Cops Round Up Dozens of Bad Guys

Kenneth C. Rossignol
ST. MARY'S TODAY

LEXINGTON PARK (August 25, 2008) ---  “It was amazing to see the reception of the public to watch squads of officers on foot and patrolling through Lexington Park as our warrant squad hit the streets,” St. Mary’s Sheriff Tim Cameron told ST. MARY’S TODAY.

“We had four of us doing a foot beat through Spring Valley and when a detective needed to talk to a grandmother about the location of one wanted suspect, we played basketball with the kids,” said Cameron.

“My microphone stuck open right when one 6 year old was shouting “the cop made it, the cop made it” and everyone in my department knew then and there that the Sheriff could make a basket,” said Cameron.   “The kid asked me if I knew how to play Horse and heck it wasn’t too many years since I was playing pick up games myself in this county.”
The Sheriff claims he made “h” and “o” before they quit.

Cameron reports that with the assistance of the Maryland State Police and SMIB (Southern Maryland Information Bureau), his deputies rounded up 27 persons wanted on warrants for felonies and violent misdemeanor crimes.

“We had set up on Great Mills Road across from the high school and brought in our command center where our new administrator Brian Ely directed the effort,” said Cameron.  “We brought in two paddy wagons operated by correctional officers and with the original warrants on hand we processed the arrests right there and shipped them off to the jail.”

Cameron reports that Lt. Mike Thompson brought in state troopers from the Southern Maryland barracks and around the state to assist.
“The state troopers from out of the area told us that they were surprised how much the public supported and assisted our efforts and gave thanks for working to clean up the neighbors of criminals,” said Cameron.  “I had a number of people stop me to thank us for working to rid the area of criminals.”

“The streets were suddenly bare of people around Lexington Park as drivers on Great Mills Road spotted our command center and began snapping cell phone photos and calling their friends to warn them,” said Cameron, “but we were still able to track down quite a few serious offenders.”

Cameron said state troopers found a car parked illegally in St. Mary’s Square due to a license plate scan found it was stolen and the occupants turned out to have drugs in their car too, making those bad guys triple winners.
Cameron has conducted other sweeps of the streets in the Lexington Park area but this is the first time that dozens of open warrants were used at the chief tool in the enforcement effort.   Cameron said he had hoped to find as many as 50 wanted persons but he was happy with the outcome.

“The streets are a lot safer now and these characters know we are after them, we’ll keep up the pressure,” said Sheriff Cameron.