Community Post

Six men charged with felonies in Operation Safe Union

We’ve been following up on our exclusive story from last Thursday on Operation Safe Union, which resulted in the arrest of seventeen alleged drug dealers in an effort to pick up where last year’s Drug Market Initiative left off.

After poring through hundreds of pages of court documents, we’ve been able to assemble the details of the felony charges that are facing six of the men targeted by the drug operation.

Overall the operation followed a standard routine for everyone involved. First the initial information is developed on dealer suspects, usually through tips from cooperating witnesses. Then detectives direct the witness or undercover officers to arrange a series of drug buys from the suspect, often with heavy surveillance of the suspect’s activities before and after the buy. Then once a few buys have been concluded and documented, police get search warrants for the suspects house, car, and person, and go out and make an arrest.

Here’s the details for six of the suspects charged with felonies that we’ve been able to identify through court records:

  • Ashleigh P. Bailey, 27 years old, allegedly sold $100 of crack cocaine to a police witness on two separate occasions at his home in the 700 block of 27th Avenue. A search warrant was issued against his home, resulting in the recovery of cocaine, oxycodone pills, marijuana, $1,400 cash, and a variety of other drug paraphenalia including scales and small baggies.  Bailey has had 13 arrest warrants and 11 jail bookings in King County, and previous convictions for drug dealing, 2nd degree robbery, and motor vehicle theft.
  • John L. Bell, 35 years old, allegedly sold $20 of crack to an undercover officer near the post office at 23rd & Union. He has had 62 warrants and 66 jail bookings since 1993, six previous drug convictions, and a robbery conviction in 2005. He apparently lives outside the neighborhood, with a last known address in the 800 block of 18th Avenue SW.
  • Craig Hines, 50 years old, allegedly sold $90 of crack to a police witness on two separate afternoons in the 2300 block of Union. He has had 60 warrants on 59 bookings since 1985, and 5 previous felony convictions for drug offenses, forgery, assault, theft, and motor vehicle theft.
  • William Hunt, 41 years old, allegedly sold $40 of crack to an undercover police officer at 24th & Union. He has had 26 warrants on 43 jail bookings since 1987, five previous convictions for drugs, and one conviction for first degree theft.
  • Brian L. Turner, 27, was allegedly involved in drug transactions outside his house in the 2100 block of Union, and allegedly sold $260 of crack to a police witness on 3 separate occasions. Two times that occurred at the 23rd & Union Safeway, including once when he was shopping there with a woman and an 8 year old child. On a third occasion, he allegedly sold the police witness $60 of crack to the same witness at a bus stop at 19th & E. Thomas, while he was standing there with the 8 year old. He allegedly asked the buyer to step away and not conduct the transaction within view of the child. He has previous felony convictions for drug dealing, marijuana possession, and DUI.
  • Omar S. Tweedy, 37, is alleged to have sold crack cocaine to a police witness on four separate occasions. Once  for $100 in the Walgreens parking lot at 24th & Jackson, once for $100 at 29th & Yesler, and twice for a total of $300 from his business in the 800 block of 23rd Avenue. He has previous felony convictions for 2nd degree murder, 3rd degree assault, and 3 previous felony drug convictions. Police executed a search warrant against Tweedy’s home in the 100 block of 28th Avenue, recovering 134 tablets of MDMA. At the time of his arrest, he was found with several bundles of marijuana, $901 currency, and 2 cell phones.

Charging documents for all six suspects are attached above, and given a variety of other colorful details on the investigations from Operation Safe Union.

As part of their legal justification for the charges, police say that the arrestees live in the area and “mostly sell to local users, further infesting an already troubled community”

0 thoughts on “Six men charged with felonies in Operation Safe Union

  1. “62 warrants and 66 jail bookings since 1993”?

    “60 warrants on 59 bookings since 1985”?

    That’s crazy! I had no idea–seriously, just no idea–that these guys were so prolific. I see my neighborhood drug dealers every day, near Jackson, and I never expected that they would be such regulars in the system, or that their regularity would reach those levels.

    No suggestions, arguments, or points to make here; just amazement at how busy these fellas are, and how naive I’ve been about it.

  2. Nice try, dummy. We’ve moved beyond the fear tactics. Don’t want to be tattled on? Go deal on someone else’s steps. Or you could even smarten up and get clean – that would be ideal.

  3. Whoa! First we have rabid squirrels, now it’s groundhog invasion?

    fUcKuHonKies206 – you’re a smart one, that’s for sure!

  4. Stop dealing drugs in my backyard. Or my front yard, or the alley, or across the street, or near where I am, or any place of value, anywhere, forever, please.

    Being addicted to drugs is a problem; plaguing neighborhoods and feeding off vulnerable, addicted people is a whole other parasitic disaster.

    Friends, neighbors – see it? Call it in.

  5. What doesn’t cause addiction in 2010. You find the answer to that… then drug selling will stop. Its not about drugs… everyone is addicted. People kill for drugs, fun, religion, and political views. What makes anything different than drugs.

  6. What happened to staff, Laure Hanowell? I keep reading about all the success in both GOTS and the Drug Market Initiative programs and Laurie Hanowell’s name and quotes are included in all these articles. What happened to her?? I hope your funders are aware of you cutting her out of your programs. She seemed to be vital in the sucess of these two programs. Too bad. . .

  7. Are you kidding? There are frequent flyers booked in to KCJ from the CD every day who have 100 or more bookings at KJC. We who work in the courts get a special, heavy duty stapler because we cannot give the judge the printed KCJ criminal history without the biggest stapler on the planet to hold it together. And that is JUST the KCJ history. You should see their NCIC. It’s like a phone book. I see the same people so many times that I have their addresses (mostly grandma) memorized. And they all live a stone’s throw in any direction from Garfield High School. My kid doesn’t take the bus. I work less hours, and thus am poorer, just so I can drive him to/from school. Containment Zone doesn’t begin to describe it.

  8. I use to sell drugs so I know how the money can be fun to have. But all good things must come to a end it did for me in 89. There is good that came out of this I got a job been out of trouble for 20 plus year and I 2 kids that I tried to keep focus and make sure they stay out of trouble. it can be done so give it a try.

  9. I think there is a filter on the word Glock. Just testing to see if this posts or if I get the ‘Your message is being reviewed’ thing.