Stinging Drug Traffickers in Scioto County

"More than 20 men and women are facing felony drug charges after officers busted a heroin ring following an 18-month investigation in Scioto County, Ohio.

"Officers with the Southern Ohio Drug Task Force announced Monday afternoon that a heroin trafficking ring, having ties to both Columbus and Portsmouth, has been dismantled.

"Captain Lynn Brewer with the Portsmouth Police Department says the investigation took approximately 18 months and netted 22 arrests. The investigation began in February 2013. Once the information was presented to a Scioto County Grand Jury, it resulted in the indictments of the men and women.

"The men and women are suspected gang members of the 22nd St/"Duece Duece" Bloods from Columbus as well as Portsmouth residents.

"All 22 men and women are indicted on multiple counts of felony drug offenses. Some of those offenses are: engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, trafficking in approximately 2.7 kilograms of heroin and conspiracy to trafficking heroin."
 

("Heroin trafficking ring busted by Southern Ohio

Drug Task Force." 12 WBOY. August 11, 2014)

The word vigilance is defined as "the action or state of keeping careful watch for possible danger or difficulties." A caring, safe community is comprised of people who are vigilant. Just because people reside together in a specific locality doesn't insure the purpose of their close reliance. A close union of people should foster healthy interaction. Without citizens who help protect their fellow man from danger, vigilance does not aid the social group; thus, no vital sense of community exists.


If we look at a scientific definition of community, we discover that a group of organisms living together and interacting with one another affect each other's abundance, distribution, and evolutionary adaptation. This community can be small and local, as in a pond or tree, or regional or global, as in a biome, a large naturally occurring community of flora and fauna occupying a major habitat.

Through understanding the need for community reliance in nature, we better view the relationship of each part of a community and how the dedication to vigilance of every mature, thriving organism is crucial to survival and future adaptation. In natural, vigilance is paramount to the survival of all species.

For example, bees contend with mites that have sneaked their way into the honeycombs of a hive. These mites transmit debilitating viruses to the bees by sucking the blood of pupae of worker bees. The mites sneak into the honeycombs, then lay their eggs and feed on the larvae in the safety of the wax-capped cells. When the cells are uncapped to release the adult bees, the mites are also released – ready to parasitize other members of the hive. These deformed wing viruses can kill off a whole hive, particularly during the difficult winter months.

Yet, vigilant, hygienic worker bees can save the day. They sniff out dead or diseased larvae, uncap their cells and dispose of the contents. Although any adult mites inside may survive this upheaval, their young offspring are killed. This cleaning behavior, if done intensively, is highly effective at controlling mite numbers and protects the hive against virus.


And, believe it or not, research by Francis Ratnieks and others of the University of Sussex in Brighton have shown that the tidying behavior is a heritable trait, suggesting that it has a genetic component. "You (beekeepers) can breed for this behavior by screening colonies for hygiene levels and the breeding the most hygienic," said Ratnieks.

His team has confirmed that when queens from hygienic colonies mate with drones from another hygienic colony, cleaning levels in new colonies populated by the offspring remain high.

Within a day, most colonies with very hygienic worker bees had uncapped and removed up to half of the dead pupae, but some particularly hygienic colonies managed to remove more than 95 per cent.

Ratnieks' team found that these super-hygienic colonies had less than half the mite levels of the less hygienic colonies. Also, while around a third of less hygienic colonies had individuals with shriveled wings – a sign of deformed wing virus – the 14 colonies that threw out at least 80 per cent of the pupae had none, suggesting that hygienic behavior can protect hives against viruses too.

This finding could be very useful for beekeepers as it would reduce the harmful effects of varroa in a natural way.

(Hasan M Al Toufailia, Esmaeil Amiri, Luciano Scandian, Per Kryger, Francis L W Ratnieks. "Towards integrated control of varroa: Effect of variation in hygienic behaviour among honey bee colonies on mite population increase and symptoms of deformed wing virus incidence." Journal of Apicultural Research. December, 2014)

Vigilance, Bees, and Drug Trafficking


Scioto County needs more vigilant, hygienic "worker bee" citizens who help keep their community "tidy" by "uncapping" criminal drug trafficking activities and stopping these dangerous intrusions before they can destroy the entire "hive." Criminals from Columbus, Detroit, and other places currently operate greedy operations in our addicted county. We must stop this activity.


We could learn much about intermutually advantageous behavior by studying the tiny honeybee. By their very nature, the healthiest bees mobilize to eliminate threats. In order for crime to flourish in a locality all that is necessary is for a significant number of people to remain indifferent to the dealings of the drug culture. For far too long, residents have refused to resist the dangers that exist on their streets and roads.


Granted, much of the vigilance required to make a difference involves defensive measures, and many people take significant steps to avoid becoming victims. Yet, far too many refuse to do anything as an offense to help curb drug abuse. Those who deal in heroin and in other deadly substances intend to administer pain and death to all innocent inhabitants -- they care nothing about others. Without active resistance, they, like the mites in a bee hive, continue their systematic attack to deform and destroy community members.


I believe Ratnieks' findings apply to people, too. Bold, tidying behaviors in human beings are also prone to become heritable traits with a genetic component. Maybe peoples' DNA alone does not drive them to maintain a hygienic county, but people who meet challenges that threaten the safety of the community definitely encourage many other, meeker "bees" to take measures that destroy drug houses, drug connections, and drug rings.

I despise the felons who prey on our "hive." Though, I also know that they will continue to do so until the mass of people here "sting" them out of their own neighborhoods. This work to rid ourselves of drug abuse takes intelligence, fortitude, and what my football coach used to call "guts."


Are your eyes and your ears vigilant? Everyone with a good heart reports and pursues cases of child abuse, abduction, and other vicious and violent crimes. Hell, here people worry as much about animal abuse as they do about people abuse. Don't get me wrong, that is good, but I think some of these same people choose to remain indifferent to drug activity. Don't they realize that drugs are involved in 90 percent of the crime we endure?


If we don't rise up together, we will continue to live under the boot of injustice supplied by local and foreign sources of corruption.

Steps To Tidying Up the County

1. Call emergency services to report crimes in action. If you see drug-related activity in process, you are witnessing a crime. If you can be sure that you're witnessing criminal activity, call emergency services so that police officers will come to the scene to take care of the problem. Here are a few examples of situations in which it would be appropriate to call emergency services:
• Someone approaches you to ask if you would like to buy drugs.
• You witness someone selling drugs to someone else.
• Don't call emergency services to report a crime that has already happened; report it in another way, so that emergency services won't immediately dispatch someone to the scene. 

2. Know the signs of drug-related activity. Determine whether you have seen signs of ongoing drug activity in preparation for reporting it. Examples of incidences that may indicate ongoing drug activity include:

• An unusually large amount of traffic coming to, and leaving, a building, often at strange hours. Oftentimes the people don’t stay long and don’t even go in – instead, someone from the building goes out to the visitor.
• Finding drugs or drug paraphernalia in the area.
• Repeated, observable exchanges of items, especially where money is visible.
• Musty or other noxious odors coming from around a house or building.
• Houses or buildings where extreme security measures seem to have been taken.
• Houses or buildings where no owner or primary renter is apparent, and no home activities — yard work, painting, maintenance, etc. — seem to take place.

3. Be prepared to provide as much detail as possible. Just stating that you think your neighbor is selling drugs isn’t going to be sufficient. The police are going to want to know what you observed that makes you suspect drug activity and any information you have that would help them identify those involved. You should be prepared to provide certain details, to the extent you know them, including:

• The location of the activity (address, intersection, etc.).
• In what type of building the activity was occurring (house, apartment, etc.).
• The approximate time(s) you saw the activity occurring.
• A description of the suspected dealer or dealers.
• The type of drugs involved.
• Where the drugs are being hidden if the suspected dealer is selling them on the street.
• Whether or not there are lookouts to warn dealers of the approach by police officers or other methods of guarding the building (dogs, alarms, window bars, etc.).
• A description of the suspected dealer’s vehicle if one is used (such as make, model, color, year, license plate number).
• Whether you have seen any guns or other weapons being carried by the suspected dealers.
• Who lives in the residence (any children, for example).
• Who owns the building.

4. Use a local hotline or website to report the illegal activity. Find the phone number or website to use for reporting drug activity to the police in your area. Local law enforcement websites often provide specific phone numbers to use when reporting drug activity, or the phone number may be listed in your local phone book.

• If you cannot find a specific phone number or website, call the general local number for the police and ask to be transferred to the appropriate department for reporting drug activity.

5. Decide whether to identify yourself. Although you can usually request to report anonymously, police generally prefer that you provide your name and contact information so that they can contact you with any follow-up questions or to serve as a witness. If you provide your identity to the police but don’t want your identity to be disclosed to others – for example, out of fear of retaliation, because you reported on a family member, etc. – you can usually ask the police to keep your identity confidential.

6. Continue to report the activity if it remains ongoing. If you continue to see suspected drug activity or you find out new details, keep contacting the police. Also, don’t assume that you shouldn’t contact the police just because you know of someone else who already did. The more information and witnesses the police have, the better their investigation will be and the more likely they will be able to catch whoever is involved.

7. Don't expect immediate results. Understand that the information you provide may not lead to a noticeable increase in police activity or any arrests. Don’t be frustrated if you don’t see any increase in law enforcement activity after you contact the police. Police can’t round people up for questioning, barge into homes, or make arrests based on one person’s claim that there is drug activity going on. They need to guard against people making false reports or simply misunderstanding what they saw. However, your information, when added to other information that the police may know or learn, may give them sufficient cause to stop and question suspects or even obtain search warrants and make arrests.

Sources:

http://www.lapdonline.org/get_informed/content_basic_view/8908

http://www.seattle.gov/police/report/default.htm

http://www.stlouisco.com/LawandPublicSafety/PoliceDepartment/DrugActivityReportingForm http://www.lapdonline.org/get_informed/content_basic_view/8908

Local Contacts:


Portsmouth task force tip line at (740) 354-5656
Portsmouth Police Department at (740) 353-4101
Scioto County Sheriff's Office at (740) 354-7566,
or email drugs@sciotocountysheriff.com