Smug St. Augustine Record reporter JENNIFER EDWARDS wrote the racist news story, below, which was published published on page one during Lincolnville Festival, with 35 booking photos, complete with racist headline that objectifies persons who are presumed innocent before the law:
Drug bust corrals 35
The arrest of 35 street-level drug dealers Friday won't cut the drug supply in St. Johns County but could lead to arrests of higher-level drug dealers, local law enforcement officials said.
St. Johns County Sheriff's office deputies charged at least 35 residents with the street-level selling of cocaine, prescription painkillers and other drugs. They expect to charge 20 more.
The suspects were a demographic mix -- black and white, young and old, male and female -- but many shared a long history of drug dealing or violent crime, Sheriff David Shoar said.
Some share a family history of drug dealing.
"Indeed, some of those people, I arrested their fathers years ago," he said. "It's a generational thing."
Shoar said he had arrested others suspects decades ago.
For instance, Shoar said, suspect Arthur Logan, 54, of St. Augustine, was charged with selling drugs in 1982.
Also, another man arrested Friday, Ronnie Bell, 46, of St. Augustine, has been arrested before on drug-related charges, he added.
State Attorney R. J. Larizza agreed that the problem was a tenacious one.
"The sad thing is that this is a persistent problem in our community," he said.
The suspects live in all parts of the county, from as far north as Ponte Vedra and as far south as Hastings, he said.
The charges were the result of a nine-month-long investigation called Operation Street Sweeper and involved undercover officers from St. Johns, Flagler and Putnam counties, according to a news release.
"We got a lot of bad people off the street," Shoar said.
Larizza said his office would try for enhanced sentences for those previously convicted of violent crimes or of selling drugs.
"Open-air drug markets are a scourge on our community," he said. "We're going to do everything we can to prosecute these folks and to eradicate the open-air drug markets.
"Those with a history will be very sorry they were selling drugs in St. Johns County," he said.
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