Story Created:
May 29, 2008 at 10:24 PM CST
Story Updated:
May 29, 2008 at 10:36 PM CST
A Lawton resident is still shaken after witnessing a drug bust at a house next to her home.The house was just one of several spots raided in the largest coordinated effort to serve warrants throughout the city.
"I was terrified when I looked up and saw the two police officers walking," said Lawanda Black.
Lawanda Black was scared, but says she wasn't surprised when police raided her neighbors home. That wasn't the only house targeted. Nine homes were simultaneously served search warrants in 'Operation Jolly Rancher'. Twelve people are in jail and four children are in protective custody. Police say they found guns, cash, more than $370,000 worth of cocaine and five gallons of the prescription cough syrup Promethazine Codeine.
"Its obviously a controlled substance for a reason you know, anything of this nature may be harmless until you don't use it as It's intended," Lietenant Todd Palmer said.
Lieutenant Todd Palmer says the suspects mixed the cough syrup with Sprite or juice to get high and would sometimes add a Jolly Rancher for flavor.
"We found it in a baby bottle. The mixture, not just cough syrup in the baby bottle, but the mixture in a baby bottle," said Lieutenant Palmer.
A three month long investigation lead police to the suspects. Officers say it all started when a pharmasist called the Narcotics Bureau about frequent prescriptions for large amounts of cough syrup. Police say most of the prescriptions were written by a nurse at a local doctor's office, without the doctor's permission. Police say there could be more arrests in this case. Officials with the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics say prescription drug abuse is one of the top drug problems in the state.
