Drug bust results in 11 arrests

Police arrested 11 students this week, culminating a three month drug investigation. The teams of officers, from the IU Police Department and the South Central Indiana Drug Task Force, set out at about 5:45 a.m. Monday and began serving arrest and search warrants, IUPD Officer David Hannum said.\nTen of the students were arrested Monday, and the eleventh was arrested in Greenwood, Ind. Wednesday by the Johnson County Police, officials said. \nThe investigation utilized a combination of information, including surveillance and inside sources, Hannum said.\nThe bust was similar to the one that landed 11 students and non-students in jail last December, also immediately before finals began. \n"It's a continuing process. It doesn't follow a strict calendar," Lieutenant Jerry Minger of the IUPD said.\nThe South Central Indiana Drug Task Force is composed of representatives of each of the departments in the region, Minger said. \n"Members of the task force are involved in the arrests and the investigations. Since there were students involved, our officers were the ones who went out and served the warrants," he said.\nIn addition to the arrests, police confiscated a number of items from the students' dorm rooms and from the Brownstone apartments, where three of the students lived. In Brownstone, the searches yielded plants, growing equipment, varying amounts of marijuana and cash, smoking devices and paraphernalia, according to Minger.\nThe Brownstone residents, junior Matthew G. Conn, junior Douglas E. Berry, and sophomore Travis R. Dungan were charged with felony possession with intent to deal marijuana, felony cultivation of marijuana and possession of paraphernalia. Dungan was also charged with four misdemeanor counts of dealing marijuana.\nWarrants for the remaining six students arrested Monday listed the charges as felony maintaining a common nuisance and varying counts of dealing in marijuana: freshman Nicholas Elliott, freshman Adam Batts and freshman Michael Gregory, residents of Wright Quad; sophomore Jonathan M. Kallor, resident of Briscoe Quad; freshman Justen Ray Paris, resident of Foster Quad; freshman Jared Benjamin Cohen, resident of McNutt Quad; and sophomore Adam B. Seiler, resident of S. Roosevelt St.\nSophomore Thomas Dunning, resident of Brownstone, was arrested Wednesday on charges of dealing cocaine, a class A and B felony, and dealing a controlled substance, ecstasy, a class B felony.\nAll of the students arrested Monday have bonded out, and will have their initial hearings today to set court dates, said Hannum. Dunning will be transported back to Monroe County jail.\nIn addition to criminal charges, the students could face academic sanctions as well as a judicial board hearing. Dean of Students Richard McKaig was not able to comment on specific sanctions the students will face from the University. He said the students will have to negotiate coursework and incompletes with their professors.\nThe Code of Student Ethics has a section dealing with drug use on and off campus. \n"Drug use is an issue at IU Bloomington," McKaig said. The students' punishments, if they are convicted, will not be significantly different as far as sales are concerned, he said, but there may be some differences in dealing with the drug use issue.\n"It's a crime," McKaig said about dealing and using marijuana on as well as off campus. "I hope the message is that there are consequences."\n"It's always good to bring it to an end, but it's basically just another chapter in the same thing," Hannum said.\nIn response to the arrests, IU Citizens Advocating for the Legalization of Marijuana held a protest yesterday in front of the IU Police Department. Protesters held signs proclaiming the injustice to the students. \n"We're trying to draw attention to the poor police work going on in the last week," CALM President Dustin Sulak said. "IUPD cannot arrest IU students for victimless crimes before their finals. They're exerting a negative effect."\nThe protesters waved flags, conversed with passersby and handed out flyers explaining more about their cause. \nThe flyers outlined how marijuana laws have hurt the community, describing the police force as "a great tradition gone sour."\n"We think the actions of the IUPD are punitive. It causes disruption in the community," CALM Director Mike Truelove said. \nSulak and Truelove said the raid was untimely and unjust, as it hit the students right before finals thus "punishing students before they are tried."\nDrug busts like this always make an immediate impact, Hannum said. But for the members of the South Central Indiana Drug Task Force, the fruits of their labor do not always endure for a very lengthy duration.\n"There's always someone else to come along and think they're untouchable," said Hannum. "(Last December) we did definitely make an impact. People were scared. People were conscious"