Guns, drugs, and money were taken off the streets of West Palm Beach, and cops said it was all related to organized crime.
The joint action against organized crime was announced on Tuesday at 2:00 p.m. in West Palm Beach in the 600 block of 54th Street.
At Tuesday’s news conference, people from the West Palm Beach police and the Office of the State Attorney for the 15th Judicial Circuit, as well as locals, spoke.
“There was a shooting right in front of my house the first week we lived there,” Withney Jean told WPTV. “Then there was another one two weeks later.”
West Palm Beach Police Chief Frank Adderley spoke at a news conference about Operation Blockbuster. Jean has lived in the West Palm Beach area of Northwood Legacy for three years. Scary and hard times for her, since she is a mother with a house full of family.
“No one replied to my first email,” she said. “So, in the second round, I sent an email to all of the states saying, “Hey, guys, something is going on here. We’re paying taxes, but we don’t want it.”
Tuesday, a press meeting was held in West Palm Beach, and a lot of the people Jean lives with were there.
“Operation Blockbuster” had been going on for years, but they didn’t know about it.
The mayor of West Palm Beach, Keith James, talks at a news conference about Operation Blockbuster.
Several organizations, including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, and the United States Marshals Service, worked with the West Palm Beach police department on the operation.
The bust was aimed at people accused of drugs and prostitutes, and as many illegal guns as possible were taken off the streets.
West Palm Beach Police Chief Frank Adderley said, “I was in a place where I couldn’t see it, but I knew people in this neighborhood felt every bit of it because they lived it every day.” “And I knew what they were complaining about, so we fixed it.”
Dave Aronberg, the state attorney for Palm Beach County, talks at a news conference in West Palm Beach.
The bust led to charges against 32 people and the arrests of 29 people. RICO charges mean that 16 of those in custody face up to 60 years in jail.
Paul Nelson and his wife own a funeral home in the area called Northwood Funeral Home. He said that he thinks the bust is not an isolated incident.
He said, “I think having a presence here is stopping a lot of what we see every day.”
Jean said that the arrest is a good sign.
“We may not be able to see it right away, but the results now speak for themselves,” she said.
Adderley said that fentanyl is the most popular drug in West Palm Beach.
