The week of Sept. 26, a police informant went to Ansonia’s Liberty Park apartment complex looking for heroin.
The informant met up with alleged drug dealer Curtis Meyers, 47. They stood outside an apartment on Third Street. A boy who appeared to be about 10 years old kept an eye out for cops.
“I want you to watch the corner,” Meyers allegedly said to the boy. “Don’t let nothing come around the corner on me. That’s why I called you son. Don’t let the police come around the corner.”
The details — recorded by a wire the informant was wearing — come from one of 10 arrest warrants used to arrest four alleged drug dealers in Ansonia’s north end last month.
The arrest warrants, on file at Superior Court in Derby, detail 10 different drug deals.
They show two distinct patterns of drug dealing in the city.
The sales happening at Liberty Park were more traditional — organized around a specific location, police said. Its players were older and were operating out of the apartments.
The second group included younger, loosely associated drug dealers — and they’re mobile. The players are in their 20s and 30s, using cell phones to schedule sales at different places. They sell drugs from their vehicles to pre-arranged buyers.
Drug Task Force
The arrests come as part of a larger investigation into drug deals “plaguing” both Ansonia and Derby. The two police departments started a joint investigation in August 2010 to look into cross city drug dealing.
The probe into drug dealing in Ansonia’s north end has gone on for the last seven or eight months, according to Ansonia Police Lt. Andrew Cota.
“We were focusing on areas where we had received complaints,” Cota said Tuesday.
Several complaints came from the Liberty Park apartments, a private apartment complex of townhouses located between Third and Liberty streets, alongside North Main Street.
There were also complaints from several other areas in the north end, including Fourth Street, Hubbell Avenue and other hang outs like Gatison Park, a playground behind the Domino’s Pizza on North Main Street.
Residents have complained about dealers openly selling drugs in the neighborhoods, Cota said.
So the police department, working with Derby police, started doing undercover work in the area. They collected dozens of photographs of suspected drug dealers, and lined up people to infiltrate the illegal drug market by making purchases, according to the warrants.
It seems to have worked.
In the past month, Ansonia police have arrested seven suspected drug dealers and have warrants signed to charge two more, Cota said.
The department is looking to get warrants for at least another seven people who are believed to be involved in drug dealing in the city.
Residents and people in the Liberty Park area didn’t want to risk talking to a reporter about the problem.
“No one here will talk to you because they don’t want to get killed,” said a woman who lives in the Liberty Park apartments.
Others, like a man in his 20s who said he lives on North Main Street, said the dealing situation has improved since the arrests.
“I don’t see people gathering around like they used to,” the man said.
Did he notice the drug dealing before?
“Oh yeah, a lot. A crap load,” the man said. “I’ve been around it for years.”
The drugs sold included heroin, crack cocaine and prescription pills such as Oxycodone, according to the arrest warrants.
The Drive-Thru Drug Deal
Two of the people arrested in October — Yolande Gillard, 56 and Meyers, 47 — were part of a drug dealing ring in the Liberty Park apartments, Cota said.
Ansonia police have arrest warrants for two other men involved in the drug ring.
Most of the deals happened on the corner of Third and Liberty Streets, or in a fenced off area behind the apartments on Third Street.
“It was basically an open air market,” Cota said. “You’d drive up to the corner, somebody would come up, and take your order.”
A few minutes later, money was exchanged, and the buyer would drive off with the drugs, Cota said.
“Essentially, people were just driving up and buying drugs,” Cota said. “These cars would pull up on the corner, be there for a minute or two, and then be gone.”
Gillard, of 14 Liberty Street, was charged on two warrants with illegally supplying a prescription drug, sale of prescription drug or narcotic, possession of narcotics with intent to sell, possession of narcotics, possession within 1,500 feet of a school, and risk of injury to a minor.
He was also charged with possession of narcotics and failure to keep drugs in the original container, after police raided six apartments in the complex on Oct. 27.
Meyers was charged on three warrants, with three counts of sale of narcotics, three counts of possession of narcotics, three counts of possession of narcotics within 1,500 feet of a school, and three counts of possession with intent to sell.
He also faces one count of risk of injury to a minor, for allegedly asking the boy to keep a lookout during the drug deal in September.
The Mobile Drug Dealers
The other five arrests were made for alleged drug dealers in Ansonia who aren’t directly connected to the Liberty Park drug ring, but are selling drugs in the same neighborhood, police said.
The five suspects probably know each other, but aren’t necessarily working together, Cota said.
They represent a newer trend in drug dealing, according to Cota.
“Back a couple years, everybody was standing on a street corner,” Cota said. “Now it’s mobile.”
According to the arrest warrants, buyers from these dealers call a cell phone number of a known dealer. The dealer sets up a meeting place, then he or an associate drives to meet the buyer. They make the deal in a car, or through a car window, according to the warrants.
Ansonia police arrested three people on Oct. 28 suspected of dealing drugs in this manner, and another two on Nov. 7 and Nov. 9.
They are:
- Sheridan McCarthy, 24, of Sixth Street in Ansonia. Police said McCarthy was the driver of a white Hyundai Sonata used to deal drugs by a drug dealer known as “Ace.” Police said in one drug deal, McCarthy took cash from the informant and handed it to “Ace,” then took the drugs from “Ace” and handed them to the informant. McCarthy was charged with two counts of conspiracy to commit a sale of narcotics, sale of illegal drugs and possession of narcotics.
- Frank Perry, 23, of 15 Hubbell Ave. in Ansonia. Police said Perry met a buyer at his Hubbell Avenue home, then brought the buyer to the corner of Third and Liberty streets and sold him crack cocaine, packaged in a green plastic bag. Perry arrived to the drug deal on his bicycle, police said in the warrant. Perry was charged with sale of narcotics, possession of narcotics, possession within 1,500 feet of a school, and possession with intent to sell within 1,500 feet of a school. Police said the drug deal took place within 1,500 of Assumption School on North Cliff Street.
- Nigel Troupe, 24, of Pequannock Street in Bridgeport. Police said Troupe arrived in a gray Jeep Cherokee in May when a buyer called a drug dealer known as “Anthony” asking for crack cocaine. Troupe is also accused of selling crack cocaine on three other occasions in March and May — each time out of a car at an unidentified meeting place. He was charged with four counts of sale of narcotics, four counts of possession of narcotics, and four counts of conspiracy to commit the sale of narcotics.
- Kente Douglas, 34 of Congress Avenue in New Haven. Douglas is accused of dealing drugs on the east side of Ansonia. He was arrested on Nov. 9 on four warrants for possession of narcotics and sale of narcotics.
- Tyrone Daluz, 27 of Lester Street in Ansonia. Daluz is allegedly “Ace,” the dealer who sold drugs out of the white rental car. Police said he was dealing mainly in the west side of Ansonia. He was charged on Nov. 7 on two warrants, for two counts of conspiracy to sell narcotics, two counts of sale of narcotics and two counts of possession of narcotics.
Working Together
The joint investigation between Ansonia and Derby police has netted other arrests this summer.
In June, four people were arrested on drug charges, including one suspect who allegedly sold crack in the parking lot of the Taco Bell where he works. Click here to read more about that arrest.
“The people we’re seeing selling drugs in Ansonia are the same ones Derby is seeing,” Cota said. “It’s easier when you work with another agency because you’re able to cover more ground. We’re not limited to Ansonia anymore.”
Follow Through
The drug raid came up at Ansonia’s Board of Aldermen meeting Tuesday, where Aldermen thanked Police Chief Kevin Hale for the department’s work.
“We owe you a great deal of gratitude,” said First Ward Alderman Robert Duffus on behalf of himself and the other first ward Alderman, Edward Adamowski.
“It’s not done, not by any stretch,” Chief Hale responded. “Officers did a good job, and they’ll continue to do so.”
Cota, in an interview Tuesday, said the department will keep up its undercover and regular patrols in the area to prevent new drug dealers from starting up in the place of those who have been arrested.
“If we just turn our backs and walk away from it, we run the risk of having it start all over again,” Cota said.
