Bainbridge Public Safety, with help from Georgia State Patrol and the Department of Community Supervision, instigated the final stage of Operation “Crack” Down Monday morning. The operation resulted in the arrest of 30 individuals on a variety of charges related to the sale of illegal narcotics.

“We made undercover narcotics purchases for three months and then we done some other things and then we finally decided it was time to go ahead and make a move and get all these people picked up or identified and picked up,” BPS investigator Chris Jordan said.

There are an additional nine outstanding warrants and four suspects that BPS is working to identify.

“We’ve actually got four people that we don’t even have identified yet,” Jordan said. “We’re still working on getting them identified. If we can get them identified then of course we’ll take warrants for them too.”

According to Jordan, during the operation an undercover source made drug purchases from all 43 suspects.

“We didn’t target any specific person,” Jordan said. “We had a source that we provided official City of Bainbridge drug funds to and told him to go out within the city limits and make purchases of illegal narcotics. They just talked to random people on the street and whoever was willing to sell to them they bought from.”

The goal of the operation was to help combat the growing drug problem within the city limits.

“We hope it has a large impact,” Jordan said. “We had been getting complaints from the community about obvious drug transactions taking place on street corners. We’re actually trying to help reduce the drug problem in the City of Bainbridge. We hope we’ve made a big impact. Time will tell.”

In addition to the arrests, BPS was able to seize a large quantity of drugs, which will further help to combat the drug problem according to Jordan.

“We seized crack cocaine, powder cocaine, marijuana, molly, flakka,” Jordan said. “We’ve got one guy that we arrested that was selling prescription medication and one that we arrested that was selling counterfeit substances. He was selling these items for molly when in fact they were not molly.”

The three-month operation required a considerable amount of work from BPS officers as they worked to coordinate buys and identify the suspects.

“You have to do a report on each individual buy,” Jordan said. “You have to identify the person and sometimes that can be a rather lengthy process because you don’t always know where to look. Once you get the person identified of course then you have to review all the paperwork and review all the still shots and make sure you have a good solid case. A case that you can prosecute. Once you’ve done that you go ahead and take a warrant.”

GSP and the Department of Community Supervision provided additional resources during the operation including manpower to assist with the arrests on Monday morning.

“They were great,” Jordan said. “They were a big help to us. They provided manpower. The Department of Community Supervision also helped with the identifications. They helped with the addresses for these people. But the main things they provided for us was manpower and that was something we really needed.”

BPS will continue to work to arrest the remaining suspects in Operation “Crack” Down.