Federal and local officers descended on Mobile’s Campground neighborhood Friday morning, the culmination of a months-long undercover push that Mobile Police Chief James Barber says targeted the city’s last open-air crack cocaine market. About a dozen people were detained and handcuffed along State Street as investigators sorted through outstanding warrants and searched for drug paraphernalia.
The Mobile Police Department coordinated the operation, dubbed Operation Drive Thru, with the U.S. Marshals Service and the U.S. Secret Service. It marked the second major law enforcement push into the Campground area in less than a year, following June’s Operation Bottoms Up, which resulted in more than 60 arrests but, according to Barber, did little to slow the area’s drug trade long-term.
Barber said he personally walked the neighborhood and was struck by the visible signs of the ongoing drug and prostitution activity there. After he and Mayor Sandy Stimpson went door-to-door meeting residents in December, the department launched the new operation with help from a special prosecutor assigned by Mobile County District Attorney Ashley Rich.
Investigators say they documented hundreds of drug transactions and carried out more than 100 undercover buys over roughly five months of surveillance, ultimately securing more than 70 drug-related warrants against 20 suspects. Search warrants covered eight homes in the neighborhood, including a State Street property that police say was used as a base for both drug sales and prostitution.
The owner of that home, an elderly Campground resident, was not expected to face criminal charges, but police said she had allowed the property to be used for illegal activity. Officers arranged for the woman to be taken to a local hospital Friday as investigators moved to have the home declared a drug-related nuisance in court, a legal step that can lead to seizure of the property. City officials separately secured an emergency order to clear debris from an adjacent lot that had sat charred and littered since a fire years earlier, which neighbors said had long been a blight on the block.
Residents who spoke with reporters described a neighborhood where fear had discouraged people from calling in even serious incidents. Several said they had heard gunfire nearby in recent months but did not contact police, worried about retaliation. Barber pointed to that silence as evidence of how deeply the drug trade had taken hold, saying that when neighbors are too afraid to report crime, dealers effectively control the streets.
Police and city officials said they were working with community leaders on a broader strategy to rebuild trust and improve safety in the Campground area going forward, with additional details on arrests and property seized from the operation expected to be released in the following days. Barber acknowledged the challenge extends beyond a single raid, noting that some families in the neighborhood have cycled through the drug trade for multiple generations.