By Jane Prendergast
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Seated behind a table spread with marijuana, cocaine, money and guns, Cincinnati Police Capt. Paul Humphries talks about the city's new focus on drug dealers. (Ernest Coleman photo) | ZOOM |

In one day, one Cincinnati police drug unit took two tips about drug dealers in two neighborhoods and multiplied them into four guns, eight ounces of crack cocaine and 45 pounds of marijuana.

That was enough pot to immediately stink up the chief's conference room at police headquarters, where members of the Street Corner drug team on Thursday spread out the drugs, guns and money they'd taken in about seven hours the day before.

"This stuff is no longer going to be distributed in Over-the-Rhine or on Queen City Avenue," Capt. Paul Humphries said, referring to the two apartment locations where the team found the drugs.

The unit was formerly known for trying to target bigger drug operations. But it has focused this year on neighborhood complaints after Chief Tom Streicher said street-level dealers were at the center of the violence that escalated throughout the city in 2001 and 2002. One of the guns found Wednesday was an assault rifle.

"People are not keeping weapons like this - associated with this kind of drugs - for sport," Humphries said.

Two people were arrested, one in each incident. The pot, found in Over-the-Rhine, was valued at about $80,000. The crack, taken out of a Westwood apartment, was about softball size and worth about $40,000.

E-mail jprendergast@enquirer.com