Officials in Frederick and Washington Counties seized over $90,000 worth of cocaine and crack cocaine inside of a Hagerstown home. "They represent lives saved from overdose deaths and the continuing nightmare of drug addiction and the never-ending spinoffs of associated crimes from robberies, retail thefts, shootings and others that tear at the very fabric of our great and prosperous community," he said. And for the past two-and-a-half decades, the city has taken a public health approach to addiction, offering methadone programs, needle exchanges, HIV testing, and inpatient treatment opportunities before the pharmaceutical industry dumped OxyContin and other opioids onto a nave market. He moved toThe Frederick News-Postin 1989 but lived in Hagerstown until 2000. On at least 30 separate occasions between April 8 and May 8, 2019, Smith visited Tyler Wares residence. For a century, Hagerstown had been the dominant city, and Frederick a little cow town. This pooling of investigative resources benefits each investigative unit with increased manpower, less duplication of effort, and by coordinating the targeting of drug offenders. In recent decades, theyve swapped roles. The NTF is responsible for the investigation, arrest, and prosecution of persons who violate the controlled dangerous substance laws of Maryland, regardless of the sophisitication of the illicit operation. By Ron Cassie and Lauren LaRocca Photography by BENJAMIN C. TANKERSLEY | July 2018, By Ron Cassie and Lauren LaRocca. Police seized drugs, cash and weapons from the residence, Kerns said. Shortly after Grant was taken into custody, the task force executed a search-and-seizure warrant at 807 Hamilton Blvd., Kerns said. Inside the bedroom, Heather Strausbaugh sat talking with her client the conversation ranged from nightlife and bars to their families. Across the country, rural addiction rates have surpassed those in urban areas, yet there is still not a single inpatient drug treatment facility in Washington County. HAGERSTOWN, Md. Police seized more than 80 pounds of meth, 200 bags of fentanyl, more than two dozen guns and $135,000 in cash in a massive drug bust in Montgomery County. As stated in his plea agreement, on August 9, 2019, law enforcement executed a search warrant at Smiths Hagerstown, Maryland residence. Weve been struggling for decades and hopefully this will get the ball rolling, she says. During the execution of the search warrant, Smith informed law enforcement that he had a storage unit in Hagerstown, Maryland and told officers where he kept the keys to the unit. But the sad fact is that in 2018, Phoenix Health Center drawsmore people downtown than anything else on a Saturday. Others sell or trade their methadone or bupe (opioid medications used to suppress withdrawal symptoms) to buy the real thing, faking drug tests to game the system. This was a normal kid, the daughter of a respected ex-city cop. Christina Trenton Nee, COO, and Charlie Mooneyhan, CEO, of Wells House. Thats everyone I know. The Washington County Narcotics Task Force performed the drug raid at a Hagerstown apartment after first obtaining a warrant based on a narcotics investigation of that address. The seized drugs have a street value of approximately $471,000, according to prosecutors. Saturday mornings are the busiest days of the week because the drug treatment clinic is closed on Sundaysmeaning that several hundred people begin showing up at 5 a.m. to ensure that they can collect their extra day's supply . ; Cody William Grant, 26, of 826 Dewey Ave., Apt. Home to one-fourth of the countys population, Hagerstown accounts for the majority of those seeking treatment, as well as the majority of overdose fatalities, which included 21 city residents in the first four-and-a-half months of this yeara pace that would, if it continues, triple last years total. For the past 44 years, since Valley Mall was built on the outskirts of town, shuttering the department stores, retail shops, restaurants, theaters, and five and dimes, there have been hopes of reviving Hagerstowns once-thriving city center. From March 20 to April 24, 2019, law enforcement surveilled activity at the suspected unit on a daily basis and observed Smith opening the storage unit to weigh and process suspected narcotics for distribution. Rise of a street boss By 1973,. Is Hagerstown eating its way to dementia? A lot of them are just taking their normal dose and get hit with this new shit cut with fentanyl. 3, in Hagerstowns North End; and Daniel Matthew Anderson, 28, of 1008 Security Road, Apt. More than 1,000 pounds of prescription medicine is collected in the first two hours of the event, which is held in an empty parking lot outside the county health offices. Press Release. Brooke died while waiting for insurance approval for a $700 monthly shot of Vivitrol, which reduces cravings and withdrawal symptoms. The two have been charged in connection with a drug distribution conspiracy in the Westminster area of Carroll County, Maryland. The office is currently staffed by personnel to include officers from the Hagerstown City Police Department, Deputies from the Washington County Sheriffs Department, an Intel Analyst, a Gang Analyst, two prosecutors from the State Attorneys Office, and two support staff. osh Morningstar could be the poster boy for the use of prescription opioids gone awry. Frederick, which seems worlds away rather than a mere 20 minutes, has benefitted from its MARC train station, which has grown the town into a bedroom community of D.C. Its also close enough to Baltimore that people make the I-70 commute. "The operation in this case, I think it's fair to say, dealt with millions of dollars of drugs and proceeds," he said. As a result of the executed search warrant at Smiths storage unit, law enforcement located 15.4 grams of heroin, 8.9 grams of a mixture of fentanyl and heroin, digital scales with suspected heroin residue, numerous small plastic baggies, and a glass jar containing a suspected cutting agent. Kerns said Anderson was part of an investigation that occurred prior to the search warrant being executed. "The fact that a good portion of the investigation occurred during the pandemic makes the results even more impressive.". Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph. I fully bought into the War on Drugs and what Reagan was doing, he says. Get the Android Weather app from Google Play, Magnitude 2.0 earthquake reaches Montgomery County, Best smart home devices for older users, according, How to get started on spring cleaning early, according, Worried about your student using ChatGPT for homework? Washington Daily Voice serves the towns of: Boonsboro, Fountainhead-Orchard Hills, Hagerstown, Halfway, Maugansville, Paramount-Long Meadow, Robinwood, Smithsburg. Daily, he watches people, mostly in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, selling and scoring drugs in the citys central parking lot behind the gallery. The substance abuse treatment center sits across the street from an abandoned hospital parking garage (the hospital moved out of downtown like nearly everything else), and a seemingly endless stream of addicts in late-model cars, minivans, and pickup trucks come and go until the pharmacy closes at noon. (DC News Now) The Hagerstown Police Department said officers executed a search and seizure warrant at 115 S. Mulberry St. on Oct. 7, finding fentanyl, crack cocaine, $5,000 cash, and firearms. Police said a more than three-year investigation. The drugs seized during the investigation amounted to 8.6 kilograms of cocaine, 1.02 kilograms of heroin, and 12 ounces of crack cocaine, with a street value of approximately $471,000. Martinsburg Police Chief George Swartwood said the arrests and seizures of drugs represent "more to this community than just numbers on a page.". Mostly sunny skies with gusty winds. The guilty plea was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Erek L. Barron; Special Agent in Charge Jarod Forget of the Drug Enforcement Administration - Washington Division; and Sheriff Douglas Mullendore . Theyll deliver. Butler is being held at the Caroline County Detention Center without bond. This pooling of investigative resources benefits each investigative unit with increased manpower, less duplication of effort, and by coordinating the targeting of drug offenders. We interviewed our tech expert, Jaime Vazquez, to learn more about accessible smart home devices. Hagerstown Center Of Alleged Drug Conspiracy, Prosecutors Say Seventeen Hagerstown residents and one Frederick resident were among 34 arrested Wednesday morning on indictments in a drug. Grant also was charged with possession of drug paraphernalia; possession of needles related to drugs; possession of less than 10 grams of marijuana; creating a common nuisance through distributing narcotics; and escape in the second degree, according to Kerns and online court records. For the past three years, the Simmerses have been working to build Brookes House in Washington County. I cannot count the number of friends who have died after I almost did, says Katie Wetzel, 27, a recovering addict in Hagerstown who is now married with three kids. He moved on to 10-milligram Percocet, then 30-milligram. a view from the abandoned hospital parking garage across from the antietam street clinic. Two more telltale signs of Hagerstowns plight are present here as well: The countys storefront offices sit in an all-but-abandoned shopping center, and nearby is a Superfund site, less than a mile from three public schools, and still in need of remediation two decades after it was added to the EPAs National Priorities List. CDS Possession/Use of Cocaine and Derivatives CDS Possession/Use of Synthetic Narcotics (Fentanyl) CDS Sale/Manufacturing Synthetic Narcotics (Fentanyl), CDS Sale/Manufacturing Other Dangerous Drugs CDS Possession/Use Opium (Heroin) CDS Sale/Manufacturing Cocaine, CDS Possession/Use- Cocaine CDS Possession/Use of Synthetic Narcotics (Fentanyl) CDS With Intent to Distribute Narcotics, CDS Possession- Not Cannabis CDS Possession/Use, (Use the blue dots to scroll the list of recent arrests). Those charged are: Lenin Erasmo Luna Mota, also known as "Papi," 48, of Hagerstown, Maryland and the Dominican Republic People began to say, Oh, if it can happen to that family, it can happen to my family, Sterling says. A huge component of this initiative includes a $40-million effort, started in 2017, which will expand three key institutionsthe University System of Maryland at Hagerstown, the Maryland Theatre, and Barbara Ingram School for the Artswith a slated completion date of spring of 2020. In an emotional press conference, she pointed the finger directly at the pharmaceutical companies, including Purdue Pharma, which hired hundreds of sales representatives to promote their product and has been accused of using misleading information to hide the drugs addiction potential. And now, Hagerstowns unique coordinates, once its greatest asset, play a leading role in enabling its public health crisis. During the early morning hours of December 20 th, the Allegany County Sheriff's Office with the assistance of numerous allied agencies executed search and seizure warrants at three separate locations in the Town of Westernport. Additionally, in less than one month, Smith and Tyler contacted each other 714 times by cell phone. Andre Luther Woolford, 33, of Hurlock, Maryland. George Alfred Butler, 56, of Federalsburg, Maryland. . The narcotics task force is a joint operation of the Washington County Sheriffs Office and the Hagerstown Police Department. It could not be determined Wednesday if those arrested remained in custody or were on pre-trial release. Economists studying national trends say people should simply vacate towns like Hagerstownand seek work elsewhere. The Frederick Police Department is seeking assistance locating a 17-year-old male, who has been missing since June. The drugs seized during the investigation amounted to 8.6 kilograms of cocaine, 1.02 kilograms of heroin, and 12 ounces of cocaine base "crack," with a street value of approximately $471,000.