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February 11, 2012

New city police chief leads raid on drug house

Debbie Wachter Morris New Castle News

NEW CASTLE — Bobby Salem took a bite out of New Castle’s illegal drug trade on his first day as city police chief.

He oversaw a raid on a suspected “drug house” at 1610 E. Washington St. yesterday netting guns, drugs and  money, and resulted in the arrests of five out-of-town, low- to mid-level drug dealers.

The city police, in cooperation with the Lawrence County District Attorney’s Drug Task Force, had four men and one woman in custody and were filing charges against them last night.

Arrested were Cortney Lynn Jones, 23, of Farrell; Quinton Pinkins, 27, of Sharon; Julius Williams, 22, and Antonio Gardner, 27, both of Detroit; and Darelle Coffey, 21, of Pittsburgh.

All are charged with multiple drug violations and were to  have been arraigned this morning by District Judge Jennifer Nicholson.

A special response team of local police executed a sealed search warrant at the house early in the evening, according to Salem.

During the effort, they seized four loaded semiautomatic handguns, ammunition, a bullet proof vest, seven bags of suspected crack cocaine, a plastic bag of suspected marijuana, digital scales and $1,998 in cash.

Last night Salem said the drug quantities had not yet been weighed.

District Attorney Joshua Lamancusa praised Salem for the effort, saying, “The chief of police had a good first day on the job.”

He said he foresees it as a sign of good cooperation the drug task force members will have going forward.

According to Salem, the investigation at that house started about two months ago, based upon reports that the house was visited by 30 to 50 customers each day.

“The neighbors were pretty upset about it,” he said. “That house was getting a lot of cars every day.”

The five arrested were inside the house when police arrived.

(Email: dmorris@ncnewsonline.com)

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