Fourteen suspects have been charged as part of a crack and powder cocaine trafficking scheme where dealers sold drugs near a Washington, D.C., elementary school — often in front of young children in broad daylight amid an open-air drug market, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.A federal indictment charges each of the 14 defendants with conspiracy to distribute 280 grams or more of cocaine base and 500 grams or more of cocaine within 1,000 feet of Hendley Elementary School in the city's Washington Highlands neighborhood, an area plagued by crime, authorities said.The drugs were routinely sold in the presence of school‑aged children walking to and from school, exposing them to persistent illegal activity and risking normalizing dangerous conduct, federal prosecutors said."This is poison that is being peddled during the day within feet of a schoolyard where our children learn, play, and grow," U.S.Attorney Jeanine Pirro told reporters.
"Selling cocaine near our kids isn't just illegal.It is an attack on the most vulnerable in our society.
It endangers the children."MASSACHUSETTS NONPROFIT CEO WHO HELPS PEOPLE CLEAR CRIMINAL RECORDS NOW CHARGED WITH DISTRIBUTING COCAINEAn image captures a drug sale involving a woman in Washington, D.C., just feet away from a 5-year-old girl, who accompanied the woman to the sale, authorities said Wednesday.More than a dozen people connected to a drug trafficking operation in the city have been arrested and charged, the Justice Department said.
(Justice Department)"It destroys families, and it fuels the violence and the chaos in the district that we have suffered for far too long," she added.The suspects, who were arrested Wednesday as part of a two-year operation, were identified as Tevin Moody, 32; Geraldo Landy, 38; Norman Moore, 36; Lenon Wright, 34; Ali McShay, 31; Lonnell Thomas, 27; Marquette Paris, 34; Jeremiah Prince, 21; Joseph Moore, 43; Raekwon Womak, 21; Kivarrie Greene, 22; De’Lonte Jackson, 32; Derrick Manuel, 34...