Drug sweep targets 36 in Springfield

More than 100 police officers, including local, state and federal agents, spread out in Springfield and surrounding towns this morning to arrest a targeted 36 individuals wanted for drug-dealing activities.
http://rutlandherald.com/article/20130619/THISJUSTIN/706199877

Article published Jun 19, 2013 Drug sweep targets 36 in Springfield - updated 2:09 p.m. By Susan Smallheer Staff Writer SPRINGFIELD — More than 100 police officers, including local, state and federal agents, spread out in Springfield and surrounding towns this morning to arrest a targeted 36 individuals wanted for drug-dealing activities. Vermont State Police Lt. Matt Birmingham, the coordinator of the massive event, dubbed Operation Precision Valley, said two homes were searched early this morning, one in Ludlow and another in Springfield, and arrests were made. Later in the morning, more than seven teams of officers, armed with arrest warrants, went looking for additional drug suspects. A press conference was slated for 2 p.m. at the Springfield Fire Station. Almost every inch of the Springfield Fire Department's vast parking lot taken up with a police or undercover vehicle, including a mobile state police command center. Later in the morning, a helicopter from the U.S. Border Patrol circled overhead, ready to lend a different perspective to the officers on the ground. Suspects were being carried to criminal court in White River Junction for a rolling series of arraignments. The first arraignment was a Springfield town employee, Matt Neathawk, 25, who pleaded innocent to two charges of heroin trafficking. He was held for lack of $5,000 bail. He was arrested selling heroin in the parking lot of the McDonald's restaurant, according to court records. Town Manager Robert Forguites, who was at the command post set up at the Springfield Fire Department this morning, confirmed that Neathawk was a town employee, a laborer with the Department of Public Works. Whether he remains a town employee, Forguites said, will depend on the details of his criminal charge and whether he was selling drugs while on the job. One team, accompanied by a reporter and photographer from the Rutland Herald, was sent out to arrest a Springfield woman on Lockwood Avenue, but while en route, the team learned the woman had just turned herself in at the Springfield Police Department. Armed with another folder and another arrest warrant, the team, led by Vermont State Police Detective Lt. Todd Illingworth, went looking for a woman who was an “associate” of a group of suspected drug dealers arrested on Easter Sunday in downtown Springfield. The officers, dressed in dark green fatigues, joined by a Homeland Security officer from Derby Line, first went to an apartment building on Wall Street in downtown Springfield, then out to a house on Chester Road in Chester. Peering in the windows and knocking on the doors, the officers were stymied. A “For Sale by Owner” sign was out front and there were no vehicles in the driveway. The officers then headed off to North Springfield for another address, and again no one was home. The officers fanned out, talking to neighbors, but didn't get any clues. So the officers headed back to the Chester Road house and started talking to neighbors. One neighbor gave the officers a tip to talk to a woman who worked at an automotive store in Springfield who might know the woman. The two police cars — one a marked cruiser and another the detective's unmarked car — pulled into the automotive store and the woman told them the wanted woman might now work at a convenience store in North Springfield. The officers again headed back north. Their tenacity paid off, and they came out of the store with Marie Townes, wanted for being an accessory to drug trafficking. They drove her to the Springfield Police Department for booking, and eventual transport to the criminal court in White River Junction. Correspondent Eric Francis also contributed to this report.