On Oak Street, neighbors peer out their windows as the police entourage pulls up on a residence facing the site of the new south side neighborhood park where the old high school was located.<\/p>\n
Officers wearing flak jackets and helmets scale fences to secure all sides of the building as excited dogs scurry around.<\/p>\n
Within seconds, two people are seen with hands up being led out of the house.<\/p>\n
Wolfe happens to drive up during the raid and is promptly arrested and handcuffed. Another resident is found to have an arrest warrant out of El Paso County and is taken into custody. A roommate, who is not in trouble, shakes his head and watches while calming down the dogs.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone complied, it went smoothly,\u201d said a plainclothes officer. \u201cThese are considered high-risk arrests because in the drug world, there are often weapons around. But not this time.\u201d<\/p>\n
At a neighborhood in Mancos off U.S. Highway 160, a similar scenario plays out. A hard knock on the door and shouts of \u201cPolice!\u201d prompts Bayles to come out. He is read his rights and handcuffed, then given access to a phone to inform a friend of his situation.<\/p>\n
Nowlin said he consented to a search of a trailer, and a pile of alleged counterfeit $100 bills are confiscated.<\/p>\n
Additional charges are likely, Nowlin said.<\/p>\n
Meticulous planning goes into the coordinated arrest sweeps, the sheriff said, and the task force undergoes regular training.<\/p>\n
Each property is surveilled beforehand, and individual strategies are drawn up and practiced.<\/p>\n
During a briefing, officers drink fluids and scarf down some doughnuts, garnering a few laughs and ribbing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a good rapport with the different agencies because we have a common goal of fighting the drug trade to protect the community,\u201d Nowlin said. \u201cWe have a young, talented crew who are motivated, compassionate and professional.\u201d<\/p>\n
One veteran task force officer said that in his seven years, he has seen the quantities of drugs confiscated go up.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt used to be grams; now it is ounces and pounds, and there are new more powerful and addictive ones,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a good feeling to make these arrests. We\u2019re proud to do what we can to help stop this activity,\u201d he added. \u201cIt also helps prevent drug-related crimes like burglary and assault.\u201d<\/p>\n
Investigators said the case began in part from tips and complaints from neighbors and others worried about the drug trade.<\/p>\n
jmimiaga @the-journal.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Montezuma County Sheriff\u2019s Office, Cortez Police and DEA coordinate efforts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":93245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5738,6054,5740,5737,5736,5762,5735,5808],"tags":[21,969,13,28,60,445],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-93244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cortez","category-drug-trafficking","category-frontpage-lead","category-headlines","category-local-news","category-montezuma-county","category-news","category-newsletter-lead","tag-cortez","tag-drug-trafficking","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93244"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=93244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}