Cash, heroin, marijuana and an unusually large amount of cocaine are spread out on a table at the Westfield Police Department as it is organized for analysis after it was seized in a raid on a drug house in the city Friday. (Photo by Carl E. Hartdegen)
WESTFIELD – Many of the evils which assail American society stem for the need for addicted persons to attempt to satisfy the monkeys on their backs and, as their options dwindle and they resort to crime (as virtually all addicts eventually do) to fund their need for addictive drugs, society pays for their problems through housebreaks, shoplifting, identity fraud and dozens of other larcenies and scams.
Westfield is not immune from the problems which affect every community in the nation and city police often seem to be bailing against the tide in their efforts keep the sellers of heroin, cocaine and other illegal and addictive drugs in the community at bay.
Sometimes, there are successes which, at least for the short term, limit the drugs available on the streets of the Whip City.
The brunt of this effort is borne largely by the city’s detectives who work the nigh shift under the command of Det. Sgt. Steven K. Dickinson, once the city’s primary undercover narcotics investigator and now the supervisor of the nighttime detectives.
One of those detectives, Brian Freeman, reports (in a recently filed court document) how those detectives on Friday seized heroin, cocaine and marijuana which will not be sold on the city’s streets for thousands of dollars.
Freeman reports that information assembled by city detectives was presented in a successful application for a warrant to search an apartment at 4 Sackett St. and a team of four detectives and two community policing officers, under the command of Dickinson, executed the warrant Friday evening.
Before the officers moved in, they set up surveillance of the residence and saw known drug addicts make brief visits to the house.
When one of the men who the detectives knew from previous narcotics investigations left the house the detectives decided, “knowing that he had just come from the known drug house and his actions were consistent with purchasing narcotics”, to speak with him.
When Dickinson rolled up, in an unmarked cruiser, and asked to speak with the man he took off running.
Officers exited the cruiser to give chase and saw the man discard items from his pocket before he was detained on the Maple Street sidewalk.
Officers recovered “a cellphone and a small bag of crack cocaine” and the man agreed to give the officers “a full statement of what was happening inside 4 Sackett Street.”
The detective decided to execute the warrant then and, when they knocked on the door, it was opened by a man subsequently identified as Corey Mitchell-Edwards, 24, of 195 Hickory St., Springfield.
Inside at the kitchen table was the target of the warrant, Robert W. Lemanski, 52, of 4 Sackett St., and found in a bedroom behind the kitchen were Ricky Stevens Jr., 27, whose last known address was 37 ½ Mechanic St., and another man.
Large amounts of both powder and ‘rock’ cocaine, reportedly with a retail value of more than $16,000, were seized Friday in a raid of a Sackett Street drug house by city detectives. (Photo by Carl E. Hartdegen)
A brown paper bag on top of the refrigerator was found to contain more than 200 grams of cocaine and less than an ounce of marijuana.
Lt. David Ragazzini, the commander of the Detective Bureau, later said that the retail value of the cocaine seized was about $16,000.
In a bedroom, 42 bags of heroin were found in a nightstand along with $318 in cash.
In a closet, eight marijuana plants were found to be growing under artificial light.
Four pills were found in a bathroom cabinet.
In addition, a digital scale with cocaine residue, packaging materials and the detritus of narcotics packaging operations were found in the apartment.
Cocaine found on the person of Mitchell-Edwards appeared to be the same as that found in the paper bag and Stevens was found to be in possession of $1,178 in cash.
Dickinson said later that, when he asked Stevens why he had that much cash, the man said that he had recently cashed two months worth of paychecks from his job at a local donut shop. However, he later told Dickinson that his paychecks were directly deposited to his bank account. The cash was seized.
Lemanski and Mitchell-Edwards were taken into custody and Dickinson said later that they both told him that the narcotics found were not theirs and that they each were selling for another party.
Lemanski told Dickinson that he was selling the heroin seized for Stevens and Mitchell-Edwards said that he was selling the cocaine for a man he refused to identify.
Dickinson said that Stevens is a former city man who still has strong ties to Westfield but is thought to be living in Springfield and is believed to have imported the heroin from there.
Lemanski was arrested for with trafficking in cocaine, possession of a Class A drug (heroin) with intent to distribute, possession of a Class D drug (marijuana) with intent to distribute and cultivation of a Class D drug.
Mitchell-Edwards was arrested for trafficking in cocaine and possession of a Class B drug (cocaine) with intent to distribute, a subsequent offense.
Both were arraigned Monday.
Contant set bail for each of the suspects at $5,000. Mitchell-Edwards had somebody who posted bail for him but Lemanski was not as lucky.
Dickinson said that not only did the raid keep a lot of narcotics off the street, Dickinson said, but it also closed down, for a time at least “a place to go to get high.”
“You really could call it a ‘drug house’”, Dickinson said, because “not only were they selling (narcotics) but you could use it there.”
“Some people came there to buy, some to get high,” he said.
He said that the amount of contraband seized was unusual.
“We haven’t seen this kind of quantity in quite a while,” he said.
“I think I can only remember one seizure that was higher than that and I’ve been around for 30 years,” said Capt. Michael McCabe, Dickinson’s supervisor. “It was a lot of dope.”
