SWAT raid nets meth, heroin, 5 arrests
Members of the Spokane Police Department prepare for a drug raid at a home in the 2800 block of East Fourth Avenue on Wednesday. (SPDphotos)
Drug detectives and the Spokane police SWAT team raided a home in southeast Spokane Wednesday night after citizen complaints led to an investigation.
Police arrested one man and four women and seized heroin and methamphetamine from the home at 2804 E. 4th Ave.
Beverly Lynn Flanagan, 50 (pictured in 2005); Kathleen A. Copeland, 38; Chelsea R. Haine, 23; Marcella R. Walther, 34; and David Andrew Hoitink, 45, are in jail on drug possession charges.
East Central Neighborhood Resource Officer Dan Strassenberg learned of the home from citizens who complained to the neighborhood COPS shop of short-term visitors, increased burglaries and vehicle prowlings and conversations about drugs.
Detectives conducted undercover drug purchases and obtained a search warrant.
Flanagan told police she is a heroin user who had used the day before and had a residue amount in her upstairs bedroom, according to court documents. (Flanagan was sought in 2005 in connection with the drug overdose death of a 22-year-old man. She later pleaded guilty to delivery of a controlled substance – methadone and was sentenced to eight months in jail.)
Flanagan also told police her co-defendants were in an upstaris bedroom injecting heroin. Police arrested Copeland, Haine, Walther and Hoitink there and found loaded syringes and other drug paraphernalia in the room.
Police called the case a great example of police and citizens working together. There are 12 COPS chops and 11 neighborhood resource officers in Spokane.
"The job of the NRO is to follow up on quality of life issues in nuisance properties in their neighborhoods," according to a news release by Officer Dan Waters, spokesman for the Spokane Police Department. "One part of the NROs' job is to follow up on complaints brought into the shops from Spokane residents. Any time a resident brings a problem into a COPS Shop, a communications form is filled out and an NRO WILL read the complaint. As with anything SPD does, the complaints are prioritized and looked into. This has been an integral part of how SPD is able to work with folks to improve quality of life issues in our neighborhoods."