Pioneer Park: Prestigious past, perilous present

"Male, ball cap, brown leather jacket, jeans ... walking down 400 South near 300 West ... done deal, done deal," the undercover Salt Lake City police officer conveyed on his two-way radio.

Those last words were the cue to uniformed officers waiting nearby that he had just bought drugs from a street dealer. Less than a minute later, two officers have the man handcuffed on the ground.

Like most of the drug dealers working the areas around Pioneer Park, the man is a "spitter," or a dealer who stores thumbnail-size balloons filled with crack cocaine inside his or her mouth. "Spitters" can quickly swallow their evidence if a cop approaches them.

But unlike most of the other dealers police encountered on this night, the man does not swallow his drugs before police get to him.

"You're new at this, aren't you?" one officer asks the man rhetorically.

The officers get the man to spit out 18 balloons. A field test confirms high-grade crack-cocaine is inside each one.

The man was one of 18 arrested Thursday night in an undercover operation. It's part of the police department's efforts to rid the area of an ever-increasing drug problem.

Earlier that night, before officers started "Operation Buy-Rip," Lt. Mike Ross, who supervised the effort, briefed all those involved. He explained how the police department was feeling the heat from residents tired of drug dealers and the crime associated with them.

"The complaints are still increasing," he said.

For decades, Pioneer Park has had the well-earned reputation of being the Mecca of drug and prostitution activity in the city. This year, however, the drug problem has gone into overdrive. About 1,500 people have been arrested in and around the park so far this year, said Chief Chris Burbank. In the past six months alone there have been 500 arrests. Ross said 260 of those came directly from his unit doing undercover drug buys.

"Throughout the summer we have been working this harder than we have in a lot of years," Burbank said. "Not since the park was staffed with officers 24 hours a day have we seen arrest numbers like this."

Of special concern is the skyrocketing demand for crack.

"We are seeing levels of crack we've never seen before in this area," Burbank said.

Crack is what fueled violence and turf wars among gangs in cities such as New York and Los Angeles, Burbank said. Police in Salt Lake say they want to get control of the crack problem before similar violence occurs here.

"I've never seen it like this before. Everyone is selling crack," Ross said.