ESCAMBIA COUNTY, Fla. (WKRG) — The Escambia County Sheriff’s Office Narcotics Unit has served five separate search warrants over the last week as part of “Operation Blue Christmas.”
In total, deputies seized 1,600 grams of fentanyl, 16 guns, 681 grams of methamphetamine, 1,200 grams of crack cocaine, 229 grams of powered cocaine and more than 25 pounds of marijuana.
“We are committed to stopping these people who are ruining our neighborhoods,” said Escambia County Sheriff Chip Simmons. “We are committed to stopping the ones who are bringing it in, selling it and opening up their homes to promote this type of dangerous behavior. Our Narcotics Unit has been knocking it out of the park and they are just getting started.”
On Friday, Dec. 9, deputies with the Narcotics Unit served a warrant at 146 Diego Circle, where they confiscated four guns, 12 grams of methamphetamine and 21 grams of cocaine.
“These are houses that we continuously get complaints about,” said Simmons. “These are the houses that are nuisances in our neighborhood. We have prioritized the attention they are getting.”
On Tuesday, Dec. 13, deputies served a warrant at the 3000 block of W. Lloyd Street, where they confiscated one gun, 43 grams of crack, 26 grams of cocaine and $1,500.
“What we are seeing nowadays is a lot more cocaine than what are used to seeing,” said Simmons.
On Wednesday, Dec. 14, deputies served warrants at two separate locations, 7022 Chapel Apartment 2A and 4421 Court, where they confiscated one gun, 3.2 kilos of MDMA laced with fentanyl, 25 pounds of marijuana, 136 grams of cocaine and a pill press.
“Here’s what they do, they grab all of this garbage and put fentanyl in it then make a pill, but they don’t know how much fentanyl is actually in there,” said Simmons. “These doofuses are doing it in their kitchen. They are eating sandwiches over here, they are cooking Ramen noodles over here, then they have a whole bunch of powdered fentanyl, mixing their meth and sprinkling the fentanyl, putting it in the press then go back and get another bite of their Doritos or whatever they are eating. Then, they forget, ‘Did I already put fentanyl in there?’ So, they put more fentanyl in there. That is why you can’t tell how much fentanyl is in these little pills and that’s why it is so dangerous.”
On Thursday, Dec. 15, at a house at 3704 West Jackson Street, deputies seized 10 firearms, 1,600 grams of fentanyl, 1,183 grams of crack cocaine, 669 grams of methamphetamine, three vehicles and $9,000. Inside the house, they found a four-month-old child and a baby’s blanket with fentanyl sprinkled on it. Simmons said they are currently investigating that incident.
“The DEA reports 2 mg of fentanyl are lethal,” said Simmons. “That means we had enough lethal fentanyl to kill 800,000 people. That’s enough to conceivably kill every person in Escambia County, Santa Rosa County, Okaloosa County and Walton County. 800,000 people could be killed. That tells you how dangerous it is.”
Simmons said this operation is a Christmas present to these neighborhoods.
“If you live in a neighborhood, continue to give us the information,” said Simmons. “This is a Christmas present to these neighborhoods, and believe me, it’s probably better than any gift they are going to have. It’s called Blue Christmas, because the ones killing people are the blue pills.”
According to the sheriff, they have a number of warrants for a number of people which will be released at a later time.
“The credit goes to the members of the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office, the patrol units, the K-9 units, all during the day they provide information that filters all the way up to our Narcotics Unit,” said Simmons. “In this case, we partnered with the Pensacola Police SWAT Team, because we knew there would be guns involved. I do want to say how proud we are of our Narcotics Unit and our partners here locally. Merry Christmas to Escambia County.”
