Agents with the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Narcotics Division conducted a major round-up this morning, issuing 44 warrants for 17 people, including a city employee.
Commander Bobby Grimes said the warrants all stemmed from investigations started in 2012.
“These are people that we’ve gotten information on who are selling street-level drugs,” Grimes said. “We’ve had informants do undercover buys and we’re just cleaning up the cases we had out that we were ready to make arrests.”
The arrests began at 6 a.m. Two of the 17 were already in the custody of the Lowndes County Adult Detention center and one was in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections.
As of 9 a.m., eight of the 17 were in custody.
Virginia Watt, a municipal court clerk with the city of Columbus, was arrested and charged with two counts sale of a controlled substance. The municipal court division is a not a division of the Columbus Police Department.
Agents are actively looking for Watt’s husband, Roosevelt Davis, who is wanted for three counts of sale of a controlled substance.
As part of the round-up, Lowndes County deputies commissioned with the U.S. Marshal Service traveled to Monroe County to arrest Rebecca Cobb. Cobb had a warrant for two counts of delivery of a controlled substance in a correctional facility. She was allegedly mailing drugs to a friend in the Lowndes County Adult Detention Center.
At the time of her arrest, Cobb was in possession of methamphetamine, agents said.
Also arrested on Wednesday were Rondal Snider and Rickey Watson.
Snider was charged with four counts of a controlled substance and one count of sale of marijuana.
Watson was charged with one count sale of cocaine, one count sale of marijuana and two counts sale of a controlled substance.
Of the 44 warrants issued for the round-up, all but one of them were felonies.
Grimes said that he and his unit mainly concentrate on high-volume drug dealers, but if they get information on small-scale drug deals, they will arrest those violators as well.
“We’re still working all over the county,” Grimes said. “We focus on the major violators, but when we get information of dealers selling to people in the community, we’re going to take them off the streets and move on.”
Sarah Fowler covered crime, education and community related events for The Dispatch.
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