Shhh! There's a drug sweep going on!

Early Wednesday morning I posted to the Bennington Banner's Facebook page, “Operation County Strike 2 is underway.”

I did this from the back of a police cruiser as the two cops I was with were driving around looking for a suspect. Later I wrote an article giving a full account of my day, but a few minutes after making the Facebook post I noticed someone posted the comment, “Now why would you share this info?”

Following that, “Banner you guys must look at the walls in your office and say, " let's post about the drug sweap,(sic) yeah that's a good idea". Do you ever stop and think?” And following that, from the same person, “And at what point was this post a good idea to display for the drug dealers?”

People have to be forgiven for not knowing how drug sweeps work. I for one knew nothing about them until January when I saw the first Operation County Strike. The Banner kept people up-to-date via Facebook then, too, and over 40 people of the 63 police had on their list were arrested that day. The remainders were picked up later or were already in jail. A handful had left the state beforehand.

Police arrested all 16 of the people they were expecting to arrest on Wednesday, despite the Banner's Facebook updates. In fact, Bennington Police Chief Paul Doucette told me a few people turned themselves in who weren't even on the list. The same thing happened in January.

When the cops were going down Pleasant Street asking people if they had seen so-and-so, I had the feeling a lot of text messages were being sent after the police moved on. I'd be willing to bet there had been a great deal of texting once the sweep started, before we posted anything. Give those in the drug trade some credit.

The misconception is that these sweeps are some sort of stealth operation. The fact that police let the media know they're doing them tells me that they're not being viewed that way, and the fact they're arresting the people they're targeting likewise tells me they don't need to be. It could be because the police know who these people are, roughly where to find them, and have gathered all the evidence they feel they need. For at least one suspect, they called the person on their cell phone and basically made an appointment for her to come and be arrested.

Of course, one thing I didn't do was Tweet or post to Facebook where we were, where we were headed, and who the police were after at that moment.

I noticed the same reaction to the DUI checkpoint coverage over the weekend. DUI checkpoints are even less sneaky than drug sweeps. The law requires police to inform the public when they'll be conducted, and the flashing blue lights mean they can be seen from space, so they're not hard to avoid if you're so inclined.