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12 alleged drug dealers snagged in early morning roundup
Posted On 11 Apr 2012
Some alleged Whitley County drug dealers got an early morning wake-up call Wednesday as police from the Whitley County Sheriff’s Department, Williamsburg Police Department and Kentucky State Police came knocking on their doors before dawn with arrest warrants.
About 20 officers gathered at the Williamsburg Tourism and Convention Center about 5 a.m., and broke up into eight or nine teams that hit the streets shortly after 5:30 a.m. looking for 22 alleged drug dealers.
"We are having a multi-department round-up of drug dealers within Whitley County," said Sheriff Colan Harrell.
Harrell said that the round-up was conducted in the early morning hours because officers have a better chance of finding alleged criminals home at that hour.
"They are usually in bed this time of day," he noted.
Williamsburg Police Chief Wayne Bird said that smaller round-ups where authorities are searching for 20 or 30 suspects are much more practical than larger round-ups where authorities are looking for 50 to 60 suspects.
"One time we did a 70-man drug round-up. You don’t realize the work that is involved in the drug round-ups. It is not something that happens overnight," Bird said. "There are a lot of man hours involved in it, and a lot of overtime."
Another problem with larger raids is that after police pick up the first few suspects during a round-up, word spreads quickly in the drug community.
"The minute you start arresting five or six people, word starts spreading pretty quickly," Bird noted. "All of these guys, some how they are connected to each other, and they all know each other. Phone lines start lighting up."
Sheriff’s deputies obtained arrest warrants for 12 people as a result of their investigations and Williamsburg police obtained 10 arrest warrants for various individuals.
Kentucky State Police provided additional manpower for the drug round-up.
Long process
"Drug enforcement is a tedious job," Harrell said. "It is hard to compile a case on a drug dealer now. It is to the point that you don’t have to have a hand to hand buy, but you are much better off in court with one."
Wednesday’s drug round-up is the culmination of six to eight months of drug investigations and undercover drug buys, which were conducted by the sheriff’s department and Williamsburg police.
Most of the cases involved investigations where drugs were purchased from alleged dealers by either undercover officers or confidential informants.
"You have to have the aid of the neighborhood pinpointing, who they are," Harrell said. "Then you target these individuals. It is time consuming and takes a lot of manpower.
"Some people think that just because they think their neighbor is dealing drugs, we can rush in and raid them right then. It’s the tip that we initially need, but it is just the start."
Bird agreed that police can’t instantly raid an alleged drug dealer based on citizen complaints.
"It is not that simple," Bird said. "There is a lot of time that goes into this. It is a big strain on department budgets. I can’t speak for the sheriff’s department, but for our agency, every man here is on over-time. Every drug buy we made, we paid out in overtime."
Bird estimates that between money spent for drug buys, over time pay for officers investigating the cases, and over time pay for his officers to conduct the round-up Wednesday, his department alone was out between $7,000 – $8,000.
"We get no outside funding whatsoever for drug buys. Every bit of it comes out of our budget," Bird said. "It is a huge strain for us."
An investigation like this one used to cost Williamsburg police about $5,000.
Last year’s penal code reform made it tougher for police to charge someone with drug trafficking, and a greater volume of drugs must be purchased now to make drug trafficking a felony offense.
"To make a good drug case now, you have to get over that threshold with the pills, which means we have to spend more money to do that," Bird noted.
In addition to the obvious expenses, another one is video equipment to record the drug transactions.
Making a dent?
Harrell said he hopes that Wednesday’s arrests make a dent in the drug problem locally.
"We have targeted some of these individuals. Some of the others have just come up when we had an opportunity to buy from them. We feel like it will make a dent," he added.
Bird is less optimistic.
"It will make absolutely none," he said. "I used to be hopeful and think we could put a dent in it, but I don’t even think we can touch it now. It’s sad to say what we are doing here today won’t even scratch the surface of it.
"It is basically just letting people know that if you’re dealing dope, we know who you are. At some point we will come knocking on your door."
Out of jail by lunch
Because of penal code reforms passed last year by the Kentucky General Assembly that changes how bonds are set, many of the alleged drug dealers arrested Wednesday will be probably be out of jail on bond before lunch.
"It is real frustrating to us," Bird said. "I don’t think anybody, who isn’t from the law enforcement side of the house, knows how much work goes into a drug case."
Arrests made
By 8 a.m. Wednesday, police had tracked down 11 of their 22 targets for the day. Sheriff’s deputies were waiting for one more to get off work before arresting them, and located an additional suspect in Tennessee.
Sheriff’s suspects arrested as of 8 a.m. as part of the round-up included:
• Anthony B. Conlin, 45, of Williamsburg – first-degree trafficking in a controlled substance.
• Roger David Keith, 44, of Williamsburg – first-degree trafficking in a controlled substance.
• Jamie R. McKiney, 35, of Williamsburg – second-degree trafficking in a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia.
• Michael A. Cima, 37, of Corbin – first-degree trafficking in a controlled substance.
• James Fair, 37, of Williamsburg – first-degree trafficking in a controlled substance.
Williamsburg Police Department suspects arrested as of 8 a.m. as part of the round-up included:
• Albert Eugene McKiddy, 54, of Williamsburg – first and second-degree trafficking in a controlled substance.
• Michael Lee Anderson, 24, of Williamsburg – second-degree trafficking in a controlled substance.
• Derek Glenn Hall, 37, of Williamsburg – trafficking in marijuana less than eight ounces.
• Jackie Gail Logan, 48, of Williamsburg – second-degree trafficking in a controlled substance.
• Deborah Lynn Hembree, 39, of Williamsburg – second-degree trafficking in a controlled substance.
• Travis S. Croley, 22, of Williamsburg – second-degree trafficking in a controlled substance.
Bird said that a special grand jury will hear evidence regarding the drug cases on April 20.
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Sounds to me like a bunch of people need to grow up!!!! The “pill here, pill there” leads to the bigger stuff and at least they r making an effort. They would be slammed by lil bird either way sounds like.
You need to see how you are making yourself look by taking your personal problems with Corbin out on the local authorties, unless of coarse they have had to deal with you a time or two and that is why you are so riled about it. And I wonder what kind of education you can claim.
I know someone who works at the Jail, he told me that on one of the guys arresting papers it said that an informant told them he purchased drugs off of this guy, (no wire, no camera)…how is that not word of mouth. He said that charge wont stick and it will be thrown out of court. I am on the side of the police but they need to get more/better evidence on these people so that they stay behind bars.
Lil bird, which one of your family members was picked up in the raid for being a “drug dealer” lol or was it you and you already binded out lol your taking this way to personal for it not to be hitting home
click on the news journal name and you will see albert “Eugene” mckiddy’s pic as the police are escorting him in cuffs….lol
ha! this comment blog totally brought Whitley County’s finest out of the woodwork…. or the local Applebee’s, whatever. glad I could stir the pot- no pun intended 😉
What are you smoking? It says alleged drug dealers. They got it right.
Im glad they are getting these low life scums. We dont need people like this walking our streets
Cops don’t arrest people from “word of mouth” they are investigated because of that. Then for a long time they gather lots of evidence including the drugs, audio and video. These weren’t random busts without probable cause. That would be illegal!
actually, i was raised there, but thank GOD, i left that bubble hole of a town. and first of all, the law enforcement in Corbin is a joke, everyone knows that… Can’t really vouch for the others in the tri-county. But since the IQ level there is not much to brag about, I’m guessing it’s not much better. And I completely agree, drugs should not be within our children’s reach, but they are hardly doing a good job of that (hello, most kids parents are dealing or cooking something ;). They are arresting people who have sold someone a pill and not getting the real dealers who are the source of the mass distribution to these little “pill here, pill there” people who, just like you said, do not really get punished because they are not the source from which the big problem stems!
Oh, btw, I don’t make it my priority to keep up with the pitiful news in that dump of a town, but I happen to know some names in question, that I, for a fact, know are innocent and yet their name is slandered and ruined because the cops can arrest people from ‘word of mouth’ fiction. It’s not right, no matter what the town is or how stupid the law enforcement is. This is someone’s life, so yes, journalists should get their **** straight before they go posting their name and face everywhere. I’m sure if you were affected in any way other than “you live in corbin, so that makes you what? more informed?’ I think you’d be more skeptical of what the hell really goes on with your so called law enforcement. Have a nice day and stay out of my opinion posts, please, that’s what they are there for, MY opinion- don’t need yours on mine, thanks 🙂
Do you even live in Corbin? Yes all suspects are inncocent until proven guilty. They cannot be arrested until there is probable cause, the cops have to have the evidence to arrest them. Evidence that says they are “drug dealers” New legislation makes it harder to keep someone injail with out allowing bond on a drug offense. Thats not the cops fault. I think our police force is doing a great job trying to keep the drugs out of our kids hands. But its still hard when you lock one drug dealer up and two more show up in its place. BTW ‘lil bird if you dont like the stories dont read ’em. Dont criticize the writers for trying to bring us the news thats going on in our town.
^^sad attempt at poor cops trying to meet some quota and look good in the public eye. they will be out by lunch because you have no evidence but word of mouth from your ‘undisclosed informants.’ geez, what are the educational requirements for law enforcement there? love the quotes from this article… what a joke.
this is an absolutely ridiculous article. what kind of journalism breaks a story as fact and refers to people as ‘drug dealers’ when indeed none of the above arrested have even been charged? oh that’s right, it is Corbin, small town journalism, where someone you know can be seen drinking a beer and you all **** yourselves and start a local phone tree. seriously, do you even have to go to school or have a degree to work at these newspapers? if you checked your ‘facts’ and ‘sources,’ you would know that one of the alleged ‘dealers’ were set up a local riff raff as a revenge attempt. THAT would be your real cover story… poor journalism work here… must be an entry level journalist. check facts, not gossip before you start writing or publishing pictures of potential victims of lies or setups for that matter! shame on you news journal.
OH, yea!! A big ^5 to Sheriff Harrell!!!!!
LOL. They finally got Ronnie Hembree’s so called daughter!! One down, one to go. They’re both dealiing HEAVY drugs. OH, Shelia is the other one’s name. The one that used to be a nurses’ aid and was stealing her mother’s pain meds when her mom was dying from cancer…how low can you go?
Way to go Colan!