Capping an eight-month investigation, Mobile police served nine search warrants in two days at Maysville homes suspected of serving as cocaine and marijuana distribution points.
The sweep, dubbed “Operation: May Day,” began late Thursday night at one house and continued Friday morning with eight more. Residents lined the streets as officers battered down doors and detained occupants on front lawns.
Years of Complaints
Police Chief James Barber said some of the houses had been scenes of drug dealing for years, which made the operation especially significant. The Narcotics and Vice Unit led the investigation after a series of complaints about heightened drug activity in the neighborhood, and surveillance footage identified roughly 20 people allegedly involved in drug sales.
Two of the houses were boarded up afterward, with owners hit by temporary restraining orders; the properties will be seized unless the owners can show they had no knowledge of the drug activity.
Proximity to Schools Drove the Push
All nine houses sat within three miles of Craighead Elementary, Hall Elementary, Mae Eanes Elementary and Williamson High — proximity that played a major role in the department’s interest, Barber said.
District Attorney Ashley Rich, who was on Cottrell Street during the Friday wave, said her office would ask judges to apply Alabama’s five-year sentence enhancement for drug sales in school zones. “We feel so strongly that our kids deserve the right to a drug-free school zone,” she said.
Arrests and a Path Out
Six alleged dealers were arrested during the raids and three more were already in Mobile County Metro Jail, leaving fifteen suspects at large. Four others were arrested on possession charges.
Barber said word of the Thursday night raid likely spread before Friday’s second wave, but noted the department had deliberately notified community leadership in advance. “We’ve been very candid that we were coming to put a stop to it,” he said. As for those still wanted: “You can’t undo the evidence, once you’re caught in an undercover operation selling drugs. You can run, but the warrants still exist.”
Some subjects identified in connected crimes will be offered entry into MPD’s Second Chance or Else (SCORE) Program, with charges held back pending attendance at a mandatory meeting. SCORE gives eligible non-violent offenders a year of drug rehabilitation and social reorientation, along with job-readiness skills — a chance, in the department’s words, for offenders to “rescue themselves from a lifetime of crime.”