A year after a major drug bust in Plainview, police said crime is down overall in the neighborhood targeted by law enforcement.
Police, alongside the Lubbock County Sheriff’s Department, the Hale County District Attorney’s Office, and the Texas Department of Public Safety, raided four homes on West Brazier Street on November 6, 2015. The bust came after three months of undercover work, in what police called “Operation Clean Sweep.”
“We’re trying to make a better community for the City of Plainview and we hope to bring those who are selling drugs to justice,” said Captain Manuel Balderas, the day of that raid. “We are going to be proactive from here on out. If you are selling drugs you will be next on our list.”
“It came out of citizen concerns,” said Chief Ken Coughlin on Thursday. “We try to listen and be responsive to our citizens. They had expressed concerns about the drug activity, the drug dealing going down in that Brazier Street area.”
Eight arrests were made during that raid.
Police said between January 2014 and November 2015, about 80 calls were made to that neighborhood alone.
“We had a high volume of calls for not only the drug activity but also for robbery for thefts, sexual assaults. All kinds of criminal activity, and all of it was tied to the drug activity,” Coughlin said.
Since then, the results have been “really good,” according to Coughlin.
“We’ve had no more citizens complaints in the area. In fact, calls of service there, it’s only been like maybe 4 or 5 in the last 6 months,” he added.
“You can’t expect them always to have that good of a result, but this one worked out really well for us and the neighbors seem to be really happy,” he stated.
Coughlin acknowledged the drug problem has not disappeared.
“We’re not finished by any means, but we’ve kind of refocused a little bit to some areas that are causing us a little more difficulty,” he said.
According to Coughlin, officers have focused their attention on methamphetamine, by way of property crimes.
“We have seen a considerable amount of property crimes for a city our size,” he explained. “We are making arrests on a regular basis, and almost every one of them we find are tied to the meth… so we’re starting to focus more on… not the bigger players but the users of the meth, trying to get them to reduce the amount of property crime. So, one arrest here, one arrest there, shutting them down so they don’t continue.”
“For the most part we’re getting full support from the community,” Coughlin said. “People are starting to get their neighborhood back.”
