Since taking office in 2009, Athens County Sheriff Pat Kelly has been in the business of “taking down drug dealers.”
This past year in Athens County –– especially in Nelsonville –– business was booming.
From 2011 to 2012, the number of drug-related arrests in Nelsonville skyrocketed from four to 24, according to sheriff’s office records. All but one of the drug-related arrests were for drug sales.
In the same two-year span, the city of Athens had 29 and 26 drug-related arrests, respectively. The Plains had nine and seven drug-related arrests, and Glouster had two and seven, both respectively, according to sheriff’s office records.
Athens County had 75 drug-related arrests in 2012. In 2011, there were 55 drug-related offenses in the county.
Narcotics were the most commonly seized drugs in Nelsonville, said Jason Wallace, Nelsonville police chief. He added that drug trafficking contributed to violence in the city.
“In the past year, the most common drugs were heroin, marijuana and prescription drugs. We found prescription pills in most arrests we made,” Wallace said. “There have also been a few violent crimes that we suspect are related to narcotics trafficking.”
Kelly said narcotics were seized more often in the northern part of the county, and marijuana was more common toward the southern part.
Drug traffickers moved to Nelsonville and other counties in recent years after the sheriff’s Narcotic Enforcement Team drove them out of other townships, making the city a countywide hub for narcotics, Kelly said.
“All we do is follow the dealers wherever they’re at,” he said.
With tens of thousands of cars passing through the city each day on U.S. 33, Nelsonville is a target for drug traffickers, said Mark Hall, Nelsonville city manager.
“It’s a U.S. highway, so there are probably 26,000 or 27,000 cars that cross a day,” he said. “Specifically, with two colleges in the immediate area, I think (U.S. 33’s proximity) has an effect on drug presence.”
The NET –– a coalition of deputy sheriffs, NPD officers, Hocking College Police officers and members of the Ohio Investigative Unit –– arrested traffickers by infiltrating the local drug trade, Kelly said.
The NET’s inquiries in Nelsonville were so secretive that NPD wasn’t notified of their presence until their investigations were already underway, Wallace said.
“Last summer, the NET had a big peak (of action),” Wallace said. “I knew about it at the time it was happening, in terms of officer safety, but I don’t want to know ahead of time.”
Though many of Nelsonville’s drug traffickers were prosecuted in the last year, Kelly said the NET still has a considerable amount of work to do throughout the county.
“My intention is to get all of these drug dealers for what they are,” he said.
“They’re just low-life drug dealers and they are killing people. We made our presence known.”
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