Raid nets crack cocaine, $25,000, weapons
By Matthew Whittle
Published in News on April 11, 2008 2:12 PM
A Thursday drug raid produced more than a half-kilo in three solid crack cocaine rocks, $25,000 in cash and weapons and surveillance equipment, county authorities said.
The raid also resulted in charges against three people who all live at the same Tommy's Road address -- couple Damien Donnell Reid, 26, and Jayzena Ann Reid, 35, and Christopher Montrell Williams, 17.
The Reids each had $2 million secured bonds set as conditions for release from jail. Williams' bond was set at $250,000.
After the raid Thursday, members of the Sheriff's Office Aggressive Criminal Enforcement Team gathered in a patrol room in their U.S. 117 bypass offices to show the results of the bust.
And, as deputies laid the results of their investigation on a table, a cell phone sealed in a plastic evidence bag started to ring.
The ringtone was a shout-style rap beat with the lyrics: "If you want it / You can get it / 'Cause I got it to sell."
The phone laid alongside the evidence-bagged $25,000 in cash and solid blocks of yellowish-white crack cocaine weighing a total of 682 grams.
Other items seized in the raid on 1556-A Tommy's Road included military-grade night-vision goggles, an installed video surveillance kit, a planned wireless video surveillance upgrade, a 200,0000-volt stun gun and a stolen Glock 9 mm handgun.
A SWAT team and other officers, including a canine, led the raid on the residence on Thursday morning, according to authorities.
Sheriff's office Maj. George Raecher said the bust means something in the continued fight against dangerous drugs.
"Just like any of the big drugs, crack and meth are destroying this society," he said. "It's a never-ending battle. "But when you take that much crack cocaine and that much money out of the system, you're having an effect. People that bought (crack cocaine) from these people are not buying today (Thursday)."
Further investigation into the drug operation is "ongoing," deputies said.
Wayne County Sheriff Carey Winders praised the Aggressive Criminal Enforcement Team.
"These officers are outstanding," WInders said. "These ... (investigators and interdiction officers) have seized over $100,000 in cash this year from their investigations."
Winders noted that the officers also were involved in a traffic stop near Mount Olive in December in which two Trenton men were charged with transporting nearly $2 million in powder cocaine hidden in a secret compartment of a sport utility vehicle.
So when the cell phone rang on the patrol room table with its seemingly drug-related lyric, the irony did not escape the officers gathered.
"Who's going to answer that?" joked one member of the Wayne County Sheriff's Office Aggressive Criminal Enforcement Team.
No one did.
And as one of the deputies silenced the cell phone's ringer, it played once more.
"If you want it / You can get it / 'Cause I got it to sell."
"Not anymore," one of the deputies said.