By Mary Ann Fergus
Tribune reporter
COOK COUNTY, Ill. — A seven-month sting operation by the Cook County sheriff’s police and south suburban law enforcement officers led to the arrest of 95 dealers and customers, nearly all gang members, officials said Sunday.
Operation Day Shift focused on about 75 daytime drug sales in Chicago Heights, Ford Heights and Hazel Crest.
Authorities have seen a shift in street-level drug sales from night to the morning and early afternoon, Sheriff Thomas Dart said. Dart showed undercover footage of daytime deals during a news conference Sunday at the Daley Center in Chicago. Video of one undercover deal in Hazel Crest showed uniformed schoolchildren walking close by.
“Life is going around this gang world because the people have no options but walk those same streets,” Dart said.
Most of those arrested belonged to the Four Corner Hustlers and the Gangster Disciples. Officers executed about 25 search warrants, netting a large seizure of crack in one Ford Heights home.
Police arrested Jamar Washington, 19, on possession of a controlled substance after police allegedly found 2,400 packages of crack cocaine with an estimated value of $170,000 in the home.
Copyright 2008 Chicago Tribune