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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

50 arrest warrants issued for drug dealing

In the Franklin City Police Department, on large beige boards next to a whiteboard, 50 faces were taped up on rows of paper — suspects in a recent drug bust. On the whiteboard, their names were written in black ink.

Some names were crossed out in red, with red declarations next to them — Leffler, A: Arrested. Shapinsky, A: Scott County Jail. Fowler, K: DEAD.

In the bottom right corner of the whiteboard was a fraction: 30/50.

Thirty is the approximate number of arrests that were made this morning by several local departments, including the Johnson County Prosecutor’s Office, the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department, the Franklin Police Department, the Indiana State Police and the U.S. Marshals Service, 
according to a press release.

Teams of officers are still attempting to serve the rest of 50 arrest warrants on 
suspected drug dealers.

All but one were felony charges, said FPD Chief of Police 
Timothy O’Sullivan.

O’Sullivan said he estimated 250 officers and 20 canines assisted in making the arrests this morning.

These arrests have come as a result of nearly a year of investigations by undercover narcotics officers and others at the FPD and Johnson County Prosecutor’s Office.

O’Sullivan said he expected all 50 of the suspects to be arrested shortly, with about 20 still outstanding as of mid-afternoon Tuesday.

“I would guess we’ll have most of (the arrests) done by tonight,” O’Sullivan said Tuesday. “The ones we don’t get, we’ll catch them later, at traffic stops or that sort of thing. It’s not if, it’s just when, for the last ones.”

Suspects were charged with dealing a plethora of drugs, 
including methamphetamine, heroin, marijuana, controlled substances and synthetic drugs.

O’Sullivan said there wasn’t necessarily a connection between any of the suspects, but he said once the teams get to a point where there are several potential cases at the same time, they try to issue arrests at the same time.

Brad Cooper, the Johnson County prosecutor, said the 50 
individuals were from a range of locations in the area, with Johnson County at the epicenter.

He said the yearlong process to get to this point was slow, but the end result is satisfying.

He attributed the 50-person bust to a lot of collaboration, and he said it’s an arduous and tedious process for confidential informants to get to the point where they can make a bust.

“We started off by getting low-level offenders, and we try to flip them on their suppliers,” Cooper said. “Once we flip them, we try to work our way up the chain to get to the bigger drug dealers.”

O’Sullivan said he felt encouraged this morning to see how team effort had culminated in success for the surrounding police departments and the prosecutor’s office. To him, standing in front of a room with so many officers excited to work as a team was satisfying.

But, however happy he was for the community Tuesday, O’Sullivan said he realized there is plenty more work to do.

“We’re not done. This is a continuous effort for all of us,” O’Sullivan said. “It’s an ongoing problem in our community and we expect to continue to do more 
investigations.

“It’s a war on drugs.”

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