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Multiple felony drug charges and a volume of confiscated drugs came out of a six-hour series of traffic stops Friday conducted on Interstate 77 by the Washington County Sheriff's Office.
Close to 50 grams of fentanyl, a gram of rock cocaine, three grams of powder cocaine and a little more than three grams of methamphetamines were recovered by eight deputies, working as a Crime Interdiction Unit, conducted a total of 14 traffic stops.
Four arrests came out of the 14 stops, Chief Deputy Mark Warden said. None of those four was from Washington County or the surrounding area.
Janyia D. Stanford, of Akron, Ohio, was charged with second-degree felonies for aggravated possession and aggravated trafficking of drugs, specifically a Schedule II controlled substance, 49.41 grams of fentanyl. Warden noted that the charge will increase to a first-degree felony when the indictment is handed down.
Tamara Dayle Smith, of Charleston, W.Va., was charged with two third-degree felonies, one for possession of fentanyl and one for possession of methamphetamine, both in quantities greater than bulk amount.
Milton Harrell, of Charleston, was charged with third-degree felonies for possession of fentanyl and methamphetamine, both greater than the bulk amount.
Arme Joyner, of Wedgefield, S.C., was charged with a fifth-degree felony, possession of cocaine, less than the bulk amount; and a third-degree felony, tampering with evidence, attempting to conceal drugs on her person.
"Good, good police work," Warden said of Friday's results.
"I think the first results were quite impressive."
Friday was the first night of the Crime Interdiction Unit activity in a newly organized form that includes two K-9 units: K-9 Timmy and his handler, Deputy Sheriff Justin Peters; and K-9 Ivar and his handler, Deputy Sheriff Jake Davis. The arrests Friday did not require assistance from Timmy and Ivar, Peters said, because the smell of marijuana was strong in the vehicles that were carrying other drugs. If there had been any indicators of criminal behavior that weren't that obvious, Timmy and Ivar would have been the ace-in-the-hole for finding things the humans couldn't detect, he said.
Warden said another stronger strategy of the CIU is that it's proactive, not reactive.
"When you get a dispatcher call and respond, that's reactive. When you go out and do that many traffic stops and come up with results like this, that's proactive."
Warden estimated that the quantity of fentanyl in one of the evidence bags -- a solid, flattened mass that was about the size of the top of a pop can -- was enough for "thousands" of doses. A fentanyl dose can be made up a few grains of product, even cut with something else.
"We're not making this here," Warden said, tapping the fentanyl bag. "But this is going through our community, and it's getting into our community.
"The CIU isn't just going to patrol I-77. It will be operating at random spots, several times a month. It could be on Ohio 60, or 339, or anywhere. We're going to be targeting the people who bring this here, and we're going to provide the overtime to do it."
Nancy Taylor can be reached at ntaylor@newsandsentinel.com