Dallas, Texas: 20 Arrested, Charged In Hamilton Park Drug Operation, Authorities Say

"Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat

Authorities said 220 pounds of drugs, 37 guns and more than $420,000 in assets were also seized during “Operation Shutdown Corner.”

Dallas DEA Special Agent in Charge Eduardo Chavez talks about Operation Shutdown Corner, targeting a violent drug gang in the Hamilton Park neighborhood.

Twenty people have been arrested in connection with a large-scale drug bust in the Hamilton Park neighborhood in northeast Dallas, officials announced Wednesday.

The arrests came after a 15-month operation targeting the Hamilton Park Posse, an organized, violent drug gang, Eduardo Chávez, the Dallas Drug Enforcement Administration special agent in charge, said at a news conference.

Eduardo Chávez, the Dallas DEA special agent. 

“The Hamilton Park area of Dallas was once described to me as a forgotten neighborhood. … That stops now,” Chávez said. “These street corners will be clean.”

Authorities said 220 pounds of drugs — including cocaine, fentanyl-laced counterfeit pills, meth and marijuana — 37 guns and more than $420,000 in assets were also seized during the investigation, dubbed “Operation Shutdown Corner.”

Additional busts were orchestrated in Oklahoma City, Los Angeles and Bakersfield, Calif., and one person remains at-large in connection with the investigation, Chávez said.

Twenty-one defendants have been charged in two indictments, according to the U.S. attorney’s office. The charges include: conspiracy to distribute fentanyl and cocaine, maintaining drug-involved premises, using cellphones to facilitate the distribution of controlled substances and possession of firearms in furtherance of drug trafficking crimes.

If convicted, some defendants face up to 40 years in federal prison, the U.S. attorney’s office said in a news release.

“I hope the residents of Hamilton Park will rest easier tonight knowing that the Justice Department has their backs,” U.S. Attorney Chad Meacham said at the news conference.

Meacham said: “This drug trafficking, gun-wielding street gang has been terrorizing that neighborhood for far too long.”

The operation involved law enforcement officials from several North Texas agencies that make up the region’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces Strike Force. Officers from the DEA, FBI, U.S. Marshals Service and Dallas, Coppell and Grand Prairie police departments assisted in the investigation, Chávez said.

Three people were killed in Hamilton Park after a gunman opened fire at a Fourth of July block party. Akil Kearius Anderson, 20, faces a capital murder charge in connection with the gunfire that killed Mi’quarius Alexander, 17, Hassan Blazer, 19, and Alvin Ray Murray II, 22, according to police and court documents.

Authorities collected more than 100 rounds from rifles and handguns that littered the area, an arrest-warrant affidavit for Anderson said at the time.

Source: Dallas News