Police announce arrests in gang and drug cases

CHICAGO — Driving past a street corner adorned with three spray-painted tributes to young men shot and killed on the streets, Chicago police officers jumped out of their cars and pulled a suspected drug dealer from an apartment.

The scene that played out Thursday morning is a result of an initiative that Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced last month that calls for dozens of officers from several specialized units on West Side and South Side Chicago, which account for a quarter of the city's homicides.

For weeks, the undercover officers have been buying heroin in this West Side area, while other officers have been watching to see where the seller goes, whom he pays, who hands him more drugs and what that person does with the drugs and money he's handed.

That led to 17 arrest warrants for people suspected of dealing drugs in the neighborhood and on Thursday — with The Associated Press and a local television station in tow — they went out to round up suspects. By Thursday afternoon, they said the roundup that began a few days ago had led to the arrests of 11 of the 17 suspects. Most of them were arrested on drug conspiracy charges.

"The key is to get them working in concert," said James O'Grady, the commander of the department's narcotics division, who likened the operation to a grocery store where a manager oversees the clerks and baggers. He said it doesn't matter if they are selling one bag or 50, "they're all part of the conspiracy."

And that, he said, means more prison time than had they been arrested simply for possession for sale.

Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, who announced the initiative with Emanuel, said the areas where police would focus their attention were those that have seen both a thriving illegal drug trade but the worst gang violence.

Thursday's roundup followed a similar one targeting gang members late last month, and police say that by targeting those areas they hope that they will drive down violent crime, an issue that has become of particular concern as statistics from late 2011 and January of this year have shown an increase in homicides.

The lethal mixture of drugs and violence was as obvious as the words scrawled on the sidewalk outside the house where one of the suspected drug dealers was captured.

"They worked on this corner, they did," said Adolph Leggin, 66, motioning to two of the three names he recognized as local drug dealers who were shot to death last year.