Multi-agency police effort searches home, finds small amount of cannabis

LINDA N. WELLER
Alton Telegraph, IL
01/28/06

ALTON -- Twenty-one police officers and sheriff’s deputies converged on a suspected drug house in North Alton to carry out a search warrant Friday morning, taking three people into custody.
The 8:50 a.m. arrests at the house in the 700 block of Sanborne Street were without incident and took only a few minutes.

Police later released two of the people, a man and woman.

Another man was held at Alton City Jail, but he was not charged with a crime as of late Friday afternoon. The search turned up a small amount of cannabis, Alton Deputy Police Chief Jody O’Guinn said.

O’Guinn said police obtained the search warrant because undercover officers have made drug buys at the house.

"We have had issues at that house since January 2004," he said, among them a home invasion inMarch.

Police have had contact since 2001 with the man they kept in custody, he said.

Fifteen officers from the Alton Police Department’s Tactical Response Team, four from the Granite City Police Department and two from Madison County Sheriff’s Department participated in the raid.

O’Guinn said the authorities worked together "for experience," as all of the three law enforcement units are members of Illinois Law Enforcement Alarm System. The system is a mutual aid consortium of 784 agencies that share manpower and emergency response equipment.