The Putnam County Sheriff’s Office taking a stance against narcotics this summer, launching Operation Summertime Wakeup.
Putnam County Sheriff Eddie Farris said ten arrests happened on day one Wednesday with more to come. Farris said with more drug-related arrests, the Sheriff’s Office discovers larger criminal networks in Putnam County.
“We are out here every single day in the a.m. and every single day in the p.m., fighting crime and looking for people that are participating in illegal drug activity in our community,” Farris said. “And I’ll say it again, removing drug dealers from our streets in our community makes Putnam County safer.”
Operation Wakeup Summertime got its name as many drug dealers work at night, while the Sheriff’s Department will hunt them down in the morning. Farris said narcotics are a catalyst for other types of crime.
“The intelligence that we receive from these individuals it could be through an interview process, it could be information that we gather from their phones, and their social media, and other things, computers that they use to communicate on, and other means of activity that we won’t go into,” Farris said. “But all this paints a good picture for us and tells us who all is communicating and participating in these kind of illegal drug crimes with that person.”
Farris said 85 percent of people in the Putnam County Jail are incarcerated due to direct or indirect drug-related crimes. Farris said a community stance against drugs has helped Putnam County not have as big of a narcotics issue as most counties.
“Most of the citizens here do not wish to see this, they don’t participate, so we get a lot of intelligence and a lot of cooperation from our good citizens here,” Farris said.
Farris said it is more important to continue conducting operations to get narcotics off the streets as the county’s population continues to grow.
