Heroin Operation Yields No Smack, But Plenty of Rancor

The Harford County Sheriff’s Office is drawing criticism from residents on Facebook and from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for conducting heroin checkpoints throughout the county on Tuesday that yielded no heroin arrests.

On its Facebook page, the sheriff’s office announced that on Tuesday, it conducted “a multi-jurisdictional saturation effort” to intercept vehicles and pedestrians smuggling heroin. Focusing on areas known for drug trafficking and drugged driving, law enforcement personnel conducted checkpoints on routes 152, 1, 24 and 40. The operation also focused on so-called “Hot Spot” neighborhoods known for heroin use and sales.

Like other places around the country, Harford County has struggled to deal with the recent heroin epidemic. The sheriff’s office says there have been 181 heroin overdoses so far this year, according to WBAL-TV Channel 11.

In total, about 73 law enforcement officers participated in Tuesday’s operation, including deputies from the sheriff’s office and personnel from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the Maryland State Police, the Maryland Transportation Authority Police, and the police departments of Havre de Grace, Aberdeen and Bel Air.

They made 10 arrests and seized $7,000 in cash, a switchblade knife, and more than 20 pounds of marijuana, opiates, prescription pills and related drug paraphernalia, the sheriff’s office said. The police also issued 32 traffic citations to motorists. Of those arrested, one person is from Sacramento, Calif., and nine are from Maryland, including three from Joppa, two from Dundalk, and one each from Abingdon, Belcamp, Havre de Grace and Marion Station.

But an official with the ACLU said Tuesday’s operation may have violated the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures.

“It sounds like they were trying to do an end-run around the Fourth Amendment, which ordinarily requires individualized suspicion that is a particular reason to stop a particular person,” David Rocah, an attorney with the ACLU of Maryland, told Channel 11 on Thursday.

Rocah cited a 2000 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that bars police from setting up checkpoints for general law enforcement purposes, including drug interdiction.

Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler defended the operation. “We remain confident that no citizens’ Fourth Amendment rights were violated,” he told Channel 11. “There is a lot of misinformation being circulated as fact that could not be further from the truth.”

The sheriff extended an invitation to the ACLU to discuss the operation, Channel 11 reported.

The sheriff’s office has received dozens of comments on its Facebook page from the general public, some in support of the operation but many questioning it. The announcement posted Wednesday that described the heroin interdiction operation had drawn 537 likes, 399 shares and 211 comments as of Friday afternoon.

Many criticized the police for failing to find any heroin, and called the operation unconstitutional. “Waste of tax money, it’s invading people’s rights, inconvenient and the end result was zero heroin,” one individual wrote.

“Found weed and a tiny amount of pills,” someone else wrote. “Wasted more money and peoples time to find almost no [hard] drugs. Caused a large amount of traffic.”

But others said they favored the operation. “I support the thin blue line,” one person wrote. “Obviously, word got out, heroin was not transported in the usual manner, so, the result was an interruption of the supply. Congrats to [law enforcement officers] for a job well done. Keep up the good work!!”