When police in the city of Carrollton raided a suspected drug house last week, they thought they were only going to find marijuana dealers and their stash.
But what they unexpectedly found was hundreds of suspected opioid pills and thousands of dollars in cash, along with two people who police say were preying on pain and addiction for profit.
It was Nov. 7. Police say they had made some undercover marijuana buys from a man at a house on Nizzear Lane, and they decided to execute a search warrant and arrest the man.
They knocked and announced themselves, but no one responded. So, they went in. And they were surprised to find not only marijuana, but also about 1,000 suspected Oxycodon, Alprazolam and Vyvance pills. They also found nearly $10,000 dollars in cash, and two firearms.
Police arrested six people inside, charging two of them - Kareem Evans of Temple and Latasha Harrison of Carrollton - with trafficking and possessing those drugs.
Mug shots: 6 arrested in Carrollton drug bust
Carrollton Police Capt. Shannon Cantrell said Monday that Evans and Harrison were caught red-handed but deny that the pills and cash belonged to them. He’s trying to track down the supply chain.
“The big goal is to get the big person out there who’s supplying these drugs,” he said.
Cantrell said his undercover officers and detectives are heartbroken, knowing there are countless patients out there with an insatiable demand for pain relief, and, with nowhere to turn, are risking everything - willing to pay street dealers a premium for who-knows-what disguised as someone else’s legit prescriptions.
Meanwhile, police are racing to save the customers from themselves... and from the dealers.
“You want to see ‘em get help before something bad happens to ‘em,” Cantrell said.
Carrollton Police just joined the DEA’s overdose tracking program, which maps, in real time, the location of every single overdose, as reported by EMTs, fire fighters, police, and hospital emergency departments, looking for spikes in ODs that police can then target.
“They can call and say, 'Hey, we’ve had a spike in overdoses, you’ve either got some bad drugs on the street or you’ve got something going on in this neighborhood you may want to check out,'” Capt. Cantrell explained.
Carrollton joined the program this past summer and hopes within a few months to have enough data collected to be able to see where to target its resources.
Cantrell was candid about the impact of this one bust.
“(It's) Probably not a real big dent," he admitted. "I mean, it’s a good case. It’s a good pill case. We got a lot of pills. But it’s nothing compared to what’s out there in our community nowadays, and we’re trying to combat the problem.”
They're fighting it with everything they’ve got.
Below are the names of the people arrested in the suspected drug house in Carrollton on Nov. 7, and the initial charges against them:
Latasha Harrison
- Trafficking Oxycodone
- Possession with intent to distribute Alprazolam
- Possession with intent to distribute Vyvance
- Possession of firearm during certain crimes
Kareem Evans
- Trafficking Oxycodone
- Possession with intent to distribute Alprazolam
- Possession with intent to distribute Vyvance
- Possession of firearm by convicted felon
- Possession of firearm during certain crimes
Gilbert Powell
- Possession with intent to distribute marijuana
- Possession with intent to distribute MDMA
Catlin Duncan
- Possession of marijuana less than one ounce
Caitlyn Brown
- Possession of marijuana less than one ounce
Jabarvious Thomas
- Giving false name
