|
Dealers and other criminals had turned the area "into an
open-air drug market and street corner swap meet," Seattle's
Police Department said in a statement on Thursday.
The investigations were running alongside the city's "9 1/2
Block Strategy," to clean up the area by moving bus stops used
for drug trades, restricting access to alleyways and moving
newspaper boxes used to hide narcotics, the Seattle Times
reported.
The police operation, aided by the FBI, had identified 186
people thought to be caught up in the downtown drugs trade, the
police department said.
It added it hoped many of the suspects would end up on social
programs providing housing, medical treatment and other services
instead of in jail.
Members of the public contacted the police around 10,000 times
in 2014, reporting drug dealing, brawls, shootings, stabbings
and other crime in the downtown area, the statement added.
(Reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Seattle; Writing by Curtis
Skinner; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
|
|
