A U-Haul truck full of police officers surprised an Evanston neighborhood about 6:30 p.m. Friday in a high-profile Violent Crimes Task Force drug bust.

        Officers jumped out and sprinted after suspects, recognizing some whose pictures had been posted at the police station. They rounded up about a dozen, one of whom threw down what officers said was a handful of crack.

Cincinnati police officers jump out of a U-Haul at Montgomery Road and Clarion Avenue in Evanston on Friday in a drug bust. (Jeff Swinger photos) | ZOOM |

        Capt. Michael Cureton called the bust — which had help from the vice unit and canine and neighborhood officers — an example of the kind of neighborhood-based work Chief Tom Streicher promised when he decentralized the task force last month.

        Now, six officers and a sergeant are assigned to work on violent crime in each of the five police districts. Before, the task force focused more on Over-the-Rhine, the location of much of the summer violence that prompted the formation of the special unit.

        “It's real important to the city, it's real important to the department that we make a difference,” the captain said.

        Some of the approximately 30 officers involved worked overtime, their hours covered by the federal Weed and Seed grant already in place in the neighborhood.

        “This is the "weed' part,” Capt. Cureton said. “We weed out the bad and seed the good.”

        It was unclear immediately exactly how many of the approximately 25 wanted people had been picked up because the officers continued their roundups into the night. The suspects were identified after drug buys by undercover officers and confidential informants over the past two months, said Sgt. Brian Ibold.

Officers handcuff suspects rounded up in Evanston. | ZOOM |

        Friday was the second night in a row for drug busts in the neighborhood. Late Thursday night, some of the same officers arrested a woman on Evanston Avenue after they found guns, drugs and four pit bulls in her house when they executed a search warrant.

        India K. Taylor, 21, was charged with drug possession, trafficking in drugs and harboring vicious dogs. Officers said they found 13 shotguns and rifles, one semiautomatic handgun, one loaded revolver, almost 18 grams of crack cocaine and more than 91 grams of marijuana.

        Ownership of all the weapons will be traced as part of the department's gun project with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

        “We know from the violence we had in Cincinnati this summer that guns and drugs are a bad mix,” said Lt. Kurt Byrd, police department spokesman.

        The chief this week honored the 70 original task force members, saying they “led the city on the road to recovery.”

        Evanston neighborhood officer Alvin Triggs welcomed the task force's presence. He helped identify the suspects from videotaped undercover drug buys.

        “I love it,” he said. “There's a lot of good people who still live out here. This shows that we're not going to take this stuff anymore.”
       

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