DETROIT (WXYZ) — Cocaine, fentanyl and marijuana: those are the drugs Detroit police pulled off the streets during a felony arrest to kick off the new year, and the investigation is far from over.
“Chief Todd Bettison’s message is clear: we’re going to get as many guns and narcotics off the streets as well as the bad guys that are in possession of these,” Detroit Police Department Cmdr. Anthony O’Rourke said.
O’Rourke’s Organized Crime Unit put the stamp on that message late last week, executing a search warrant on Vinewood near W. For Street in Southwest Detroit. They arrested a man with a criminal history, more than a kilogram of cocaine, fentanyl, a significant amount of marijuana and a pair of handguns.
“Surprisingly, this individual said if he knew it was the police, he was going to shoot it out with us,” O’Rourke said.
The individual in question had been on investigators’ radar for quite some time. He’s facing a string of felony gun and drug charges. Police say he had enough fentanyl to kill upward of 500,000 people.
“When I think about the amount of drugs alone broken down, put into the hands of young people who are thirsty for employment that are going to end up getting cases behind that, the people that’s going to get affected by it by drug use and possibly the deaths of the fentanyl, it’s good to not see it not hurt those families,” said Maurice “Pastor Mo” Hardwick.
Hear more from Pastor Mo in the video player below:
Hardwick is a community activist and heads up the Live in Peace Movement. He works to pull vulnerable young men out of the life of crime.
“The CVI program, Live in Peace Movement, Bars over Bars, we are here to be a change agent to affect people just like the one who were selling it and offer them a better way because now, his life is gone, he’s up the creek with no paddle,” Hardwick said.
According to DPD, the entire haul of drugs broken down and maximized for profit has a street value of nearly $2.4 million.
“What we’re saying is if we take the street value, maximize every last drop of this narcotic, stepped on it, processed it down to the lowest amount to where it would still be a viable product, this would be the dollar amount we could squeeze out of this,” O”Rourke said.
The Detroit Police Department says the total street value of all narcotics seized in 2024 is $105.5 million.
