After a two-month undercover operation dubbed “Operation Summer Heat,” the New Orleans Police Department announced the arrest of 71 street-level drug dealers as of Monday, along with arrest warrants for 54 additional suspects.
Superintendent Michael Harrison revealed the months-long operation Monday, saying the crackdown was in direct response to citizens’ complaints about narcotics activities in their neighborhoods.
“We heard your complaints, we heard your concerns and we did something about it,” Harrison said. “We know that street-level drug dealing is a major concern for our citizens as it is for our department.”
With help from the Drug Enforcement Administration and U.S. Marshal’s Service, the NOPD began rounding up suspects last week. Harrison conceded the target was not high-level kingpins or drug gangs, but street-level players who are often more visible and sometimes more volatile than more organized groups.
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“Our undercover officers came into contact with dozens of the most dangerous drug dealers in the city of New Orleans, selling everything from crack cocaine to heroin,” Harrison said.
Mayor LaToya Cantrell applauded the efforts, citing the well-established links between drugs and violent crime.
“We know that round-ups as it relates to drug trafficking, drug crimes are almost always aligned to other crimes that are committed on the streets,” Cantrell said. “One murder is too many.”
The drug roundup was just one part of what Chief Harrison called a summer crime suppression plan.
The push included everything from a DWI crackdown to more state troopers patrolling the streets.
“Our summer crime suppression strategy was once again a huge success,” Harrison said. “Throughout the entire summer, there was traffic enforcement, there were high visibility patrols with NOPD and State Police partnering with ATF on the ground and that went on through every part of this city while this covert (undercover drug operation) was going on.”
Harrison said the efforts have helped push the overall six-month crime statistics by just more than 2 percent over the same period last year.
In particular, Harrison cited that murder was down about 4 percent, from 94 in 2017 to 90 this year. Shootings also were down over the period, with both shooting cases and shooting victims down by about 37 percent. Harrison said shootings were down from 187 to 117, while the number of victims were down from 285 to 178.
Dimming the overall picture, the city experienced a 28 percent increase in rapes, an 11 percent increase in auto theft and a 1 percent increase in assaults.
Michael Perlstein can be reached at mperlstein@wwltv.com.