% of our population is still addicted to drugs. That’s 0% improvement.
Because of the inflated prices of illegal drugs CAUSED by prohibition the profits between the point of production and the point of sale can be as much as 17,000%. Drug prohibition is a self perpetuating policy that draws people into the illegal drug trade like a magnet because of the enormous profits. Alcohol prohibition created the same problems as every other drug prohibition. The year alcohol prohibition ended violent crime fell by 65%. Regulating drugs is NOT a solution to our true drug problems. Regulating drugs IS a solution to our illegal drug TRADE related crime and violence problems. With rational drug regulation the authorities are in control of the drug trade instead of violent gangsters. That’s a huge step in the right direction and once regulation is in place we can effectively deal with our real drug problems. When was the last time you heard of alcohol dealers getting into a shootout? I bet it was when alcohol was prohibited. Regulation equals control. Prohibition equals crime and corruption.
More information about drug laws from Just Say Know:
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Congratulations Sullivan County. The more of these scum bags you can get off the streets the better our world will be. In my opinion drug dealers are no more than slow murderers and they have less mercy on their victims. Granted life is free will but if bad things aren’t so readily available as alternatives then maybe one will chose a different route. Do your best to find out his distributor and the one before it…the drug problem has taken over Mexico and its doing devastating desctruction in our country. Please keep this scum off of our streets and out of our community.
Great Job guys!
Way to go Sullivan County! Now, let’s just make sure they aren’t back out next week doing the same thing. Keep up the good work.
When I see our law enforcement taking down dealers like this it gives me a great deal of satisfaction knowing that one less dealer will be there when my grandchildren get older. Our world is so messed up from drugs and it seems to increase each year. Thank you to our law department for sticking it out and getting one more off the streets making them a little safer.
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